Thanks for this. Went and read the whole thing and it’s beautiful!

I’ve had this happen quite a few times to me, and I’ve come to the best question for this.

“Do you want to just vent or would you like advice?”

Some people just need to get it off their chest and talk to something, IT professionals call this The Rubber Duck Effect, helps them work through the problem by explaining it to someone else. Asking if they’d like advice or just vent lets you know what kinds of questions to ask. You do still need to be listening but hopefully this helps!