Asking Before You’re Ready

Can I give you what you’ve asked for?

Let’s say we’re working together on a project, and you say “hand me the hammer”. When I hold out the hammer, I’m expecting you to take it from my hand. What happens when you come back with “Wait – I don’t want that yet”…

[ad#inline-body]

I trust you

To know what you want.

So if you’re telling me you want something, I’m listening to what you’re saying and expecting that you’d like it.

Without a qualifier

So yes – planning is a good thing.

It’s nice to set expectations and a desired future state.

And when you do that, you ought to include some sort of time frame if that’s what you’re saying.

“After we complete the ABC project, it’d be great to land the XYZ bid.

I get it

If I were to walk in with the XYZ project the next morning, you might be reasonably upset that I hadn’t figured in the “after we complete this other project” part of that.

Can you do this for me

But when you ask for something to be done, and don’t mention that you’d like it done later…

Go ahead and get that when you’re ready…

I’m sorry that I misunderstood your intentions, and I’ll just leave this here for you.

Me, I’ll get onto something else, because you don’t seem to be ready for my help…