How the hell do I understand want people want???

I listen to them, I pay attention to them (for the most part), but for the most part when someone assigns me something but it is not clearly explained, they expect me know what to do.

I had the most unproductive meeting with this guy I work for because of this... he had a problem, so we worked on ideas for this solution, and I thought I knew exactly what he wanted. We were getting somewhere. I get ready to leave for lunch and it turns out that is not at all what he wanted. We're back to square one.

Is it me, or are people really bad at explaining things?

Being able to decipher what women..err humans mean on level with a FBI interrogator is one or the hidden requirements of the programmer job titles.

yes. people do not understand their own intrinsic motives.

if they did, everyone would be a designer.

This is the software industry. Bad communication is a thing. Also you can't blame women for is one when it's basically a sausage fest here man.

@Salamander it seems like it's not just the software industry. I feel like i have a hard time understanding people in general.

Me too man. But people also suck at communication. It's the Curse of Knowledge bias - people assume that once they know something it's obvious for everyone else.

But people are also insecure, we don't like those detailed questions that expose ignorance. But devs and I guess testers gotta ask those questions rather than make assumptions. It's surprising how often "the obvious" was actually not.
Ask those questions questions, man. Listen to that niggly voice.

Can often lead to people either thinking we don't know shit or we're being condescending, but in my experience assumptions are the parent of all fuck ups.

However there is the problem of things not being explained properly. This is what systems analysts are supposed to figure out. And people like project managers and scrum masters are supposed to ensure the right people talk to each other.

Ideally it takes a whole team of people to make a project go, including experienced architectural leads.

Communication dependencies.