This is annoying for the same reason that children saying "are we nearly there yet?" is annoying - there is an imbalance in costs; it costs a child almost nothing to ask the question, and costs the driver rather more in the way of distraction (and, indirectly, irritation, although that only exists because of the cost imbalance; so there's a feedback loop).
In this case, I think that the cost to you is both the distraction, and (perhaps) the sense that if you just ignore such distractions, this will generate an (entirely unfair) bad reputation for the software they're wanting your support for. Plus, of course, the same irritation feedback loop as above ...
The general solution to this is to take steps to re-adjust the costs, ideally using a mechanism that's beneficial to either the other person or to the common good or to yourself.
In the former case, I do this by answering by asking a question involving some mental arithmetic ("how long do you think it is since you last asked? what was my answer then?"). I think there are some suggestions above that also take this approach.
It's my observation that, almost universally, the default mechanism that people use to balance the costs of a badly unbalanced interaction if they can't find a better way, is to become angry. This seems to be hard-wired.
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This is annoying for the same reason that children saying "are we nearly there yet?" is annoying - there is an imbalance in costs; it costs a child almost nothing to ask the question, and costs the driver rather more in the way of distraction (and, indirectly, irritation, although that only exists because of the cost imbalance; so there's a feedback loop).
In this case, I think that the cost to you is both the distraction, and (perhaps) the sense that if you just ignore such distractions, this will generate an (entirely unfair) bad reputation for the software they're wanting your support for. Plus, of course, the same irritation feedback loop as above ...
The general solution to this is to take steps to re-adjust the costs, ideally using a mechanism that's beneficial to either the other person or to the common good or to yourself.
In the former case, I do this by answering by asking a question involving some mental arithmetic ("how long do you think it is since you last asked? what was my answer then?"). I think there are some suggestions above that also take this approach.
It's my observation that, almost universally, the default mechanism that people use to balance the costs of a badly unbalanced interaction if they can't find a better way, is to become angry. This seems to be hard-wired.