A smart bear writes about how to talk to a technical person. Some of these points really hit home for me. When I’m with my friends, I get sarcasm, but in interactions where I don’t expect it, it often goes over my head. Also ambiguous pronouns are one of my biggest pet peeves both in technical and casual conversation. For instance, “My friend was talking to her boss, she said X”. Did your friend say X, or her boss?

Try to avoid using vague words like “one” or “it” to describe an issue. For example: *“When I opened the document, the content was askew. When I tried to print the document, the printer jammed up. It cannot blow up like that!” * In the last sentence of this example, are you complaining about the document or the printer? It’s not really clear. So I would repeat myself even at the risk of sounding redundant. It’s better to be redundant and clear than to leave the other person wondering.