You have to be careful when communicating with people. Some people take what you say literally, so you have to choose your words very carefully. For some people, metaphors and sarcasm and even phrases go over their heads.
And if you are outlining a set of tasks they need to do, be sure to list everything. And I mean everything. Unless you have worked with them for awhile, don't assume they have common knowledge or even common sense.
To give you an example, I once asked a new hire in my office to file some paperwork. I showed her how to sort the papers and put them in the proper folders. I let her get to work. I came back, and everything was just randomly placed in the filing cabinet. I had to tell her that it was supposed to be in alphabetical order.
It wasn't because she was stupid. She was just young and had never worked in an office before. Once I told her how it should be done, she did it perfectly.
But I have had this happen with even well-educated developers too.
I have told developers to make our software work like some other software they should be familiar with (like email), and they come back with something that looks nothing like email. When you ask them if they used email before, they say yes. But then the resulting code is nothing like email. So I learned that I had to go back and explain what an email interface looks like and had to detail exactly how it should work. Apparently, giving them an example UI from another piece of software and telling them to mimic it is not enough for them. You actually have to write up detailed specs.
So, sometimes you have to be a bit more detailed, especially in the beginning, because they might not understand and might miss important details.
And some people just don't understand sarcasm or metaphors anymore. If you say that you should "eat an elephant one steak at a time," they will literally think you support eating elephants in real life. They don't understand it is a metaphor. And then you have an online argument over a misunderstanding.
Maybe it is the education system, or maybe it was all of that lead paint and leaded fuel that used to be common, or maybe it is difference between cultures, or an error in translation, or maybe it is the food we eat. I am not sure. But you certainly have to be more careful with how you speak these days.
