Abstract things that annoy me

[simont]

The sentiment ‘it's not much to ask’, presented as the sole justification of why people should do something you want. When everybody has a ‘not much to ask’ request and they're all different (or, occasionally, when the same person thinks of a different one every week for a year), they add up until collectively they are a lot to ask – so some of them have to go unfulfilled, despite each of them individually being so small that the asker couldn't imagine how anyone might have a good reason not to do it.

Don't just point out that the cost is low and leave it at that. Show why the benefit (whether to you, to whoever you're asking for it, or to somebody else) outweighs it!

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It annoys me for the additional reasons that:
1) It usually *is* much to ask
2) Surely it's up to the person of whom the favour is being asked, to know how difficult it is? I mean "It's not much to ask, can you buy some milk?" has an answer of "no, that's impossible" if the corner shop has just been the victim of a smash and grab raid, you are late for work and you've lost your keys.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

Part 6 in a series, it seems. Why did you stop numbering them?

[simont]

I lost count :-)

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

You could start renumbering them - the tags make it easy to find the old members in the series. It's not too much to ask, is it? :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Was that entire thread started to set up for the punchline, or was it just a drive-by appropriate moment? :)

[simont]

I wondered that too :-)

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

A: Thinks that the series used to be numbered
B: Looks up numbering via the tag
C: Thinks about commenting about it
D: Comments about it
E: Thinks of quip about not being too much to ask
F: Makes quip.

I'm not sure if the ordering is ABCDEF or ABCEDF or ABECDF, so I can't answer for sure. My memory is faulty...

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

In my experience it's more often than not passive aggressive in action, and passing judgement if used in comment.

[simont]

Yes, it often seems to be judgmental: it's not much to ask, and therefore if you don't do it I can legitimately be outraged.

[kilinrax.livejournal.com]

I believe the correct response to be "That's true, it's not a lot to ask, but I'm not going to do it."

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

This is what I now call "being a cake." Everyone snibbles just a little tiny bit off the cake, and before you know it you're left with just a pile of crumbs and you're standing there going "WHUT? where is my CAKE?"

[simont]

This is a great analogy provided you don't mind it instantly sidetracking people into thinking "mmmm, cake". Mmmm, cake. :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm... Cake :)

I assume you remember Mark Dominus' rather more detailed rant on about the same point, when he talked about small changes that had obvious small advantages, but hidden, aggregate disadvantages, that did seem sensible to make, but he resisted.

[simont]

I can't bring it to mind, actually. It might have been before I started reading his blog, possibly?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I can't find a link now. At at least one point I read through the archives so I've read it all by now :) As I recall, he was talking about maintaining a simple PERL module or similar and people kept saying "why don't you just add this bit of functionality, look it's easy I'll do it" and in that or another post, also mentioned the difficulty of maintaining some documentation with a similar "look, i'll just add tthis bit, it'll be useful" problem, where each individual request is reasonable, but in aggregate makes the module so unweildy no-one wants to bother ot use it.

[douglas-reay.livejournal.com]

I've only come across this in the context of a conditional:

"If it is not too much to ask, could you pick up some bread on your way back?"

Which I interpret as "I leave it up to you to decide how large a favour this is. I don't want to unduly trouble you, so if you'd have to go miles out of your way please DON'T do this for me, as I'd feel really guilty about it. My mental model is that this is something that will take me 30 minutes to do, and you 5 minutes to do; and I'm happy to do similar efficiency swaps for you in future. Feel free to say 'No' (or better yet, 'Sorry, I'm a bit tight on time this evening', or 'Sorry, I'm in a staying in mood today'), and I'll take no offence."


I too would be offended if anyone else presumed to tell me that something they were asking of me WASN'T too much for them to ask, implying that I was a stingy git if I said no.

Reciprocity

[douglas-reay.livejournal.com]

The "I'm happy to do similar efficiency swaps for you in future" bit is important.

It isn't a phrase you'd use towards a chance met passerby in London who you wanted directions from.

Think of neighbours / acquaintances as having credit accounts with each other. If they lend you a car jumpstart lead when they're not using it, that uses up 5 minutes credit with them. If you lend them a car jumpstart lead, when they can't find theirs and they're late and desperate to leave, that gains you several hours credit with them. Many trades are not quite that efficient. "You paint my house and I'll weed your garden" (if they are professional painters, and you love gardening) might be a good deal, but still only a '1 hour for 2 hours' type deal.

If you have this type of arrangement, of swapping favours with someone, and you're both reliable about staying in the black (should be easy, as it isn't zero sum), then it is obviously to your advantage to build up your credit using swaps that are efficient for you. Since the efficiency of a swap varies with the particular friend you do it with (and artiritic old person who hates gardening would find weeding a garden very much harder than a young fit gardening fanatic, for example), it is to your advantage if someone (with whom you WANT to build up further credit) alerts you to opportunities to help them out that will be particularly efficient for you to do.


If someone keeps asking you such favours every day, when you never ask them any, then they are more like viagra spammers, repeatedly offering you an 'opportunity' that you're not interested in taking up. There are many reasons this can happen. Some people with a poor memory for stuff you've done for them may have a broken model of how how 'in debt' you are to them. Some people with an ego problem may think they are doing you a favour just by letting you bask in their presence. Some people are just freeloaders or beggers who want charity, and know they have no prospect of paying the favours back (some think their unstated gratitude for what you do for them is obvious. some are embarassed and humiliated by being 'forced' to ask, revealing their penury, resent you for helping them, and hope that you'll hold up a pretence that they do their fair share around the place). Some have a unix file access permissions mental model, where either an acquaintance is untrusted (in which case no favours done), or an acquaintance has root access, in which cases their expectation is that everyone in the group will do small favours for everyone else in the group, no accounting needed, 'for the common cause'.

I think there was some research done on chimps about this sort of stuff - evolution of various mental capacities, and utility of reciprocity and strategies to cheat on it or utilise is.