86 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
86 lines
5.4 KiB
Markdown
# On Describing Not Explaining
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- **期号**: SRE Weekly Issue #474（2025-04-27）
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- **作者**: Paige Cruz
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- **链接**: https://www.paigerduty.com/on-describing-not-explaining/
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## 简介
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It’s a troubleshooting story having nothing to do with tech, but the technique used can easily apply to your next incident.
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## 正文
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this past weekend a mysterious sound that came from somewhere *behind* and *above* the living room interrupted movie night...
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unfortunately for me and my partner this was during The Bourne Identity, an action-thriller that had heightened our sense of paranoia 😬
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obvi we immediately paused the movie and took a quick look out the windows to see if we could spot anyone or anything or any animal that could be the culprit.
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but alas. the backyard was seemingly clear and it was too late for any of the neighborhood kids to be causing a ruckus and nothing was amiss in any of the rooms on the upper level.
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we quickly cycled through possible explanations:
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- was it an acorn or something similar falling off a tree?
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- not likely since we would have heard this type of sound in the past
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- was it in our imagination?
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- NOPE! We both, and the cat, heard and reacted to some sound
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- was it a wayward bird or really giant-bodied bug hitting a window?
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- sadly we know what both of those sound like and it wasn't the weird sound we had just heard
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we found ourselves unsettled as we attempted to settle back in to resume the movie. and I remarked "I'm not satisfied not getting to some likely source for the sound"
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which led to my partner hypothesizing: *was it the faucet hose in the kitchen sink falling into place?*
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"hmmmm no because what I heard was a sliding sound coming from above" and then 💡a metaphorical lightbulb went off.
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In our haste we had been jumping right into trying to answer the question: **what made that weird sound?**
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BUT having just re-read the classic [Debriefing Facilitation Guide](https://extfiles.etsy.com/DebriefingFacilitationGuide.pdf?ref=paigerduty.com) for the full length version of What The Real Housewives Taught Me About Postmortems at [Conf42 SRE](https://www.conf42.com/sre2025?ref=paigerduty.com)...I realized in the moment it was important to 💖 **Remember to Look for Descriptions, Not Explanations** 💖
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so I stopped our runaway train of explanations with a deep breath "OK. Wait let's stop and describe what we each heard"
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which revealed that we both:
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- heard an unusual sound
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- agree it originated from above and behind us
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- were unsure if the source was external or internal
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- would describe it as a "thunk" followed by a sliding sound and then silence
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talking through the details, and with a calmer mind now that any immediate threats like a robber or something were pretty much ruled out, my brain had some space to think.
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it wasn't long before a possible cause hit me
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In the course of rearranging my office that afternoon I relocated the above awesome print of Women Welders in PDX which was affixed with poster putty (because I am loathe to put holes in the walls of a rental that I will in the near future need to spackle but I digress...). I recalled how earlier that print had fallen and my brilliant band-aid answer was to move it and then just press really hard so the putty knew I meant business and it better not fall down on the job again!!
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My partner and agreed this hunch definitely would account for the sliding sound PLUS my office is above/behind the living room so the location checked out.
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Lo and behold, partially obscured by my bookcase, was the print, innocently chilling on the floor, unaware of the entire investigation that had ensued.
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But wait! Why didn't this surface during the initial pass looking at my office?
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With the benefit of bright daylight, from this vantage point peeking into my office, I can see no trace of the fallen print! Plus that picture ^ above was *after* my partner had fished it out from behind the keyboards so it was completely hidden initially!
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Add in the pitch black of the evening, heightened paranoia thanks to the movie, and only relying on a small flashlight for the first sweep and its easy to understand how it got initially overlooked.
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Needless to say, now I really, really, *really* understand the power of descriptions over explanations!
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By stepping back and focusing on describing what we heard vs. jumping straight to explanations, we created space for actual discovery. The sliding sound, the location above *and* behind us, the timing—led us to the fallen print, while our rushed explanations only led us in a doom spiral.
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It's funny how the same principles that help us learn from incidents can also apply to solving little everyday mysteries.
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Next time you encounter something unexpected whether it's a production outage or a weird noise during movie night, give this approach a spin. Pause, describe what you're observing rather than explaining it away or catastrophizing, and let understanding emerge naturally from those descriptions.
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Your investigations (and your stress levels) will thank you for it!
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## CAT TAX
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## Comments
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