I feel afraid that my request or question will seem dumb or obvious, or that it’s a waste of their time.
1)
Do you deep inside believe that only stupid people ever ask for help? Wrong! No one knows everything. Even within their area of expertise, almost no one is best. And even the people who are literally the best can benefit from someone sharing their burden.
Asking for help is sometimes actually the smart move.
2)
There is a chance that, ironically, worrying too much about not wasting someone’s time or not appearing stupid, may actually make you waste more of their time. For example, if you work with someone on the same project, and you are unsure about something, it is better to ask for their help sooner rather than later, because if you indeed were wrong, now you have wasted more of the total person-time allocated to the project.
Even the disclaimers like “hey, I don’t want to waste your time, and it’s totally okay if you send me away, don’t worry I won’t get offended, I completely understand that your time is precious” can be a waste of the other person’s time. Maybe answering your question would actually take less time than listening to the disclaimer. I am not advising competely against using the disclaimers, just to keep them simple and short.
1)
Do you deep inside believe that only stupid people ever ask for help? Wrong! No one knows everything. Even within their area of expertise, almost no one is best. And even the people who are literally the best can benefit from someone sharing their burden.
Asking for help is sometimes actually the smart move.
2)
There is a chance that, ironically, worrying too much about not wasting someone’s time or not appearing stupid, may actually make you waste more of their time. For example, if you work with someone on the same project, and you are unsure about something, it is better to ask for their help sooner rather than later, because if you indeed were wrong, now you have wasted more of the total person-time allocated to the project.
Even the disclaimers like “hey, I don’t want to waste your time, and it’s totally okay if you send me away, don’t worry I won’t get offended, I completely understand that your time is precious” can be a waste of the other person’s time. Maybe answering your question would actually take less time than listening to the disclaimer. I am not advising competely against using the disclaimers, just to keep them simple and short.