2

I'm familiar with the expression "barking up the wrong tree" but it means "complaining about something to/with the wrong person". I'm looking for a generalization of that, i.e. "doing X to the wrong item of a set S".

Real-world example (as a software developer): while trying to fix a problem on a program I change a file A, re-run the program, and see that the problem is still there. After considerable amount of time figuring out why nothing happens, including doing more and more changes to that file, I realize that that file was not involved at all in the problem and I should have done my changes on a file B, similar to A, that I didn't notice in the first place.

On a small variation of the above, my changes of A would be ineffective because I forgot to do an intermediate step required to apply those changes to the program, like upload A to a server or compile the program.

My colleague called this a "I'm not so smart" effect, but I'm looking for something more specific :)

Improve this question
8
  • 1
    Who is your audience. I imagine the wording would be quite different if you are discussing this in a performance evaluation, compared with chatting about it at the pub with colleagues.
    – James K
    Commented Mar 26 at 15:22
  • 1
    Barking up the wrong tree is a cliche that means you are looking for something in the wrong place, or be wrong about the reason for something. "She thinks optimising the database will fix the performance problems, but she's barking up the wrong tree. She needs to look at the network code."
    – James K
    Commented Mar 26 at 15:25
  • @JamesK - yes. barking up the wrong tree is not just (or even very often) about complaining. I remember a girl who wanted to date my cousin Jeremy and she was definitely barking up the wrong tree, him being into musical theatre and all.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 26 at 15:51
  • We would use the folksy phrase You put the cart before the horse. This means that you did not complete the necessary steps in the correct order to effect your change.
    – EllieK
    Commented Mar 26 at 20:13
  • Is this related to 'the x-y problem'?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 28 at 21:22

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
1

You could say you have been banging your head against a wall, which indicates repeated attempts to do something that have been unsuccessful. It does imply that you think the action should be successful (otherwise you wouldn't keep trying), but doesn't exactly connote the idea of the right action being applied to the wrong thing (it could be instead that you're just doing the wrong thing over and over). In general, it indicates that multiple attempts have been made with no progress whatsoever, and that there's something fundamentally ineffectual about your approach to the problem.

Improve this answer
0

I don't know of a stock phrase for this idea. The closest I can think of is, "My efforts were misdirected". Or something more specific to the circumstances, like "I discovered I was working on the wrong file" or "I was looking in the wrong place". Just describe the issue.

Improve this answer
0

It's easy to mistake one thing for another when they're very similar and located in the same place, especially if you are not paying close attention or your attention is wandering.

An idiom for lack of attention or wandering attention is to be out-to-lunch. It means to be confused, absent-minded, unattentive, , that "your mind is somewhere else" (though some people use it to mean "ditzy", "scatterbrained, "wacko", "missing a few marbles","not all there").

I must have been out-to-lunch when I was making changes to the file and compiling it over and over and wondering why none of my changes were having any effect.

You must have thought I was really out-to-lunch when I kept making changes to the file and recompiling it and couldn't understand why none of my changes were having any effect.

Improve this answer
0

A few more which could apply depending on the circumstances:

"tilting at windmills"

"following a red herring"

...and of course the IT classic: PEBCAK

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .