Where I give thanks to everyone who told me I'm kinda terrible at my job

...And that's not how you play a guitar

Hello Gobbledeers,

I hope you had a great week off - I was at a work conference thingy in Orlando and didn’t have time to devote to mocking questionable marketing strategies. But I have time now!

Oh but first, since it’s Thanksgiving I did want to truly give thanks to all of you for reading this week after week (except for last week, and the other weeks where I didn’t write anything…you get no thanks for those weeks). And thanks for sharing this - I’m always amazed people tell other people about Gobbledy.

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Last week I had lunch with someone I used to work for, who is delightful and who is one of those people who’s had an outsized impact on my professional life.

We were having the “kids these days” conversation about some of her younger co-workers and her mild surprise at the professional skills they possessed (or in this particular case, didn’t possess) when they were hired. I made me think about my own early career and my level of preparation for work life.

Some of us (for example, me) started our careers at large companies (in my case, Deloitte Consulting) where they spent a significant chunk of time (including 2 full weeks when we started) telling us about the expectations they had for us regarding our work. In my case, some of this was inter-personal stuff, some was about the quality of work expected, some was about how we carry ourselves around clients. Much of this stuck with me (for a long time it stuck with me in the sense of “I’m behaving the opposite of how those Deloitte people beat into me that I should behave,” but it stuck with me nonetheless.)

Others of us started work in startup land, where you were lucky to be told anything at all when you arrived. You may have been thrown into the deep end of the (metaphorical) pool where the culture could be summed up as “go go go go go go go.” There were no expectations beyond “did you produce?” I think this is sometimes misconstrued as “kids these days don’t know how to work” when the reality is “kids these days [at least those who started in non-corporate environments] have a very different set of skills.” Not better, not worse, different.

A while back I had heard someone say something at a conference on this very subject, which I will pass along now:

As managers of employees who are still in the earlier stages of their career (though this holds true for later-career employees, too), we OWE it to them to be clear about our expectations for both the quality of work and how that work is done. It is a shortcoming of the manager - not the employee - if work is not up to par or contains mistakes or looks like garbage. We OWE it to our team to be brutally honest with our feedback.

I’m bringing this up because it came up twice in the past week:

• I was at a memorial for my wife’s cousin’s husband’s mother (I was just going to say “my cousin’s mother,” but I’m always completely honest with my Gobbledy readers, and I’m actually very close with my wife’s cousin’s husband and it’s funny that there’s no word for my relationship with that person. That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. I apologize for the diversion.) Anyway, I was at her memorial - she was a film professor and the event was a viewing of a film she wrote followed by some of her students telling stories about her. A former student stood up and said, “When I started meeting with [the professor] I had my head so far up my own ass about my writing. She was brutally honest with me about the quality of my work. It hurt. But I’m a better screenwriter for it.”

• I told my ex-boss at the lunch last week how much impact it had on me that she had been so specific and consistent in her feedback about my writing. I’m not sure I had my head up my own ass (about this, in particular, though certainly I did - and do! - about many other things), but my writing lacked a sense of voice and a sense of ownership - in short, it lacked conviction. She fixed that. A couple of days later I had a call with someone who, coincidentally, also worked for my ex-boss. I mentioned my lunch, and this woman said, “Oh man - she was the first person to ever rip apart my writing. I’m such a better writer now.” And we reminisced about how shocking it is to have someone shit on something you wrote. And, with hindsight, how much it meant.

Among my many foibles, I’m a pretty non-confrontational guy. As a different co-worker once said to me, “you are a pleaser.” She did not mean that in a good way. And with that, I’ve been absolutely horrible about giving difficult feedback, even around writing (a subject I’m comfortable discussing).

I’m bringing this up because it hit me that likely every single thing I’ve ever called out in Gobbledy was not the fault of the writer, it was the fault of the writer’s boss. Or the writer’s first boss. Or the writer’s second boss. Or all of them. Nobody told the writer that “capitalizing on new revenue opportunities and unlocking enterprise-wide data to drive profitable growth” is garbage. Why wouldn’t a writer keep writing that way if nobody told them otherwise?

I think we remember the professors and people we worked for who were hardest on us - because being told we’re amazing is a great sugar high. Being told we can improve - and how to do it - makes an impact for years. Although it can hurt, getting your head removed from your own ass pays off over time. I’m sure of it.

So this Thanksgiving, thanks to everyone who kicked my ass (professionally). I wish there were more of you.

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Rock On

I’m obsessed with this photo. She’s rockin’ out like she’s familiar, conceptually, with rockin’ out. She’s playing the guitar with her right hand like it’s a bass guitar. And her left hand it on the neck, which is not how a guitar is played by anyone.

The joke, of course, is on all of us as the dress is sold out.

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Happy Thanksgiving!