this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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Autism
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In my experience people receive it better when I preface the "How long" with a "Just curious," or some such thereof. Results may vary.
Go full robot: "Estimated timescale for the completion of this task?". I doubt they'll get annoyed at that, might just find it funny, or weird. no, definitely wierd.
Yes ! 🙏🏼 (I don't know where I fit in all this, but) I have been opting more and more for sentences that mimic my mental model of things- with added sugar to make it palatable to most. My intentions are less often mistaken, I think. But more importantly I am happier. Because that's a whole "abstraction layer", so to say, shed off my mind
Then you get a "Not long."
Sir I must insist on a standardized measurement scale.
I would interpret "not long" as a bad faith answer and become more aggressive.
What if I don't know how long it will take? Trying to figure that out is a quite a bit for me, I have to stop and process what I already completed, what's going on now, and what is left to do. A lot of these commenters are speaking as if the knowledge is being withheld from them, not as though they're making an inquiry of someone who is already working on getting the job done and didn't start with some previously defined end-time that they're winding down to.
If you're saying not long, then you do know something. Minutes? Hours?
Surely you have some idea of the timescale, even if it is wildly inaccurate. There is a difference between "you can watch me finish this" and "call me tomorrow". Just give me your most conservative min/max duration. And if you really have no idea, say so.
You could give an upper bound, or even just say you don't know.
The trick is to make up a deadline. "I need to get home to swap the Dilithium crystal in my lizard tank, do you think this will take longer than an hour?
I go with "Do you know roughly how long this will take? 5m, half hour, hour, three hours?"
The answer will be either higher or lower end answer so you can get a ballpark estimate.
"Just curious" seems to come across as passive aggressive.