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I sort of agree. Sometimes that is nothing but a polite yet empty response. But people also tend think that they aren’t being listened to when they don’t get what they ask for, which isn’t always the case.

I have to deal with this pretty frequently: Someone gives feedback about a thing and requests a change. I listen, understand the request, explain that I can’t do this right now because it lands too low on the priority list and there are a thousand critical and urgent things that I need to get done first. Then the person complains (to me, my manager, their manager, in a different context, whatever) that they aren’t being listened to.

Listening doesn’t mean agreeing, nor does it mean solving for a request right now (or possibly ever). Making people feel heard without doing what they ask is a hard thing. It’s extremely hard to do at scale and I don’t envy those trying to satisfy UI change requests from millions of people.

Also I work at Microsoft so I’m probably biased here.



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