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Eh, I think your co-founder has the wrong attitude here. I edit the copy all the time my co-founder writes. Sometimes I tell him, sometimes I just deploy if I'm
by zemaj 14y ago
Eh, I think your co-founder has the wrong attitude here. I edit the copy all the time my co-founder writes. Sometimes I tell him, sometimes I just deploy if I'm in the middle of pushing something out. Building startups is all about iteration. One person sees something from one point of view, the next sees it from another. As each person adds their improvements you get a much better final product - you wouldn't be changing it if you didn't see something wrong with it.
By the same token, I totally accept when the things I've spent hours pouring over get thrown out the door. We recently had a design review where someone said one of the elements I put hours into looked like a 3 year old had drawn it (they didn't know it was done by me, they thought it was outsourced). It was the kind of style I was going for, but that reaction made me realise it totally wasn't suitable for the site. I was a little hurt of-course, made a joke about it and brushed it off. We now have a completely new version of this page that's way better than my original vision.
Wrong response:
“You fucking trimmed my copy.”
“I don’t want to get mad but I sat there for FIVE HOURS crafting that yesterday, there’s a reason for every word.”
Right response:
“I see you changed my copy. What improvements were you trying to make? I felt point x,y,z were important and you left them out. If you were trying to make it shorter, here's a shorter version that includes the more important points.“
- thetabyte 14y agoThe less was less about the fact that he did change it, it was the fact that, by oversight, he changed it, and deployed it live without once discussing or even mentioning the changes, even after the fact. She was understanding of the change and we're working on a happy medium (just as you said we should), it was just a shock to find something she'd put so much effort into go live completely different than she expected. That kind of communication among founders is vital. -Jordan (1 of 5)
- dredmorbius 14y agoSure, communication helps and matters. His cofounder overreacted, and in a bad way. This isn't a healthy relationship.
- tspiteri 14y agoShe didn't overreact, she just sent him a private email. How is that unhealthy? Now if she felt frustrated by his behaviour and bottled it up, that would be unhealthy.
- dredmorbius 14y ago"Um, could we talk about your edits?"
- astrodust 14y agoYou know, I'll just go into the middle of your application and screw around with some of it. Delete a feature I don't like even if it causes a few tests to fail, tests I didn't even know you had. I'll also add a few CSS rules that break things on other pages. Who knew you were supposed to put those in particular files, or that you'd used those selectors for other purposes. Since I needed another database column, I added one to one of the central tables, locking the database and breaking a batch job that couldn't recover properly, leaving a messy clean-up job for you later. Oh, and I also just copied over the patches and rebooted the server to makes sure they were applied properly. Sorry about all the background processes that didn't restart properly because of the hard boot. That is what it feels like to a copywriter when you mess with their words.
- zemaj 14y agoWell my point wasn't about what it feels like, but the way the reaction was handled. I would never send an email that said "You fucking changed my CSS". It happens ALL the time to developers. In fact refactoring, telling each other what you think is wrong in the code and how to fix it is a core part of team software development. Nothing is ever perfect. You can't be that protective of any part of your product.
- astrodust 14y agoIf you're on a small team and can't say how you feel, especially when it's warranted, I'm not sure you're on the right team. In terms of efficiency, "You fucking changed my CSS" says a lot in just a few words. Once that's out of the way, you can always get on to the finer points of why that's a bad thing.
- rexreed 14y agoI understand that this blunt approach works in the short term, and maybe it's even effective. But trust me, do this for two years instead of just two weeks, and the team stops respecting or trusting each other. Each little verbal jab accumulates over time and deteriorates the working relationship. "Don't work with John or touch his stuff - he goes ape shit every time some little thing happens." There's a good saying that goes "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence / stupidity / misunderstanding" (the last word depending on your context). Basically, cursing someone out does not necessarily yield results over the long term when there is an underlying problem that can be solved in a more civil fashion.
- rwallace 14y agoThe person in question had been working stupid hours on a crazy deadline. She was probably at the end of her tether from stress and fatigue. That doesn't make her response the right one, but it does make the wrong response forgivable. Which of us can say we have never done likewise under such circumstances?