Don’t be rude with devs (hello Mika)
A mysterious person named John posted that as a comment to a post about WordPress suffering from the inventors dilemma.
I replied ‘Hello John’ and added “(I’m sure many people feel I’m rude though I have no idea why John does.)”
From there on, many of my friends replied that I wasn’t rude. Or in the case of Brianna, when I said I was rude on occasion, she replied:
“on occasion” seems like the perfect amount to me.
When two people are passionate but have opposing views on a situation, one or the other is always ‘rude.’ This is just what it is. Rudeness is something that is very situational and subjective. We’re talking about a world where we put our hearts and souls on the line with our code or our problems and, sometimes, someone comes back and says “No” or “That’s the way it is” and they’re rightly annoyed.
This does not mean they were rude.
Except that it does.
I try very hard to be polite, especially to people doing me a favor or providing a service, and I try very hard to respect their time. I try to remember that just because someone is terse doesn’t mean they’re angry with me, they’re probably just trying to get through their day. I try to thank people (especially when I call in to anything insurance or travel related). I try to remember they’re people.
But I know that, when you’re talking to someone who has deep emotions, who feels a great amount of fire in their heart for something, the opposition or the speed-bump can be met with great ire and angst. The person who says ‘no,’ which frankly is my job many times, is the enemy. They’re against you because, clearly, they’re not for you.
Except that they’re not.
Am I rude? I’m sure that, on occasion, I come across to someone as rude. I’m sure that sometimes when I bang out a fast answer, my brusqueness is perceived as disrespectful. I’m sure that my unexpected replies feel like a breech of etiquette. And maybe sometimes they are. I don’t always phrase myself perfectly. I’m not patient enough all the time.
But I’m not a rude person. I’m always coming from a place where I’d like to help people and educate them. I’m generally a smiling, nice, person. When I’m not able to be that me, I shut myself up at home and read and write, I go for a run, I play ping pong, and I blow off steam. You will rarely see the angry, inconsiderate, insensitive, mean, me. That Mika exists, but she’s not allowed to come out and play. The closest you’ll get is if I feel the need to come to someone’s defense. Like calling my friends or coworkers vile names.
This doesn’t mean I’m a nice, wonderful, polite person. It just means I’m a person, like you. I’m sure I’m rude. I’m sure I’ve pissed people off. But unless I’ve told you so, it’s unlikely I’m actually being intentionally nasty to you. Maybe I was trying to be serious when you were being a little silly. Maybe I was silly when you needed serious. Communication issues happen. We should try to learn from then and move on.
When we’re thinking about a world that exists primarily in text, our communication woes become more important. The majority of my work with other people is in email, instant messages, and once in a while, video chat. But mostly it’s text. This means I cannot read your ‘tone’ easily. When I know someone well enough, I can hear their voice in my head. Like I read Otto’s email saying “Here’s the thing…” and I know his intonations. When I see Jan message that has “Hah!” in it, I know it’s the somewhat self-deprecating amusement of the universe. When I see James’ “Nooooo!” I know he’s making like Darth Vader. I bet I can even tell which face Jen’s making when her email consists of “Mika.” Sorry about that.
But these are people I know and work with. Figuring out which emotion is behind a sentence of “You’re not doing that right.” is hard. Was I mean? Was I terse? Was I frustrated? Was I brusque? Maybe I was just tossing that off as the shortest way to explain something. It’s hard to tell. And because it’s hard to tell, it makes the online world of open source development fraught with headaches.
The best advice I can give you is that if someone says “Can we start over?” to take them at face value and start over. It’s so very easy to go down the wrong path for too long that you get lost. Remember it’s okay to let go and start over.
Comments
4 responses to “Don’t Be Rude (Except When You’re Not)”
This was such a brilliant call to reflect, and so well written. Thanks, Mika, for the invitation to pause and consider.
Regarding your own track record, I can say from both personal experience, and also from the way I see you interacting with others on the DreamHost forums, that you are both incredibly helpful, and the master of self-deprecating humour when it comes to defusing angst and ire. I have always appreciated not only your help, but the way you give it. Thank you.
I have had experiences in the past few weeks with two other organizations that were very different, and while sometimes it’s easy to chalk it up to another having a bad day, this isn’t always so easy to traverse. One of the situations brought out the worst in me, and I was really ashamed that I bit back. You posting was a nice opportunity to bring things back into perspective.
Thanks again for the way you support your customers, and also for the personal value you continue to add through your own blog.
Sue.
@Sue Braiden: You know, you just really brightened my day saying that 🙂 It’s when I get customers like you who just … get it that I never regret leaving the bank for this world 🙂 🙂
Another bank expat? xD I started out in the head office of one of the biggest ones in Canada back 30+years ago, cobbling together spaghetti code on mainframes and bolting together the first atm’s. Cool start, but at the end of the day, it was just making rich men richer. I think most of my colleagues would have had an anurism trying to grok the open-source playground we have today.
WordPress is both intrinsically cool, and frustrating as hell. Thank heavens folks like you have the patience to keep the rest of us from launching small nuclear missiles when our 76 multi-author plugins don’t play nicely in the sandbox together (imagine that).
Seriously, thanks, Mika. You are a godsend.
Sue.
@Sue Braiden: On the other hand, when I look back at the insane strictures the bank had in order to make sure everything was in order, and then the number of times they would break their own policies to get things done… 🙄
There can be a happy medium, I think, but with all things it comes at a balance. When I look at WordPress’s major flaws, I see it as the combination of code and content. I mean, think about why editing menus is an editor level feature (answer: because menus are post types, and editors can edit posts…) and you remember why we go a little insane. There’s too much overlap between design in the DB and design in the files, so moving a theme, settings and all, between two servers requires moving the whole database, which becomes a nightmare with post versioning.
*sigh*