YSK: Just because something is easy for you, does not mean that it is easy.
ETA; Why you should know; everyone has natural talents, everyone has skills they developed with practice or over time. Something that feels easy to you might be difficult for someone else to grasp, or they might have a different background or a different way of doing things. When you show someone else how to do something, or when you ask someone else to do something, you need to set aside your expectations on how they might do that thing, or how quickly, or how well.
Be patient. Understand not everyone comes naturally to every new skill or new talent. Some people have learning disabilities or just a lack of familiarity with skills you consider “basic.” And try not to belittle someone for needing extra time to master something you find “simple” or they may never try again!
Edit2: Kind of like how I can’t figure out how to edit this to save my life. I’ve been belittled in the past for being bad at things so my instinct was to delete this, but seeing all the conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to do it! Consider me a lesson in action!
What you say: It’s easy!
What you (hopefully) mean: Don’t be intimidated! You can do it!
What they hear: You must be stupid if you can’t do this.
What you say: It’s so simple even a child can figure it out!
What you (hopefully) mean: Calm down and work through it. You’ve got this.
What they hear: Even a child is smarter than you!
Keep in mind that if you’re dealing with someone who is struggling it is self-evidently not easy for them. Claiming that it is invalidates their experience and makes them feel small and stupid. Don’t do that.
What you should say: I get it. This can be pretty intimidating. Let’s work through this together.
It really is that <irony>simple</irony>.
I build cloud IT infrastructure for a living and I’ve been at it for several years. There’s a lot to it, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve developed a reputation for being a person who knows how it works and can figure out how to build effectively in it. I won’t call it easy, but I’ve become comfortable and adept with it, and so to some it appears to be easy for me.
Just recently we had a person join our team with a background almost exclusively in OS administration. He’s doing alright for someone who is just starting out, but it’s obvious he’s intimidated and so he asks a lot of questions.
I told him this.
It’s perfectly okay to feel like you’re in over your head on all of this. There is a lot to learn. Besides server administration, you have to understand networking, permissions management, software development to a degree, database management and a ton more.
There’s a plethora of services at your disposal. Much like a giant toolbox, your job is to understand when to pull out the right tool, as well as how to use said tool effectively. This is going to take time, and you’re only going to truly learn it by doing it. Take time and ask questions, and you’ll get the hang of it. When I started, I was in the same boat.
I think that’s made him feel better about his inexperience, and I’ve seen him progressing at an admirable pace.
Holy shit yes to all this. Building architectures is intimidating as fuck but doesn’t mean you have to know everything/can’t ask for help and it definitely doesn’t mean you can’t have fun learning during the implementation/discovery phases
You sound like a great person to work with!
That’s great what you said, and that he’s comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions to improve faster. What you said comforted me also, as I’m trying to learn enough to self-host some apps. I just want to use some cool apps but am currently taking an SQL course because everything is so interconnected and foreign to me as non-programmer.
What I have learned to say is “I understand this is new and confusing; however, don’t stress out, I was probably more confused than you are when I first learned this.” It throws them off a bit, because they think you’re the expert, and it clicks that you had to learn it too. If they probe deeper into why it was hard for me, I explain that I’m so used to how things are supposed to work, I have to step back and see how things can work.
Expertly said. Especially true for kids