Have you had this problem before? Getting people to listen to what you say.

For most - if not all - of my life, I've had this problem.

People never seem to ever listen to what I say. Almost every single person I've ever met (to the point that I've known them enough to call them by their first name) has at one point basically ignored something I've said, when I've made a sincere attempt to be honest and forthright.

I've been trying to understand why.

And it seems every person I've ever known in my life has treated me this way. It's like the only person in my life who ever listens to me, is myself.

Think I'm going off the deep-end? Here is a recent example ...

Some months ago, the team I'm working on was spending time setting up a system, in order to see how it worked. The plan was to spend some hours learning about how the system could be configured, set up the system per one of the configurations, then run a test to verify things worked.


So the team picked a configuration, based on our understanding of the things to set up. While doing so, one thing contained a missing field. I noted this. I was given a polite smile by most of the group, and things continued. We got to our tests, and things didn't work.


Again, I referred to back to that missing field. I suggested that we should try and figure out why this field was missed, as the instructions said it needed to be filled. My reasoning was that since we set up everything else, filling in this field should be the only reason why the test didn't work.


Apparently my verbal suggestion was ignored, because the team spent the next two hours looking at every other field and parameter in the system. And yet still the test failed.


Finally, one of the functional analysts looked back at one of the configurations and noted that a field was missing (would you care to guess? Yes it was the field I had mentioned only for the last half-day). Someone else then instantaneouly suggested that we figure out why this field was missing, as it could be the reason why the test didn't work.


The field was checked, it got filled in. The test worked. That someone else was lauded for their quick thinking.

(Almost by instinct, I felt my eyes roll upward)

....

Don't get me wrong, this isn't about adulation, or the sort. It was about avoiding wasting time looking at the problem from every possible angle, except perhaps the one place where something was missing. Yet somehow when I said it, it wasn't listened to. It wasn't until some time later when someone else mentioned it, that it was looked at and determined to be the problem.

And on the way home, I kept asking myself - why didn't anyone listen to me when I said it? Is it because I was the only non-white person? No, because there were a lot of non-white people where I worked, and none of them seem to ever have a problem. Is it because I was the youngest one on the team? Possibly, but also because I was the least knowledgable about the product. On the other hand, I went through the same instructions they did. Is it because I worked in a different part of the team (the team consisted of two developers, and two analysts. I was the only QA person)? Part of my job is to follow instructions carefully, in order to get a specific result, and to be able to reproduce results when they go wrong. That whole 'attention to detail' part of me.

Maybe I have a volume issue - maybe I speak for too long that some think it babble or double-talk?

Could it be something in my face?

Anyways that was from awhile ago. I'm no longer there, as I felt it better to live and work some place where I'm happier. Maybe in time I'll learn what the secret to getting someone's attention is ...