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christopherj comments on Ask and Guess - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've always preferred an ask culture for its efficiency. However, as Yavin pointed out, someone in a position of authority or influence can't expect to ask with no consequence because people aren't free to refuse. I'd expect a boss to understand that, but if you're a guest of someone from a hospitality culture, you might have trouble because the rules of hospitality mean that if you give the slightest indication of a desire or preference, they're obligated to fulfill it. Unfortunately, this means that the more "hospitable" someone is, the less comfortable I am as their guest because I have to make sure I don't accidentally demand things I don't especially care about or even don't want.
Does anyone know how to safely express desires or preferences, especially when they are implicit in a question, in a guess culture?
This is one of those contexts in which it helps to understand that "Guess" culture is a very Ask-culture way of describing Hint culture. As a guest/subordinate in a Hint culture you don't express desires or preferences unsolicited. It's the responsibility of the host/boss to indirectly convey to you what the range of appropriate choices are, and you select from those. (Which of course requires being able to recognize that this is what's going on in the first place.)
Hinting is just ambiguous and inefficient asking. If you don't believe that, try ignoring the hints and see if they get mad.
Yes, a hint is an ambiguous request, agreed.
As to whether it's efficient or not, that depends a lot on what outputs we're measuring.
Ambiguity is often valuable.