Compare and Contrast

"It doesn't work."

VS

"I'm seeing some behaviour I don't understand. Can you help?

I checked the configs in dev, and they looked okay. So I went to the front end, opened the dev tools, clicked the thing and checked the traffic. I didn't see what I expected.

So I checked the other environment and couldn't recreate the problem, which I thought was weird 🤔.

Is it working and I've messed up, or is it broken?"

What's the difference?

In the first example, we deliver our conclusion. And nothing else.

In the second example, we share our conclusion, explain how we arrived at the conclusion, how we tried to get ourselves unstuck, and then asked for help.

What's the impact?

The first way reduces your credibility.

The second way builds allTheCredibility.