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A Most Vehement FlameI find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise. |
   
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Tuesday, September 9, 1997
I got flamed at work today.
Actually, to most people, the criticism I got would have seemed very mild. But it stung, because it was partly justified.
One of the things I am working on now is helping other people in the company get ready to use our product. An internal site that various people need to use for business functions didn't work. After various mail threads flying around, I tried to summarize the situation as I knew it. I sent this summary mail for review by the two people on my team that I thought could catch me in any errors. One replied, saying that what I had written looked fine. I didn't get a reply from the other; she was busy or the mail didn't get to her. But I was feeling pressured, so I sent the mail.
I got a phone call from the developer on the site. He seemed to find the tone of my mail arrogant. He said that a particular point in my mail was wrong. What had been reported as a problem wasn't a problem at all. No, they didn't need our help testing the site. He had a fixed version on a private server. They would support our product when it was publically released and not before.
Well! I was humiliated that one part of my mail was wrong. (And I should have waited to send the mail till the other person had signed off.) All I could to was apologize for the percieved tone of the mail. To say that I was merely the messenger would have been a weenie thing to do. After all, if they don't want our help and are convinced that their private version will solve all problems when we release, then great!
I do think my tolerance for raised voices and angry words may be lower than some peoples'. I remember being quite bothered by the father of a neighbor boy who would yell at him. Such things rarely, if ever, happened at our house! When teachers would lose control in elementary school, I was offended! It seemed very improper. Of course, it wasn't me they were yelling at, but I disapproved and was upset anyway.
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One of the things I am enjoying about working extra hours right now is eating dinner with some of the developers. Since I work in the CSG, there are many devs on the team that I don't know. Yesterday evening was one of my first experiences of a classic Microsoft phenomenon: a bunch of guys sitting around debating the merits of very expensive foreign cars, and talking about how you could save money if you went to the factory to pick one up, and was it even possible to get that model with a stick shift and the bigger engine? I mentioned that I thought my 1989 Taurus would probably see me through to the turn of the century.
Tonight the topic was computer games vs. dedicated game machines. At least that's better than politics!
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