Telling Me How To Do My Job

I have a nasty habit of replying to the statement “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job” with:

“Then don’t.”

It catches people off guard. It’s fine if you don’t like something I’m doing or something I’ve built. Let’s talk about it, because I doubt I’m intentionally trying to annoy you. Introducing the topic as telling me how to do my job, though, is a hostile way to start a conversation. It guarantees that your message to me will be lost in me thinking about how much you suck, too. Is that what you wanted to happen? You wanted us to be adversaries instead of teammates?

Moral of the story: learn how to tell someone about something you don’t like without it being adversarial.