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Ask HN: How well do you convey the technical aspects of your work to your SO?

6 points by tetris11 ↗ HN
- For those who have SO's in none technical fields, do you have difficulty explaining your day-to-day tasks? - If so, does it place a strain or a sense of dissatisfaction in your relationship?

5 comments

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scarface74
No, my job at work for the past few years has been working with and explaining projects to non technical stakeholders.

I often go over presentations with my wife first. If she can understand it, I take that as a good indication that my audience will also. If she has a lot of questions, they will also.

incomingpain
I don't even try. Technical side of things won't work and it's confidential otherwise. So what the hell can I even talk about? Usually I just brush questions off as if I was lazy talking shit on the internet. Which is often true lol.
yakak
No, I avoid technical aspects of everything. Discussion of social aspects is more important. For example, trying to convince a conversational partner of your correctness about some technical details that spawned an argument is just a distraction from a discussion about the argument.
mdwint
Explaining things well requires you to imagine the other person’s perspective. I always try, in spite of someone’s perceived “lack” of background knowledge. People are smart! Sometimes they come with surprising questions. It’s the greatest feeling when someone says “I understand it. We should put that explanation somewhere for others to see.”
cowvin
Some things can be hard to explain, sure, but I don't expect my wife to understand the technical aspects of my work, so no, no strain or dissatisfaction.