I Don't Know

This is one phrase that I really dislike to hear.  It's not like I don't use them.  I only use them when I have tried my best and yet I still can't find the solution and so I wanted someone else for help and I said this.

When my girl started to use this phrase, I knew I have to stop it immediately.  Why?  Because I am married to a guy who used this too often.

Tell this phrase to a boss and you will get a poor appraisal.  Tell this phrase to a teacher and you will be reprimanded for not paying attention.

To me, this is a very irresponsible phrase.  It shows that you are not determine to know more, you don't care, you don't want to improve, you are lazy, you don't want to think, you want the easy way out, you act stupid and so on.

It's a very easy answer and it ends with a full stop or an exclamation mark.  And it ends just like that.

If the other party accepts this, then you will be off the hook.  No need to do more.

If the other party doesn't accept it, then you are in trouble.  Quarrel, disagreement, etc.

At work, if you keep telling 'I don't know' to any work that your superior tell you to do, you will probably end up no need to do anything and get a very poor KPI for not working harder and not going the distance to find out more.

I find nowadays too many children using this phrase so that they can shirk the responsibilities to find out more and depends on the teachers or parents to spoon feed them.

Let me digress a bit.  Few days back, I saw a boy about 5-6 years old playing games on his tablet in a restaurant during dinner.  As his hands were full holding the tablet, his father have to keep feeding him spoon by spoon.  While not everyone does that to their kids, I am appalled that this is how the new generation will be and I blamed it totally on the parents.

This is one phrase that really gets me.  Go to a Government department and hearing this sentence means you have to go somewhere else to find out more, even though you are at the right place.

So why I am telling all this now?  Yes I am frustrated.  I scolded my daughter when she used this on me.  When I asked her what she wants to do and she tell me, 'I don't know'.  This is nonsense!

My husband used this too often and we get into quarrels because I find this is just an excuse for him not to learn more, to do more and to correct what is wrong.

We have a school of guppies swimming in a small aquarium.  Everyday I will be feeding them and checking on them.  Few days back, I told my husband to change the water as it was getting cloudy.  The day after that, I checked on them and saw few fishes died and some have discolored.  Immediately I felt something is not right with the water.

When my husband came back from work, I asked him how he changed the water, whether it is any different from other times before and his answer was, "I don't know".   

What the heck is 'I don't know' when he was the one doing it?  All I was asking was the procedure to find out where go wrong so that we can save the remaining fishes.   He reluctantly answered and very loudly saying he did nothing wrong and he was just doing the same as before, etc, etc.  I scolded him.  He said I am interrogating him like he is the culprit.  I said I just want to investigate further.

So, you get the picture.  In the end, we found out that after my husband done the aquarium as before, my nephew added water with additional anti-chlorine in it and I think that it was a little too much.

But what is wrong with just telling me what I asked instead of shooting me a point blank answer, "I don't know", knowing full well that will riled me up further?

If you did something wrong, just admit it and change.  Yes, you may get reprimanded for the mistake but heck, don't do it again.  

Now, I don't know when is the best time to use this phrase.  I hope it's when someone have done their research, gave their full cooperation and given their best to answer.  In other words, when you have used your brains to figure out and still can't get the answer.