Just don’t
I get a lot more mileage out of &quot;have you tried...&quot; than &quot;why don&#x27;t you just...&quot;.<p>As a recent example, I wrote a system that auto-generates PDF packing slips from an order form, to send to a warehouse for picking and packing.<p>Yesterday a client told me to &quot;just make it landscape&quot; while I was explaining why &quot;just making it landscape&quot; won&#x27;t solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, because even though &quot;just making it landscape&quot; solves this same problem in Excel, when the client was sending out Excel files as packing slips... the current system is not Excel&quot;.<p>I couldn&#x27;t find a way to get the client to get from &quot;just make it landscape&quot; to listening to me ask &quot;what is the warehouse actually trying to pencil in?&quot; and &quot;how much space do they need? Are they penciling in notes globally at the top of the document or on a line-item basis next to each SKU?&quot;<p>To the client I was wasting their time because &quot;just make it landscape&quot;.<p>Needless to say working with this client is challenging on an interpersonal level. The work itself is fun though, and it&#x27;s improving my EQ handling a client like this.