😎 Don't be afraid to say, "I don't understand this task"
Tags: beginners, tutorial, psychology, productivity
Published: 2020-12-18 09:21:05

## Introduction

Hello, DEV friends! 👋  Let's discuss a very important _brain bug_ that all (almost) programmers have, when they start working for a company with real projects.

They're ashamed and afraid to say, "**I do not understand this task**".

<a name="toc"></a>
### 📝 Table of contents

- [What does it look like?](#ch-1)
- [Fix this brain bug](#ch-2)

<a name="#ch-1"></a>
## What does it look like?

Exploitation of this bug is very simple: just say in a confident tone any nonsense, and then ask "_Well, do you understand?_".

For example, your project manager says, "_So, let's add a condition here, put a button there and everything starts working. Got it?_".

Most of the inexperienced programmers I've ever seen, answer "**yes**" without thinking, even though they really have no idea what kind of button they're talking about, or what exactly "_everything_" entails. 🤷

When I did that myself, I was ashamed to admit it. I thought that as soon as I said that I did not understand something, I would immediately sign my incompetence, inability to listen and general unprofessional.

[↑ Table of contents](#toc)

<a name="#ch-2"></a>
## Fix this brain bug

For myself, I cured this bug because I realized: _it's much worse to waste time on an unclear task and do it wrong, or to come to a project manager with silly questions when you're already expected to produce results_... than to ask **all** exciting questions about the task **from the beginning**! 😉

> Look at yourself. Maybe you, too, have a bad habit of not admitting you don't understand something, huh? 

[↑ Table of contents](#toc)

<a name=""></a>
## Photos by

- Nik Shuliahin https://unsplash.com/photos/BuNWp1bL0nc

<a name=""></a>
## P.S.

If you want more articles (like this) on this blog, then post a comment below and subscribe to me. Thanks! 😻

And of course, you can help me make developers' lives even better! Just connect to one of my projects as a contributor. It's easy!

My projects that need your help (and stars) 👇

- 🔥 [gowebly][gowebly_url]: A next-generation CLI tool for easily build amazing web applications with Go on the backend, using htmx & hyperscript and the most popular atomic/utility-first CSS frameworks on the frontend.
- ✨ [create-go-app][cgapp_url]: Create a new production-ready project with Go backend, frontend and deploy automation by running one CLI command.
- 🏃 [yatr][yatr_url]: Yet Another Task Runner allows you to organize and automate your routine operations that you normally do in Makefile (or else) for each project.
- 📚 [gosl][gosl_url]: The Go Snippet Library provides snippets collection for working with routine operations in your Go programs with a super user-friendly API and the most efficient performance.
- 🏄‍♂️ [csv2api][csv2api_url]: The parser reads the CSV file with the raw data, filters the records, identifies fields to be changed, and sends a request to update the data to the specified endpoint of your REST API.
- 🚴 [json2csv][json2csv_url]: The parser can read given folder with JSON files, filtering and qualifying input data with intent & stop words dictionaries and save results to CSV files by given chunk size.

<!-- Footer links -->

[gowebly_url]: https://github.com/gowebly
[cgapp_url]: https://github.com/create-go-app
[yatr_url]: https://github.com/koddr/yatr
[gosl_url]: https://github.com/koddr/gosl
[csv2api_url]: https://github.com/koddr/csv2api
[json2csv_url]: https://github.com/koddr/json2csv