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Comment by astrodust | Hacker News Reader

You know, I'll just go into the middle of your application and screw around with some of it. Delete a feature I don't like even if it causes a few tests to fail, tests I didn't even know you had.

I'll also add a few CSS rules that break things on other pages. Who knew you were supposed to put those in particular files, or that you'd used those selectors for other purposes.

Since I needed another database column, I added one to one of the central tables, locking the database and breaking a batch job that couldn't recover properly, leaving a messy clean-up job for you later.

Oh, and I also just copied over the patches and rebooted the server to makes sure they were applied properly. Sorry about all the background processes that didn't restart properly because of the hard boot.

That is what it feels like to a copywriter when you mess with their words.

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No, that is what it feels like to a primadonna when you mess with their words. They conflate the quality of their work, a highly objective measure, with breaking tests and screwing up a server, a distinctly objective measure.

No one's work is sacrosanct and without opportunity for improvement. So when you're f-bombing someone because they altered your work, maybe stop to see if your work just wasn't all that good to begin with and needed a boost.

This isn't about changing someone's work, it's about effective collaboration. What's obvious to you may not be obvious to me. Whether it's an application or copy for a homepage, there are subtleties that a reviewer will miss.

What makes a good application "great" isn't obvious. It's the little things hidden in the details. Often, we don't even notice the details. That's what makes great applications so difficult to replicate: you can't enumerate their greatness in a bullet-point list.

Likewise with great copywriting. If you don't trust that every word your co-founder wrote has importance, and that you should at least review with them before making changes, then you didn't pick the right co-founder. It's ok to work toward improvement, but that work shouldn't be performed unilaterally.

Finding it in yourself to trust those around you is a difficult trait to acquire, but it's essential to strong team building.

"Likewise with great copywriting. If you don't trust that every word your co-founder wrote has importance, and that you should at least review with them before making changes, then you didn't pick the right co-founder. It's ok to work toward improvement, but that work shouldn't be performed unilaterally."

Totally agree. The overarching issue here is cooperative communication.

Well my point wasn't about what it feels like, but the way the reaction was handled.

I would never send an email that said "You fucking changed my CSS". It happens ALL the time to developers. In fact refactoring, telling each other what you think is wrong in the code and how to fix it is a core part of team software development. Nothing is ever perfect. You can't be that protective of any part of your product.

If you're on a small team and can't say how you feel, especially when it's warranted, I'm not sure you're on the right team.

In terms of efficiency, "You fucking changed my CSS" says a lot in just a few words. Once that's out of the way, you can always get on to the finer points of why that's a bad thing.

I understand that this blunt approach works in the short term, and maybe it's even effective.

But trust me, do this for two years instead of just two weeks, and the team stops respecting or trusting each other. Each little verbal jab accumulates over time and deteriorates the working relationship. "Don't work with John or touch his stuff - he goes ape shit every time some little thing happens."

There's a good saying that goes "never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence / stupidity / misunderstanding" (the last word depending on your context).

Basically, cursing someone out does not necessarily yield results over the long term when there is an underlying problem that can be solved in a more civil fashion.

Actually, I disagree with this in practice.

I do agree that you should be able to say how you feel, but "You fucking changed my CSS" is an overreaction. I work on a project with 4 or 5 other people. Sometimes they change something and it breaks me, and sometimes I change things and it breaks them. When that happens I can choose to react in a few ways:

  1) "You fucking broke my code."
  2) "Why did you change my code?"
  3) "Why you change THE code/Why did you make this change?"
  4) Ignore it and fix it myself.

Of the 4, #3 is probably the most appropriate reaction and can easily be stated as "Why did you make this change? It broke functionality/function X!" And it easily conveys the issue and your dissatisfaction.

She could have stated, "Why did you change my copy? I carefully selected each word and I think the changes detract from the overall feel." Boom. Done. Dissatisfaction has been conveyed without sounding like a child.

Exactly - asking questions will get someone to realize that they fucked up, and if they're at all conscientious, as the post's author appears to be, they'll feel bad enough, with no need for a harsh tone.

I would view asking questions to get someone to realize that they fucked up as passive aggressive. Ask if you're genuinely curious, but if it's clear that your friend/coworker/cofounder screwed up by meddling in something that they don't have expertise in, then call them on it!

Well, simple asking questions doesn't mean you're not being a jerk, but done the right way, I think it's just a better way of treating a colleague.

It obviously depends on the kind of people you're working with. If it's with someone who you've been in the trenches with for a while, then formality is often something you both discard.

Actually, your example includes the best reason for restating the objection. ""Why did you change my copy? I carefully selected each word" ... where the word selection refers to co-founder's response to Jesse.

Why choose words carefully when communicating to the public / investors, and not to team members / partners?

In terms of efficiency, "You fucking changed my CSS" says a lot in just a few words. Once that's out of the way, you can always get on to the finer points of why that's a bad thing.

I'm glad I haven't had to work with people who acted like this yet. As I'm pretty sure my response would be a very efficient "Fuck you, stop being a child." somewhere around the second time it happened.

In my experience that isn't what it feels like at all. Copywriting is just as much about iteration as software, and as a copywriter you can expect half a dozen or more people to monkey with your work. Sometimes they'll make it worse, sometimes better, but they're always going to change things. And on subsequent reads you will too, if you're any good.

That said, while she was upset for the wrong reasons, she wasn't wrong to be upset. One thing you shouldn't do is monkey with someone's work and then push it out without any sort of dialogue.

Also, for what it's worth, your examples all beg the question. There's nothing in the blog to indicate that Jesse's changes had a measurable impact on the copy one way or the other.

It's not entirely the same. Imagine instead that it's your technical cofounder, who isn't quite as well immersed in the application as you, and may not get all your code idioms, but still knows their way around a compiler, and can hack in a quick bug fix in a pinch, even if the resulting code isn't as elegant as you would have done it. They know to run the test suite, even if they don't add a new test case for the bug fix. How mad should you be then?

The reality is that everyone here speaks English, and if the guy is editing your copy, it means he has opinions about English, which is enough to make him "technical" in the sense of the previous example. He's not as good as you are, but his copy will be serviceable. The situation you describe would be akin to having your cofounder be unfamiliar with English grammar.

"He's not as good as you are, but his copy will be serviceable" - highly dubious about this. Copywriting is a skill, separate from fluency in English, and not everyone - indeed, very few people - have it.

I've seen plenty of "sales" documents written by people who could write English, but couldn't write copy. If you're considering "might actually convince someone to buy this product" as your end goal, it's very, very easy to end up with something that isn't servicable at all.

It's a shame when people's feelings get hurt, for sure.

But have you looked at the text in question?

It's no work of art. I don't know whether the live version is before or after, but in all honesty it could use quite a bit of trimming, as well a whole lot of editing in other ways. The current copy makes the typical noob mistake of trying to cram every bullet point in the pitch deck onto the front page. This is not someone with ten years of experience who actually knows how each word will help the business, it's a kid trying to figure it out by spending five hours thinking about it.

If an intern sent me a "fuck you" message for refactoring a bunch of not quite working spaghetti code, I'd show them the door. That's a lot closer to the situation here...

If this was an experienced copywriter with a decade of real world experience putting out content that was close to perfect, your story would seem a lot more reasonable, but it doesn't seem to be the case here.

The edits weren't done in the spirit of screwing around with it. They were done in the spirit of improving it.

Yes, if you've got someone who can't stand not leaving their personal imprint on everything that passes by them, you've got a problem. Doubly if it breaks stuff.

However, if you've got someone who makes studied changes to (text|code) with the goal, and better yet, effect, of improving it, you've got gold.

The team here could use some process. It could also use a lot of maturity.

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