They are good questions in some cases when you can answer them, bad questions in all cases when you can’t.
When a customer says he wants a book to give to a friend’s kid, and the only thing he knows about the kid is how old she is, you the seller have to gamble. The customer might refuse, and in the process some of the “physical reality” might come through (“I heard she likes to cook”), but that doesn’t mean you should just guess what he wants on the outset or hurry him in any way.
When a customer says she wants something cheap for her husband’s son, the best thing to do is to pick something cheap yet not what you personally think would make a bad gift, not argue with the woman or second-guess her motivations.
People aren’t good at saying what they want, but they rely on conversation, and making it one-sided… doesn’t work.
To be clear, nothing in the OP should be interpreted to mean things should be one-sided. If you’re trying to build a model of where words came from (or, more specific to your example, a customer’s intent), one of the most useful things you can do is gather more evidence. The person standing there talking to you is a readily-available source of such evidence, and you gather it by continuing to go back-and-forth with them.
(it’s just that gathering evidence of what the other person wants and asking yourself in what particular way the other person is trying to use you seem to be two different things.)
They are good questions in some cases when you can answer them, bad questions in all cases when you can’t.
When a customer says he wants a book to give to a friend’s kid, and the only thing he knows about the kid is how old she is, you the seller have to gamble. The customer might refuse, and in the process some of the “physical reality” might come through (“I heard she likes to cook”), but that doesn’t mean you should just guess what he wants on the outset or hurry him in any way.
When a customer says she wants something cheap for her husband’s son, the best thing to do is to pick something cheap yet not what you personally think would make a bad gift, not argue with the woman or second-guess her motivations.
People aren’t good at saying what they want, but they rely on conversation, and making it one-sided… doesn’t work.
To be clear, nothing in the OP should be interpreted to mean things should be one-sided. If you’re trying to build a model of where words came from (or, more specific to your example, a customer’s intent), one of the most useful things you can do is gather more evidence. The person standing there talking to you is a readily-available source of such evidence, and you gather it by continuing to go back-and-forth with them.
(it’s just that gathering evidence of what the other person wants and asking yourself in what particular way the other person is trying to use you seem to be two different things.)