A Message I Never Expected

 At one of my full-time gigs, I had issues with a co-worker. They presented as terse at best and unpleasant at worst (their words, not mine -- more on that later), and we butted heads often. 

I also had to collaborate with them on a routine basis in a small team, so there was no getting around it. I made the best of what I could, added value where possible, and kept telling myself the only thing you can tell yourself -- that it is not your fault or problem, and that problems like this are not eternal.

What I also told myself was that management at the gig was not capable or willing to fix the issue, and that it was not something I could solve myself. So just live with it. They were paying me, after all.

My co-worker and I had some ups and downs. Mostly downs. When the gig ended with a loss of funding and waves of people taking their stuff to their cars in boxes (start ups are like that sometimes), I took the troublesome co-worker off my first party LinkedIn list and thought, well, that’s a small benefit from an unfortunate ending.

I did not have to associate with them anymore. If I thought about them, I could and should stop. And when I did think of them, it was not with an abundance of kindness. They share a name with a local road, so I have thought of them more often than I wanted to.

A week ago, I was running an errand for a colleague and waiting for them to come back to the car. LinkedIn pops up with a message – and it’s from the old co-worker. They had moved on to a healthier work environment, and the change in settings had led them to do some soul-searching and reach out to me over the past difficulties. It was not an over-the-top apology, but it really did not have to be.

They did not have to do this. All of that water was under the bridge many years ago. We are not likely to meet again, nor work at the same company. I do not intend to use them as a reference, nor they with me. It was just something that was eating at them, so they had the courage to reach out and own the behavior. When they did, I realized it was eating at me, too.

I can not tell you how much better this email has made the last week.

When you work in a place with poor management, it really can seep in and do real damage to your confidence and performance -- and to your colleagues. Demeaning, undermining, quibbling and belittling is contagious. It can also often create work that is in the “turtle” position, and that is not work you are going to be proud of later. Overcoming the feelings of dread at work, or proactively pulling your punches because you are just walking on eggshells, is no way to work or live.

Neither is having omniscience as to why someone is not getting along with you, or that the situation will never go to a better place later.

You have to have hope. 

Thanks to my new friend’s courage and conscience, I can now look at any coworker, past, present or future, and think it might be just like this situation later.

What a gift, really!

The New Epidemic Opportunity: TL/DR

Recently, a client asked why a colleague's email newsletter went to a junk folder.

I don’t want to get into the e-mail nerdery on this, but unanswered questions are torture, at least for me. So, here’s why in the next paragraph. Feel free to skip, even though we’re getting pretty meta (note: Not Meta) to do that. More later.

There are many possible reasons why an email will junk, from inbox levels to subscriber use to throttling and bounce rates. The bigger problem is that diagnostics at individual levels are far from exact, because ISPs want to keep this kind of thing secret from would-be spammers. If it’s 100% clear why something junks, that junk filtration method is nearly immediately worthless. So, there is almost no way to definitively know the reason an email junks, and it may even be more than one reason. Moving on.

The bigger point for me was that we had been here before. We had also taken steps to help everyone avoid this, by putting the sender on a “whitelist” and changing their settings at the inbox level. Individual users can prevent junking, and the directions weren’t even particularly hard.

They had also been publicized. For about three months, every email we had sent out went out with a PS, and there was even a dedicated email for just this subject on its own. The person who reported the junking has been at the client’s employ during all of this.

So, the most likely scenario is that user never took the steps to prevent the junking. It’s possible, of course, that there was a breakthrough case, and there is nothing gained from impugning the motive of a client. But the overall performance of the email in question was in line with recent flights, so the chance of some seismic act to cause junking seems minimal.

What seems most likely is that the user simply did not read that email, or the other emails. Because TL/DR. Which may be even more endemic than Covid right now, and hopefully, not just when I write something to someone.

I totally get why. Jobs are always on, emails and meetings are never ending, and many employers are cutting corners while having a tough time filling positions (there may be a clue here). Sweating the details has never been harder. I’ve started sprinkling text messages with non sequiturs on personal channels, just as a periodic check to see if people are reading. It’s good intel because it tells you who you will need to follow up with offline. (Also, fish ride bicycles because meta not Meta references are impossible to resist.)

As with every crisis, there is good news to this. Sweating the details has always been a competitive advantage. It is also now becoming increasingly lucrative.

Another client (a more lucrative one, by the way – there may be a clue here) has brought us on for a variety of tasks. Among them is combing through their data to find insights, not just from tests, but usage.

This is not work that is usually in our wheelhouse, or something we have as much experience in doing. Career analytic professionals in our past might scoff at our jerry-rigged confidence level calculations, or raise valid objections that, well, often activate our own urge to TL/DR. We are copy writers and creative professionals who are not scared of math, not mathematicians with a creative edge.

But that is not what this client is paying for.

So, if you can lean into it, embrace the details and read all the way through, without getting distracted in our pandemic of distraction?

You might just add value. A lot of it. For you, and your client.

From something that it seems like anyone could do, but won’t.

The Key To A Better New Year

 

One More Time With Feeling

A few weeks ago, a junior colleague came to me with a mental health concern. They were overwhelmed by the number of tasks in front of them, in both their personal and professional lives, and felt as if they were letting everyone down. 

I was able to give comfort and practical advice through an old productivity trick, which is to give myself five minutes to make a list of what I had to do, then five minutes to prioritize it. When the 10 minutes are up, I make myself do something -- anything -- from that list. This gives me the positive boost from getting something done, and puts me in a better place to keep moving on to other tasks, rather than getting stuck. 

I also tend to do things like schedule workouts and cleaning chores as a calendar event, which has the necessary element of knowing when such things will end, rather than putting me in a position of obsessing over a small point no one else will notice. But that's not the point of the post.

My list trick worked as a strategy, and the colleague thanked me later. But as a subsequent event shows, giving advice and acting on it are two different activities.

I was listening to an executive client talk about the amazing year their company had, the opportunities they saw moving forward, and in nearly the same breadth, being responsible to the mental health challenges of teammates. This was all happening in virtual space only, unlike what was planned previously, because of the Omicron outbreak, which the executive also noted.

This client also has previously negotiated on price (in 2021, during the seeming boom times) when M&AD did not have leverage to do much other than take the new reality. We've since diversified income with clients that are paying our preferred rate, which is always the right idea in the long term, but never fun in the short.

Hearing these points delivered by this client in this fashion generated heat in me personally, which... well, had to be overcome if we are going to continue in the relationship. (Spoiler alert: we will). Saying cognitively dissonant things in rapid succession is not evidence of hypocrisy or bad faith. Correlation is not causality, and taking things personally in business is rarely a great idea. 

But with my issues with my client and my junior colleague's concern, what was really needed is clear. Put on your own mental blinders, focus on the work and what you can do, and keep moving. Diversifying the income is hard enough. Doing it while hamstringing yourself is just good money after bad. (FYI in case you have needs: we are not at full bandwidth, so by all means, get in touch.)

Something to keep in mind as case counts mount, and as others lose focus around you.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Our best to you and yours in what will be a Better New Year.