Short answer: because no one bothers (or has been taught) to think any more.

Most people are overstimulated, overwhelmed, distracted, anxious, and have subpar executive functioning these days. Too much noise, too many lights, too many crowds, too many distractions with emails, instant messages from coworkers, our own phones making us want to look at a new thing every 15 seconds, exposure to too many scary stories on the news affecting our mood and concentration, etc. I read that a recent study found that in this hyperstimulated society, almost no one they studied in an office environment was able to concentrate on a work task for over three minutes at a time.

I also think there’s been a sort of… slippage… in our language in recent years. Maybe it has to do with getting used to using a lot of abbreviations because of texting and instant message, but it seems like almost everyone has a problem being clear and not being overly vague. “Why can’t people use nouns? Everything is ‘that thing over there!'” I’ve seen one internet acquaintance complain. It’s also much easier to make ourselves understood through in-person communication than any other method because we’re picking up so many cues we’re barely conscious of (I recently read Matthias Desmet’s book that went into this a bit, it’s really fascinating) and communicating in real time with no disruption due to poor signal, audio quality, etc. As we become more reliant on remote methods of communication, I expect the quality of communication to continue dropping.

Management is also terrible in a lot of places. Maybe even most of them. Leadership is a skill that must be learned over time. People are often promoted to supervisory roles without developing necessary leadership skills (a common example of the Peter Principle). Many people are poorly trained. And they’re poorly trained by people who mean well. And they mean well themselves, but they don’t even understand what competencies they’re supposed to have. Hey, maybe your person was just a fool or just didn’t care no matter what her level of training was but this is a real society-wide issue.

I will foolishly rise to the bait:

“If they didn’t know her and they had some sense, they’d have assumed she smoked and been surprised if you offered she didn’t.”

I didn’t offer — asking the question was (96.6257283% of the time) their first response to the news she had lung cancer.

“If they did know her, they would have expressed surprise because they knew she did not smoke or they had never seen her smoke.”

Maybe, but it was never the case that I was the one to tell people who knew her well (she was the wife of a friend, I didn’t know her friends or coworkers separately).

“And if they didn’t know her well, why are they probing her husband? Who does that?”

Everyone! That was my point. “My wife/T’s wife has stage four lung cancer.” “Oh, did she smoke?”

“Of course, if you smoke for period of time, you remain at an elevated risk of lung cancer for decades after you quit (a risk with is a function of your cigarette consumption in pack-years). Ditto emphysema.”

This woman never smoked. She was a health nut who ran the Marine Corps marathon the year before her death.

My point was that rather than first expressing any sympathy whatsoever with her condition, the immediate response was to confirm that she must have deserved it.

I brought up her case as analogous to Kate’s mother’s plight as non-alcoholic with cirrhosis. Like Kate’s mother, in addition to a cruel and fatal disease, she had to fight the presumption that she brought it on herself.

(Of course, the query in itself is not offensive — anyone would have the same curiosity, it’s more a matter of tact).

My original example of my friend at the clinic was in some ways quite the reverse: her cancer was almost certainly brought on by her smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. But the smoking lecture when it was by any measure too late was gratuitously unkind.

Yeah, thank goodness for today’s cell phone memory, and caller ID.
Sometimes people call me and never give their name, which I’m supposed to recognize either from the voicemail or context of the message.
Hah.
Back in the Dark Ages, when we actually answered the phone, some would just start talking without introducing themselves at the beginning.
AesopSpouse hung up on his own grandmother once for that.

We have trained ourselves, hopefully our kids, and anyone we had supervisory power over to say each digit slowly and clearly, and repeat it.

AesopSpouse (despite the other trailing-off habit) gives the number at the beginning and end, so someone replaying the message, because presumably they didn’t write it down, doesn’t have to listen to the entire spiel twice.

I’m married to one. Often, he has turned away, so I miss the last part. And he decides to reword the whole thing. All I wanted was the last fragment!”

Your spouse and mine: twins separated at birth.
Although at least you GET a last fragment — AesopSpouse delivers the first half of a sentence that clearly has a second segment, and about 3 minutes later I finally ask him to finish it.

I’m betting on wiring. The world is divided into two kinds of people: (1) those who think the way I do (ask questions – why is this made that way? where does that door go? etc; find out what’s going on without waiting for someone to tell you; keep things organized instead of just dropping them randomly around the house or office); and (2) those who don’t.

The two groups have vastly different life histories, employment, family situations, etc., so I think it has to be an innate personality type (SEPARATE from the MBTI).

The other two kinds of people are (1) those who can extrapolate from incomplete information.