Just don’t
I get a lot more mileage out of "have you tried..." than "why don't you just...".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.Yesterday a client told me to "just make it landscape" while I was explaining why "just making it landscape" won't solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, because even though "just making it landscape" solves this same problem in Excel, when the client was sending out Excel files as packing slips... the current system is not Excel".I couldn't find a way to get the client to get from "just make it landscape" to listening to me ask "what is the warehouse actually trying to pencil in?" and "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?"To the client I was wasting their time because "just make it landscape".Needless to say working with this client is challenging on an interpersonal level. The work itself is fun though, and it's improving my EQ handling a client like this.