Do They CARE (That We're Happy)?
More stories from the belly of Corporate America
I wouldn’t call it mistake, necessarily.
Let’s go with “a less-than-ideal and longer-than-comfortable pit stop.”
You see, the situation had long since soured at the job where I’d been working for over half a decade. It was, let’s say, constitutionally untenable. To my constitution, at least. My favorite job ever had transformed from favorite to flagrantly awful— overnight, though in reality the change was probably more like the slow-boiling frogs of modern morality fable/myth. Nevermind that a) the frogs-in-gradually-boiling-water story is not actually factual, and b) the proverbial act of actually slowly boiling live frogs would inflict some heartlessly sadistic hurt on the frogs long before they ever boiled. Which, come to think of it, actually feels pretty spot-on for the state of this particular job just before I jumped ship.
I had tried to jump ship long before I actually jumped. For months, I interviewed anywhere I could. Got really close to 3-4 different jobs, one of which seemed like it was going to be automatic—home runs in every interview—until I had one final Zoom interview with the CMO and he apparently did not like me. I think the answer I fumbled (in his mind) was when he asked me about putting metrics to creative and brand, and I gave him a non-metrics-guy answer about guts and heart1. And another, where the creative team loved me but some VP of marketing guy who had worked at Nike bigtimed me by making me sit for an extra hour before finally deigning to meet with me for fewer than 7 minutes during which he, I imagine, read the tea leaves of my soul and knew my whole story.
So, failing but undaunted, I kept my feelers out for a good couple of years, biding my time at the devolving workplace.
When I finally found something concrete and got an actual offer, I gave my boss the customary two weeks’ notice. He came back and said, “(Marketing SVP) is hoping you can give us six months.” I tried to suppress the snark, I really did. I looked at my boss, squinted with a tight, knowing, closed-mouth smile, and, nodding, said, “You can tell (Marketing SVP) that I already gave her way more than six months.”
I will not tell you that it didn’t feel good to say that one. Because, hey, I can be petty on my worst days. And my fondness for unrealistic-but-snappy Aaron Sorkin dialogue means I’m happy when I can say something even near to the ballpark of Sorkin2-esque. More often than not, I fall into the George Costanza pile, where you think of the witty thing you could’ve said long after the opportunity to say such a thing has passed..
After months (years, really) of applications and interviews and near-hires, I finally punched my ticket out. The more punk rock move would’ve been to leave earlier, when things started getting bad, without already having something lined up, just a single middle finger raised to the sky whilst flipping a lit cigarette butt behind me, thus igniting the proverbial gasoline and the fancy sports car it’s leading to. But I’m not that guy. No, I’m anxious, a worrier. I want two parachutes, in case the first one malfunctions. I’m married. Four kids. A mortgage. Car payments. Orthodontics. Dance competitions. I don’t have the guts to just leap with no plan.
So I safely, un-punk-rock-like leapt to this job at another tech company in town. They wanted me to help them strengthen their brand, in particular their brand voice. That’s a thing I can do pretty well, I think. So, even knowing the job wasn’t a perfect fit, I accepted.
It was a massive relief, both to leave the devolving workplace and to refuel my corporate self-esteem that somewhere else might be interested in my talents.
One of my initial projects, during my first week there, was to create a bunch of online ads and emails and marketing stuff to announce that our company’s technology had won some big industry awards. There were some rather lane-narrowing restrictions (from the award-givers) that made it tricky to get really creative with the project, but I took the limitations in stride, determined to prove my value and team player-ship as quickly as I could.
When the senior marketing leadership came back with initial feedback, the basic consensus was a nervousness around “sounding too much like we’re pounding our chest.” I gently reasoned that, in some ways, that was exactly what we were doing, in telling people (prospects, customers, etc) about the awards we had won, and it might be worth getting over our discomfort. That how we did it is what made the difference. That there was a needle we could effectively thread and still not seem like arrogant gorillas. Their nervousness didn’t subside. If anything, they dug their heels in more. “We are not a chest-pounding brand,” they shouted (not really) in unison (kind of).
(“But we want everyone and their dog to know we won these awards!” they said, subtextually.)
Still determined to prove my value and team player-ship, I took their feedback back to the drawing board, spending some time with the idea of underplaying the fact that we had won some pretty important-in-the-industry awards. What’s the simplest, clearest, but still human-sounding way to tell people?
”We at (company) are happy to announce that, for the sixth straight year, we have been awarded (big award name) by (big award organization).”
That was the opening line of the email. Right to the point. Unemotional. Not trying too hard. Very little chest involved. Just the facts, right?
Within minutes, one of my peers had gone into the document and highlighted the word “happy” and commented, “DO THEY CARE THAT WE’RE HAPPY?”
Huh?
I couldn’t even process the comment at first. Was this person really pushing back on the wording “happy to announce”? As an insecure person who also believes in his own ideas, I’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) to take some time with feedback before responding. Easier, too, when it’s remote like this was. So I examined the comment, took some deep breaths, took a lap around the office to get a drink, tried to consider it from her point of view, give her the benefit of the doubt. Another deep breath.
”It’s just a conversational way of talking” I eventually replied in the doc, “It helps us come off as more personable.”
”I STILL DON’T THINK THEY CARE.”
OK, I thought, nearly spraining my retina as I rolled my eyes as hard as they’ve ever been rolled. I’ll try something else. Deep breath. Prove that value, Paul. Be that team player, Paul. My next draft changed very little. I knew it might be triggering, but I tried it anyway. Instead of “happy”, it opened:
”We at (company) are proud to announce that, for the sixth straight year, we have been awarded (big award name) by (big award organization).”
I’m sure you can guess what came next.
”DO THEY CARE THAT WE’RE PROUD?”
I knew right then. This was not going to be a place where I could do what they hired me to do. If we’re gonna argue about “We’re happy to announce” and “we’re proud to announce”, which are simply everyday conversational ways that humans (and corporations cosplaying as humans) talk, if those are the words we’re getting hung up on, then we’re never gonna get to the good stuff. Never.
The other stakeholding team members were, again, shocked by the word “proud” and held up their big “WE DON’T POUND OUR CHESTS” signs.
I took another deep breath. Sat with it for a bit. Talked myself through it. Eventually I replied,
Talking to customers and prospects in that way helps us be more human, more accessible. I was hired to help the brand voice become stronger, more personable, more human.
”WERE YOU? I DIDN’T KNOW THAT.”3
I don’t even remember what we ultimately settled on, copy-wise. I think it was probably something toothlessly passive. The kind of stuff people use ChatGPT for.
”(Company) announces that we’ve been awarded (big award name) by (big award organization) for the sixth straight year.”
Might as well be an auto-generated press release. Or a message sent via morse code (stop). Use passive voice while you’re at it. George Saunders once wrote in his Substack newsletter: good writing tells you something and then tells you what they (the writer or narrator) feel about it. It’s one way you let the reader in. There wasn’t a lot of interest in good writing. I found out the hard way, three days into the job, two days before Covid sent everyone to work remotely.
Back to my opening sentence: no, taking the job wasn’t a mistake. The job helped me achieve much-needed escape velocity, sweeping me out the door from a situation that was increasingly toxic for me. It provided stability during a time (like I said, I was in the office for a mere week before Covid shut everything down) when many companies were tightening belts and letting people go (including the company I’d just left).
It wasn’t a home, not that any job really is, as much as employers like to play the We’re All Family4 Here card. I’ve been close to coworkers, celebrated their wins, cried with them even. But that was the exception, not the rule. Anyway, this job was even farther from that.
Yes, it was a bad fit from “DO THEY CARE THAT WE’RE HAPPY?”
It was like they hired a guitar player and then promptly asked him to play the drums5. (I suck at the drums. Terrifically terrible.) When friends asked, I described it thus, “They don’t want me to do any of the things that I’m good at and they want me to do a lot of things that no good company would hire me to do.” We all muddled through a pandemic (even increased market share! Huzzah for us!). It wasn’t a match made in heaven.
It did help me see more clearly what was important to me at a job.
They did not care that I was happy. It took me an embarrassingly long time to make that connection.
I hope they’re proud of what they’re doing. And happy. Really, I do.
I stand by it. I’ve had many a boss ask me to get KPIs and OKRs for a creative department. As if making a goal to create a certain quantity of PDFs in a month would measure anything substantive. These are the same people who tend to think that you can make something go viral simply by wishing it so. If there was a surefire path to creativity and brand dominance, everyone would do it.
(Swear warning! Don’t read the footnote if the swears are gonna bother you.)
Some classic Sorkin-isms:
“You can’t handle the truth!” (A Few Good Men)
“You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.” (The Social Network)
"If you were in an accident I wouldn't stop for red lights." (The West Wing)
“I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount.” (The Social Network)
“When your enemy’s making mistakes, don’t interrupt him.” (Moneyball)
“You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an @$%hole.” (The Social Network)
“You're not an @$%hole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be.” (The Social Network)
You might think I’m exaggerating with the all caps. I am not. This coworker was a sentient Caps Lock key in every way.
A few polaroids of the “Family” atmosphere at this job:
- One coworker’s wife suddenly died. Caps Lock Lady took all of three seconds to blurt out, “Sad! SO WHEN’S HE GONNA BE BACK?”
- I had one brilliant coworker of Indian descent. In my first meeting with her, I noticed that the group employed several variations of how to pronounce her name. I made a mental note of that and, as the meeting ended, casually asked her the proper pronunciation. She said it as I scribbled it down phonetically. All the pronunciations on the call had been incorrect. On a later call, I referenced her work by name, using my trusty phonetic spelling. Two minutes after the meeting, she messaged me, “Thank you. No one has ever said my name right here.” She’d been there for five years.
-I had two people report to me. Both of them were sure that Caps Lock Lady was gunning for them, like she had a vendetta against them and wanted them fired just for sport. I couldn’t muster a convincing counterargument.
-I was there for just over a year and had three bosses (the guy who hired me quit within six months of my arrival), the last of whom had the same title as me (writing on the wall).
Yes, I know that some really talented folks like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder can do it all. But they’re the exceptions. And, also, chill out: it’s just a metaphor.