You Say Toh-may-to, I Say Tah-mah-to
People can get so caught up in doing things a certain way. It’s important to remember that there are many methods of doing things. And as freelancers, it’s equally as vital to be kind when explaining your school of thought. After all, you represent your business now, so it’s imperative to stay professional.
Whether you use a specific program to develop websites, or you like to use a certain format when writing a document, there is likely more than one way to do it. I find many freelancers like to discuss the different strategies they use to work—but some can be a little too gruff and pushy when promoting their method. Others can get very defensive when someone offers a different suggestion.
Case in point: I recently bumped into someone online who posted information on how to write cover letters. Incidentally, I do some freelance work for the largest resume and cover letter writing service, so when I heard her say that one format was especially effective, I voiced my opinion and told her that I didn’t find it as beneficial. I didn’t want to step on toes; just wanted to offer another school of thought. After all, she had opened it up for discussion on Twitter. People write back in 140 characters or less. That’s kind of how it works.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have wasted my time writing to her, but I didn’t consider it a waste of time to make connections with other resume writers. I like befriending others in my industry. It wasn’t a waste of time until the woman lashed back at me. Then I knew I could no longer be surrounded by her negativity.
Now airing our disagreement via Twitter, I knew I had to take the high road because other people could follow the banter and I didn’t want to get nasty like she had. She kept pressing back and forth with multiple posts to defend herself. I didn’t think she needed to; we all have different ways of doing things, and there was nothing she could do to bring me over to her “side.” She liked her format and I had no intention of stopping her from using it. Instead, I simply reminded her that we’re all entitled to our opinions.
It was hard to be polite. Hard not to lash back and tell her she was being too forceful and that I would never hire a resume writer like that. But I didn’t.
The whole thing reminded me how important it is to present your opinions—and not get rude when people don’t agree with them. I’ve seen this happen with many people who like to debate over which program to design in. I’ve seen writers argue over what to say in query letters. Many creative freelancers get so caught up in the debate that they forget that they’ve engaged contact to learn from each other, or simply to start conversation.
Point is, there are guidelines to follow when doing things and we all make choices on how we implement projects. Some ways are effective and others aren’t; but I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to be forceful or impolite because someone doesn’t do things the way you do. If you’ve got an open mind and can learn from the opinions of others…great! If not, that’s okay too. If you’re putting out your school of thought, simply put it out there—you don’t have to convince anyone else that it’s the only way to go.
And most of all, remember that age-old saying about a cup of sugar being sweeter than salt—it’s true. Even on your favorite freelancing forum. And yes, even on Twitter.
Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and author living at the Jersey Shore. Check out www.ramenrentresumes.com to learn more about her book, “Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life.”
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So true. I do a lot of work with web developers, and as a not-quite-so-technical person I’m amazed at the ferocity of the arguments they get into about different methods that in the end seem to produce the same result. But then I catch myself disagreeing just as vehemently with another writer when, if I stop to think about it, their way is as valid and effective as mine. A bit of humility and openness goes a long way.
Well the internet is a real beast, there are many people who can’t take a comment, winning/losing or simply having a discussion without being totally pissed and pushing other people around. Most of those people would never do it offline, but with the anonymity the web offers, a lot of people forget their manners in front of a screen. It’s like yelling/honking at that driver who annoyed you. You simply forget there is a human on the other side, having his own reasons for talking. It’s usually not worth conversating with those people, just leave them alone.
No one’s entitled to their opinion. You can hold a wrong or incorrect opinion if you like but you’re still wrong or incorrect.
In this case, to judge the effectiveness of the resume, you have different criteria/metrics that can be selected and applied to define what exactly “effective” means.
It doesn’t even matter if your idea or hers are any good, a discussion is being encouraged which means accepting ideas of any form and then, in a nice and constructive way, figuring out which ideas are worth more study.
Ridiculous how some people get defensive about their ideas.
While I agree with your premise–that different paths are just fine and there’s no need for a win or lose–I’m not so sure that rehashing your public argument in another public spot is a good idea. It seems (I may be wrong) that you’re looking for another outlet to say “I was right!”
And I don’t blame you, since choosing NOT to argue is really hard and you NEED an outlet afterward!
Yep. Sometimes the best thing to do is just let it go…
Well said. I would add that the challenge is also to filter the opinions while staying true to yourself. Otherwise you never move forward. Everybody has different opinions about everything including how things should be done, look at religions…
When it comes to doing something, you have to pick and choose your battles and do that in a educated way, and I would say in a self-critical way.
From the Mac vs PC argument to different applications, the near fanatical fervor with which people defend and argue for what are merely tools or methods always amuses me slightly.
I suppose I can kind of understand a defensive reaction based on your explanation of the situation. This individual was basically pushing the concept that ‘method x is good’ – not with any particular agenda but to try and help. Your response was interpreted as ‘no, you’re wrong’ – and that very often will provoke a feeling of defensiveness. Twitter is an abrupt medium, so the kind of nuance of ‘well, I see what you’re saying about the advantages. Personally I haven’t found it that beneficial, I prefer to do x, y, z’ is definitely lost. So consider the abruptness of the medium, and perhaps taking into account that you’re a writer with a solid group of Twitter followers and a long history with a reasonably influential website like FreelanceSwitch, your response could actually be seen as quite intimidating.
That being said, clearly you tried to clarify matters, and they still remained overly defensive and couldn’t look at things objectively. That’s when people have to be self aware and take a step back – we’re talking about different tools here, we’re talking about methods of working, and really all that’s important is what works effectively for you as an individual. Becoming passionately and emotionally connected to that very clearly leads to inflexibility.
I don’t understand why some people have to be confrentational instead of just allowing there to be differences of opinion, but I agree you have to stay above it.
It could be thought of as rehashing but I think there’s a lesson to be learned, which is why I wrote the post. If you read most of my work here, it’s based on what’s happened to me as an individual.
Glad you like the post, guys and gals!
Excellent article, I completely agree with you. It’s a good reminder to not let our egos interfere with the purpose of what we are doing. I know the frustration you feel about getting this sort of reply.
I was on an announcement mailing list for a web script product I had purchased, to be notified of updates to the script. The original creator who sent out useful emails (mostly) sold the product to another developer, who did the occasional new release, but mostly used the list to promote things he was selling or promoting as an affiliate. It got really annoying, so I unsubscribed and actually took the time to fill in the feedback box to let him know why I unsubscribed.
Well, he turned it into an argument going so far as to look back at the emails I had (allegedly) received from him and arguing that the percentage of promotions was no where near what I had said. Since I had all the emails from him in my gmail account I did my own search and discovered that I had never received most of the emails he sent about updates to the script… he had said that I “hadn’t bothered” to download the two latest updates – well turns out it was because I hadn’t received the notifications. He argued that one email was informational – in my opinion it was a thinly disguised promotion, it wasn’t informational at all.
It’s the way he worded things that really bothered me too, in an accusing tone. Don’t forget, I was a customer… I had bought this script from his predecessor but I’d also bought one of his add-on scripts, and was considering buying another (he lost that sale, and all future sales on products by his behavior). But not only that, I’ll never promote the fine product he now owns the rights to.
At the end of the day, I was only able to supply feedback because he ticked that box in his aweber account for that mailing list. But he didn’t actually want feedback… he let his ego take over and turned a customer, prospect, and affiliate into someone who won’t promote his product even though I get a 100% commission for doing so. Hmm, job well-done. NOT!
Suffice it to say, I cannot stress enough the importance of what you are saying in this article. As freelancers, we ARE our business. We have to act professionally, forgetting that, especially on the Internet, can cost you money… lost business… it’s just not worth it.
One real problem being discussed here is that some people take certain subject matter as intensely personal to them. When you adopt a view contrary to theirs, they interpret it as an actual attack on their reason for being.
Paul Graham had a terrific essay on this issue recently: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html He analyzes why political and religious debates devolve into personal attacks, and he sums it up this way: “…people can never have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of their identity. By definition they’re partisan.”
I think that the typical techie war topics like Win vs Mac vs Linux, FOSS vs commercial software, as well as many topics having to do with how you make a living, are equally “loaded.” Techies tend to brand themselves “Windows developers” and the like. So those discussions are always emotional.
I believe that this “taking of things personally” is also a function of age, experience, and the college of hard knocks. When you’re young you haven’t been knocked down enough to really get p*ssed seriously about anything for very long.
Put another way, you haven’t been screwed yet too badly. And some people who get older get very humorless. Example: I belong to a professional freelance writer’s list. The ones there who go ballistic (in kind of a controlled way) when some subject matter steps on their toes tend to be very experienced, and actually quite expert types – who really should know better. So you don’t get logical counterpoints from this type, you instead get a bombastic and lengthy attack directed against the intelligence of the person who posed the question to begin with. And there are several on that list who do this. Basically, I will rarely post a question there now that I have figured out the dynamics.
Basically, people are too darned touchy and tense these days. Someone always seems to have bile about *some* issue, and you never know who or what it will be.
Great post Kristen,
I am not so much experienced but I found the topic you discussed here interesting and important also.
Thanks for the post.