Deciphering ‘ask’ vs ‘guess’ culture

Got an instant aha moment from this article by Jean Hsu on Medium:

Western society is very much ask culture. A classic example can be found in proverbs. “A squeaky wheel gets the grease” is an American proverb, enforcing the ideas of individualism and that asking for what you want will benefit you.

After a story about a family event, she wrapped up with this:

This is guess culture — and it’s a lot of saying not really what you actually want, and it’s a lot of reading between the lines to try to figure out what people want.

It all rang too true to me. There’s a pivot in the piece to the working world, which is obviously a strong ask culture (and she has a follow-up piece. I’ve had to do a lot of work and stretch myself to function in an ask-culture society.