Please fix the issue I have but am not going to tell you about

Do you guys get this?  "Pinch, I see four errors in the document you sent.  Can you please fix and send me an updated copy"  or "I see a lot of terms that would be used differently in the UK, please revise and resend" or even "I don't like the way this sounds, can you re-work."   I get this type of feedback all the time and NEVER with any input.  WHAT errors did you see?  If I knew what they were, I would have fixed them already you dolt!  And how do I know how things are spelled in Liverpool, YOU live there not me!  OK, you don't like it, that's fine.  I can change it, but WHAT don't you like? The tone, the subject, the point-of-view, GIVE ME SOMETHING!!!!

I swear people are getting lazier, stupider or both. (and before you say it, Stupider is grammatically correct, it is a real word, and it’s been in use for at least the last two hundred years! ) 

There are some pretty common USA vs UK spelling differences, Gray vs Grey, Color vs Colour (and many other similarly spelled words). 

But the people reviewing my documentation are either other professional Tech Writers or Devs/QA or Product Managers that understand what is expected feedback for a review. 

The only thing you can really do is coach them on how to properly review and provide feedback. If they continue to not do so, stonewall them with, "I need X feedback before I can sign off on Y."

I fear that I might not last too long in your place of employment.  My first reply would be to request clarification of the errors they saw.  If there was no reply to that, they would get exactly the same document sent repeatedly until the earth cools and the human race is gone.

Valuable lesson taught to me as I struggled with language idiosyncrasies when I lived in Nigeria.

Local guy taught me "Listen to what I mean". Been applying that golden rule ever since.

Long as I know what you want or need, I wont get into how you got the message across. I get so tired of people on a team chipping in any verbal diarrhea that occurs to them, just so that they feel they contributed.

pinchvalve said:

... Which errors did you see? ...

FTFY 

I'm not sure of the circumstances you're dealing with, but the response you received would be pretty standard in my profession.  If one were to ask for clarification, the response would likely be "If I have to show you the errors, I may as well correct them myself.  And if I have to do it myself, why am I paying you to work here?"    Hopefully that doesn't come off as too snotty. 

I've been where you are; many times.  I write a lot for my job and it has to be legally defensible, precise, and accurate.  Often I will need some direction, particularly when I'm finishing a project someone else started.  I usually preface my questions with a "highlight the necessary revisions so I can get this back to you ASAP".  I'm flattered that my employer always thinks I know what I'm doing, but I'm not a lawyer and many times I'm just sprinkling English Lit. dust on my best guess.  My current boss is nice enough to offer at least a hint when I get stumped.

The guessing game would drive me nuts. It’s the business equivalent of your wife saying “do you know what today is?”

Apparently I’m too nice when reviewing documents.

Since they are typically written in MS Word, I just turn on track changes and mark it up. 

I send the docs back with the wording I want to see and the corrections I am suggesting so it’s not a guessing game, and can be cleared up in the first round of edits.  

If they agree with the proposed changes they can just accept them and move on, no  

I used to see this doing drunk driving trials.  Laying the foundation for admitting a breath test requires asking about 36 questions.  One particular attorney always thought it was cute to just say "objection, foundation" when the prosecutor moved for admission.  The solution was to look directly at the jury, while talking to the judge, and say "Your honor, I've just asked and had answered 36 questions.  Now we can either go through all 36 again (they are excruciatingly boring), or Mr. XXXXXXX can be specific as to which question he felt generated an insufficient answer and this court can make a ruling." 

The application for you is to see if you can find an innocuous way to let the end user know how much time and effort is being wasted on something they probably don't care about in the first place. 

Pinch, get your red pen out, critique his request and send it back. 

I just get customers that want to go over a report but don't have an account number, the name it was registered under, the lab number or a tracking number. IT was "that sample you got last week". Never mind the fact that we receive 5-8k samples every. single. day. 

From the title I thought this thread would be about relationship problems

First thing to do would be to switch your word processor to British spellings when working with these people and always run a spellcheck before sending. Not many people still care about spelling, and perhaps even more regretfully, most of those who still do are getting pretty militant about it.

Second thing might be to create a set of regex expressions or grep scripts to replace Americanisms they don't like with Britishisms.

Third would be, if a document has run through the first two, to have a quick look for logical/content errors and if there's nothing obvious, just tell him that you don't know what errors he's talking about. Eventually he'll figure out that this takes more time and effort than pointing out the offending "errors" in the first place like a reasonable human being.

Fourth is to have a retort ready in case they get really frustrated and make some joke that you're a dumb American, because you know that's what they're thinking. I have one in mind that won't strike a decisive victory but it will at least level the playing field, it's political so PM me if you want it

I call that the "bring me a rock" game.

They say bring me a rock. You bring them a rock and they say, "no, that's not the rock I was looking for. Bring me a rock."

And the cycle repeats.

This usually applies to the person not really knowing what they are asking for or just cannot articlulate the idea in their head and not because of wording or simple things like that.

The American Revolution: An entire war fought to get rid of U, Britain.