Six reasons why Hannah didn't ask me for help

Hi guys, after having completed my last post, I always proof read my post and do some final edits after I had one further thought about Hannah, the gymnastics coach who was asking the wrong question. If it is obvious that Hannah could do with some help with getting a better job, why didn't she ask for it from someone like me? It seems pretty obvious, one has nothing to lose by asking for help - the worst case scenario is that the other person simply says, "no sorry, I can't help you." Even if that happened, then you are no worse off than before. I have learnt how to ask for help over the years, it is an important social skill to have and it really empowers you. Recently a Peruvian client asked me if I could help him open a bank account in Dubai and honestly, I know absolutely nothing about that - however, I told him that I would ask my friend Rod who lives in Dubai to see if Rod knew more about the issue. Rod then managed to ask another friend in Dubai and eventually I managed to help my Peruvian client open that bank account - it didn't matter that I didn't know how to open a bank account in Dubai, I simply had to ask for help in order to find the solution. Now all this may seem like common sense but is it really that straightforward? So here are six reasons why someone like Hannah may be hesitant when it comes to asking for help. I'm just exploring this theme in this post: for the record, I don't know why Hannah doesn't want to ask me for help. If she doesn't want to talk to me about the topic - I won't start that conversation with her.

1. She is part of the 'Ask Google' generation

Oh it is amazing to have Google at your fingertips, my younger readers probably don't know what life was like before we had Google. Let me take you way back to 1991 when the song '3 AM Eternal'  by the KLF reached number one in the UK charts - there was a weird line in the song which I remember arguing with another gymnast about. He claimed it was "dances with wolves" and I thought it sounded more like something in German like "ansehen auf nummer". Given that this was 1991 and we couldn't ask Google, we just had to agree to disagree but now with the help of Google, I can confirm that we were both wrong - the line was actually 'ancients of Mumu'. This was a reference to the fact that the KLF was once known as 'Justified Ancients of Mumu' before deciding to go with KLF which was a wise branding decision. But my point is simple: with the help of Google, you can look anything up and get your answers within moments. So for example, an old friend in Singapore wanted to know if a degree from Nottingham Trent university would be widely respected in the UK as her son wanted to do a degree there. So the first thing I did was to Google the current UK university league tables to see where it sat on the list: it was 45th out of 130 universities. So it was in the top 35%, I then did a lot more Googling and concluded that it wasn't considered elite or prestigious but then again it was respectable enough given that you needed decent grades to gain a place there and it wasn't a dumping ground for the students who had done really badly for their A levels. I used Google to find the answers to those questions and thus was able to form an informed opinion. It was a far cry from hazarding a guess at that lyrics from 3 AM Eternal and getting it so very wrong. 

Young people are incredibly reliant on technology in a way I simply am not - recently my friend Kevin offered to give me a lift home after gymnastics and when we got into his car, he wanted to enter my address into his GPS for directions. I was like, "no you don't need to do that, I know the way home, I'll tell you where to go." He looked at me like, "are you sure?" I'll use the GPS when I am on holiday abroad but why would I need it to get home from the gym? But Kevin has a point - you can ask a human a question like, "what is the capital of Burkina Faso?" The human might not know the answer or could get the answer wrong, but with Google, you know you will definitely get the right answer instantly: Ouagadougou. The Wikipedia page can then tell you all about this fascinating city in Africa. Thus for Hannah who grew up with all this technology available to her, she probably thought, "I don't need to ask anyone for help when I can simply get all my answers from Google." Of course, she can easily ask Google, "how do I get a better job? How can I earn more money?" I tried both of these questions and sure enough, Google had plenty of suggestions - some more useful than others but there's no shortage of people on the internet trying to tell me how I could get a better job and earn more money. But the problem with that kind of information is that is never aimed at me, it is just someone talking about what they think about the issue whereas what Hannah really needs is a mentor - someone who knows her well and is able to help guide her future career options based on a good understanding of her strengths and weaknesses. She also needs a kind uncle who will use nepotism to get her a better job. Therein lies the difference: Hannah needs more than just information, she needs help. However Google can only offer her information yet somehow she feels that's all she needs. 

2. Perhaps she just isn't used to asking for help. 

I look at the amount of help my nephew has received from his family and I do wonder how much of it he takes for granted and if he realizes just how lucky he is. In sharp contrast, I know how much my mother suffered during her childhood as she came from a miserably poor family and received virtually no help along the way. I can see how my nephew has grown accustomed to the idea of people helping him out, people doing him favours without him even having to ask for help - as I have mentioned in my last post, his national service has been delayed a year because of his PES status so instantly, I jumped into action and helped find him a decent job so he can gain some valuable work experience in this period. That's just how lucky he is to have people in his family who will help him out like that at the first opportunity. Let's contrast that to people who have never had any help: they don't know how to ask for help or they might think that there's no point trying to ask for help if the answer is going to be "no I can't help you". Here's a story from my childhood - this student in my primary school whom we shall call Pei (not her real name) who was from a very poor family. One of the rich kids (whom we shall call 'Richard') brought an expensive toy to school and Pei was fascinated by the expensive toy, so she asked Richard if she could play with it. Richard shouted, "no, you cannot! If you like it so much, then you should go ask your parents to buy one for you!!" Instantly, I could see Pei regret having asked if she could take a closer look at the expensive toy - imagine if this is what happens when she asks for a little bit of kindness and generosity, then she would eventually be conditioned to believe that asking for help simply does not work and that there is really no point in asking. 

I don't know Hannah that well enough but what I do know is that her parents were both immigrants who moved to the UK for a better life - they didn't speak English when they arrived and thus were stuck doing quite poorly paid working class jobs for many years. So it is quite likely that Hannah's childhood was tough. A lot of it would also depend on her parents' attitude on the matter and impact on how she was brought up - if her parents had similar experiences when asking for help, then they would have taught Hannah that she should not be asking for help. If you bring a child up in an environment where help is readily offered, where the child is encouraged to ask for help with anything, then of course the child would be socially conditioned to ask for help. But that's contingent on the child being surrounded by adults who are willing and able to offer that kind of help - it tends to be richer, middle/upper class families who are able to offer their children that kind of help and support. I'm not saying that working class parents don't love their kids but let me share with you this true story. William (not his real name) was from a very rich family, he flunked his A levels and ended up doing a course at Brighton University (usually at the wrong end of the league tables). Even William confessed that he mostly partied and did very little work during his time there, but when he somehow scraped through his final exams, his father made a few phone calls and got him a good job in a respectable bank. Would my father or Hannah's father be able to help us like that? Of course not - our fathers are working class and even if they wanted to help, they are simply unable to pull off something like that - working class kids like us just expected to fend for ourselves with very little or no help at all. 

3. Maybe she is ashamed that she needs help 

Having grown up in a poor working class family, I've seen a lot of shame like that - allow me to share a story that I've used quite a few times on my blog, so forgive me if you've heard this one before. It wasn't just my family that was poor but my mother's side of the family was pretty poor and working class as well. I had a cousin who was eligible for a bursary when she was in secondary school as she came from a (very) low income family; this was not a scholarship but a form of charity - it was literally free money, no strings attached. She was eligible for that money because her parents were so painfully poor but when the teacher asked her to fill up the form, she refused to do so because she was afraid that her classmates may mock her for being poor. Mind you, she was so poor then she was literally going to bed without dinner on some days, yet she would rather endure that kind of suffering than receive free money from the government. Such is the power of shame, I've endured it when I was young, it sucks to be poor - it is horrible to be around people from much richer families knowing that they may look down on you. Thus my cousin would rather maintain their facade of not needing any help by refusing that bursary no matter how hard the teacher pleaded with her to take it. Having been poor like my cousin, I can empathize and relate to what it is like to feel shame about being poor. Whether or not anyone is actually mocking you for being poor, it could have a real impact on your self-esteem when you are surrounded by people who are much richer than you. Maybe Hannah was simply putting on a brave face like my cousin in refusing to ask me for help, once she realized that I do earn a lot more than her -especially if she has not had any really rich friends before. 

After all, in asking me for help, Hannah would be admitting that no one in her social circles (from her family members to her close friends) are in any kind of position to help her with her career and thus she is forced to turn to someone she only sees once a week at gymnastics for help. She might fear that I may not react with kindness but instead judge her for her predicament. Maybe Hannah has experienced some form of bullying in the past on the basis of her poverty or social class, that's why she didn't want to ask for help. Allow me to compare this to another incident that happened way back in 2002: I was involved in a community theatre project for an LGBT charity and one of the organizers suggested that we went out for dinner one evening as a group. One of the women - let's call her Leah (not her real name) insisted that she was very tired and wanted to go home, but somehow she was persuaded to come along anyway. When we got to a Chinese restaurant, first Leah protested that she didn't like Chinese food, then she calimed she wasn't hungry at all. Now what I suspected was that it was obvious that Leah simply didn't have the money to go to a nice Chinese restaurant for dinner, even for a bowl of noodles, one would expect to pay about £8 to £10 and if you wanted something nicer, with a drink or two, you could easily spend more than £25 which would have been a lot of money for Leah who was still a student. The organizer realized what was going on and offered to treat Leah to whatever she wanted to eat, but Leah steadfastly refused, as if by accepting the treat, she would effectively be admitting that she was very poor and in sticking to the story that she didn't feel hungry at all, she could then somehow avoid the issue. Thus Leah not only didn't ask for help but refused to accept it when it was offered unconditionally - shame can make a person extremely stubborn indeed.

4. An implicit disapproval of nepotism (and corruption).

Some working class people associate asking for help with nepotism and they view that in a very negative light because it is seen as cheating and being dishonest. A working class young person in Singapore simply wouldn't have an uncle who can pull strings the way I could to help get my nephew a good job. Working class people are at a massive disadvantage in this aspect as they simply don't have such connections within their social networks. The working class get angry when they see the rich and the powerful bend and break the rules and get away with it, that could be why someone like Hannah who has a working class background might hesitate to ask me for help as that would make her guilty of the one thing that has made not just her but her family angry for so long - turning to nepotism instead of trying to get a better job fairly. It's a fairly natural reaction to seeing someone else have an unfair advantage - it is just another form of sour grapes. You see rich people getting special favours through nepotism so you condemn it as a terrible form of corruption that is so evil and awful. There is an element of truth to this - nepotism can mean university places going to the children of important politicians and rich businessmen rather than the smarter working class students; it can mean a promotion going to the least deserving member of the team and yes, it can make you really angry if you're the victim rather than the beneficiary of it. Does Hannah need help to get a better job? Yes she does. But would she be guilty of leveraging our friendship and resorting to nepotism if she asked me to do her a few favors? Yes, but should that matter if it is just a means to an end? Will you be happy to bend your own principles and compromise a little if it meant getting a better job? 

It is quite natural for humans to want a source of pride, we all need something to base our self-esteem and create self-respect upon. It is so easy to have pride and self-esteem if you are so brilliant at school you win scholarships or if you excel at a sport, a musical instrument or anything else that makes you stand out within your community. Of course, having a well-paid job that allows you to live a very comfortable life and provide for your family, that could be a source of pride as well. Nonetheless if you have nothing, then people start turning to various other sources to find pride: some turn to nationalism, others may turn to religion or even identifying with a successful football team and celebrating when that team wins a match (even if that football match took place in another time zone and they contributed absolutely nothing to the result). Well, one way that some working class people find pride is through this ethos: "I don't have much, but everything I have achieved, I earned myself without getting any help. I'm not like those rich people who inherited a lot of money from their parents and got so much help along the way, you can't compare me to them. What I have achieved on my own means so much more." Thus they structure a kind of narrative that celebrates them as an anti-nepotism working class hero who has managed to prove that you can earn an honest living without resorting to nepotism and corruption. Now don't get me wrong, I think there is a certain value to celebrating honesty and condemning any form of corruption - there are so many countries around the world from Argentina to Thailand to Tanzania to Russia where corruption is rife. But is it possible to take this stance, whilst still asking your friends for some help, if it will help you solve your problems? 

5. The sunk cost fallacy

After all, Hannah already has a job - she is a gymnastics coach. Even if she is earning peanuts, she is gainfully employed. She wakes up early every morning, makes her breakfast and gets ready to go to work. Hannah had to complete certain gymnastics coaching courses in order to work as a gymnastics coach and needless to say, those courses cost money. Thus Hannah had invested in not only paying for those courses, but having spent months working as a gymnastics coach in order to be able to claim to have sufficient experience as a coach. So she probably feels like she has invested plenty in nurturing her career as a gymnastics coach and that's one of the reasons why she would baulk at the idea of changing jobs whilst somehow ignoring the fact that she would be earning a lot more in the long run in a different industry. This is a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy - she is very stubbornly unwilling to forego the investment she has made into her training to become a gymnastics coach. A reason why Hannah may be irrational like that is because she is thinking short term rather than long term: if Hannah were to leave coaching to retrain as an accountant, in the short run, life would get harder. She would have to either give up coaching altogether or do it part time, meaning a drastic drop in income. She would also have to attended an accountancy course which will involve long hours of studying and she might even have to do some low/no pay internships just to gain some work experience. In the short run, this transition period is going to be more difficult than if she had just stuck to coaching. But in the long run of course, if Hannah could successfully make that career switch, then she would earn a lot more as an accountant than as a coach.

I don't want to be unsympathetic - I have seen people make these career switches before and I too have done so in the past, it is a very difficult process that requires a lot of determination and most of the people who have done it successfully had the financial support of their families: they had a spouse and/or parents who said, "don't worry about money during this transition period, you just study hard and I'll pay for whatever you need - you just focus on your career change." However, a working class person like Hannah is simply not going to have that kind of support - her parents simply are not rich enough to support her if she decides to go get a degree or obtain the necessary training to climb a new career ladder. Thus on one hand, it is easy for me to be a judgmental bitch and say, "oh Hannah is so shortsighted, she is only considering the short term challenges rather than thinking long term. That's such a typical case of sunk cost fallacy." But of course, I am ignoring the fact that this transition is so much harder for someone like her than a person with rich parents who will simply say, "sure by all means darling, go get another degree, mummy and daddy will pay for it." Nonetheless I need to strike a balance here: even if I do recognize the fact that this career change is going to be harder for someone like Hannah than for her richer counterparts, it still doesn't change the fact that she is stuck in a low-paid job as a gymnastics coach and that in the long run, she would still be a lot better off if she switched careers now. After all, Hannah is still relatively young and thus it makes complete sense for her to make this transition now in her 20s, rather than wait till her 30s or even 40s. Thus the longer Hannah waits, the more she is likely to give in to the sunk cost fallacy. 

6. Maybe it's just about social skills. 

We can wax lyrical all we want about nepotism but there is another element of asking for help: asking for help is a kind of social interaction and you need social skills to navigate this kind of negotiation. Let me tell you about the gymnast who asked me for help, let's call her Naomi (not her real name) - she was a university student who was in medical school but had decided that she didn't want to become a doctor after all and would rather build a career in the corporate world. So during the gymnastics class, she got to know me as a person, we hung out together and became friends - we even hung out socially outside gymnastics and went for dinner with some friends. So by the time Naomi had asked me for help, she wasn't just a random gymnast in my gymnastics club, she was already a good friend and I think she is a really nice person. But obviously, Naomi knew how to become my friend before asking for that favour which, credit to her, is a sign of her awesome social skills. So when she asked me for help, I said, "of course I will help you, you're my friend, a good friend!" Let's contrast this to a guy I met in Singapore some years ago through mutual friends - we'll call him Lim (not his real name). Lim was in fact older than me but still single, so I even suspected that he was gay. I was curious enough to verify this with a mutual friend (whom I was a lot closer to) and he explained that  Lim is totally straight, he isn't gay. He told me about an incident at NUS years ago, Lim liked this classmate on the course and tried asking her out on a date, but she was particularly cruel and used the phrase 癞蛤蟆想吃天鹅肉 (literally: toad trying to eat swan meat = she was way out of his league) to describe that situation - many of the other students mocked Lim for having tried to ask her out.

A few years later, another mutual friend found out that Lim tried to chat up a female colleague at work and the same thing happened - she was once again out of his league and this time she was painfully blunt with him. She told Lim that he might have a greater chance of settling down and finding a wife if he stopped believing that he had the chance to date attractive women and instead tried to date a woman who was fat and ugly enough to settle for someone like him. Ouch. That was the really last nail in the coffin for Lim when it came to dating, he just gave up at that point. If I may be blunt, yeah she had a point - Lim wasn't just fat and ugly, he was also socially awkward. If he wanted to boost his chances in the dating game, he really needed a makeover and some social skills training. But instead of trying to do that, he simply gave up on asking women out and resigned himself to the fact that he was never going to get married or have a relationship with a woman. That's why Lim is still single today and he must be in his mid-50s already. But my point is simple: if like Lim, you lack the kind of social skills that Naomi possesses, then your social interactions will usually end in failure, you're rarely going to get what you want from the other person if you don't know how to persuade them to like you in the first instance. I suppose I am using examples from the two extremes of the scale but it is clear to see why people like Naomi are happy to ask for help because she usually manages to get exactly what she wants whilst poor Lim would be far more hesitant to ask for help if he doesn't have the social skills to navigate that kind of social interaction successfully. So it isn't a matter of just asking for help - you also need to apply excellent social skills to do it successfully.

So there you go, that's six possible reasons why Hannah hasn't asked me for help. I'd like to finish by reiterating that it is not that I am refusing to help her, but I do believe that she will only be receptive to any help if she asks for it. My reader Amanda has already suggested a long list of things that Hannah ought to do and that I ought to suggest to Hannah to do all of these things - whilst everything that Amanda has suggested is useful of course, the bottom line is if Hannah doesn't want to do any of these things, as a friend who sees her once a week at the gymnastics class, I simply am not close enough to her to say to her, "Hannah please listen to me, you really need to do all of these things to sort your life out." I don't want to cause any friction in my friendship with Hannah by telling her that there's something desperately wrong with her career choices and she needs to do as I say - that might really piss Hannah off even if I went to her with the best intentions to help her. You automatically lose the ability to influence and persuade someone when you piss them off and pissing Hannah off is the last thing I want to do, especially since we've enjoyed a very warm friendship so far and I really don't want that to change. So please, it's not like I'm unkind or selfish in not helping Hannah, but I'm making it clear that you can't help someone unless they want to be help and Hannah has to take that first step to ask me for help - if and when she decides to do that, then of course I will certainly help her. So what do you think, have I covered all the possible reasons, or might there be another one you could think of? Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.