Most of what we do as white-collar workers is help our organization come to a decision. What new geographies to sell our enterprise software and toothpaste in, what pricing to make our electric razors and cranes, which people to fire and which to promote, or how much budget is needed according to the new corporate strategy. Even in the most cynical corporate environment, asking questions — and getting answers! — is the best, primary way to set the stage for making a decision.

You have to be careful, however, of how many questions you ask, and on what topic. If you ask too many questions, you may find that you’ll just create more work for yourself. Before asking just any old question, ask yourself if you’re willing to do the work needed to answer it…because as the asker, you’ll often be tasked with doing that work. We see this in life all the time, you ask someone “want to go to lunch?” and next thing you know, you’re researching in all the restaurants within five miles that have gluten-free, vegan, and steak options.

I’ve seen countless “staffers” fall prey to this in meetings with managers who’re putting together plans and strategies. The meeting has spent about 30 minutes coming up with a pretty good plan, and then an eager staffer pipes up and suggests 1–3 other options. The manager is intrigued! Quickly, that staffer is asked to research these other options, but, you know, the Big Meeting is on Monday, so can you send me a memo by Sunday morning?

In some situations, this is fine and expected. But in others, conniving management will just use up as much as your energy as possible: it’s always better to have done more research, so why not let that eager staffer blow-up their Saturday to have more back-up slides? Co-workers can also let you self-assign homework into burnout if they find you annoying: you’ll notice that when you, the eager staffer, pipe up, they go suddenly quiet and add no input.

As always, you have to figure out your corporate culture. But, just make sure that before you offer up alternatives and otherwise start asking The Big Questions, you’re read to back up those questions by doing the extra homework to answering them yourself.