Good Jobs #93: I messed up
Good Jobs #93: I messed up
A story of failure, plus remote and Boise-area jobs at The Krazy Coupon Lady, Ford, PetIQ, Descript, Zapier, Super, Intuit, and more
When you fuck up you should tell people about it
A number of time units ago I was on a difficult call with a colleague. The company I was working for was going through some truly trying times. Lots of poor decisions. A supreme lack of focus. Constant jumping from fire to fire. The team was burning out. As was I. Someone on the team told me they cried one day. Another told me they’d been dreaming about work. Awful.
During the call, this colleague and I were talking about how we get out of this mess. My colleague’s approach was to tell people it will get better… be optimistic… inspire… motivate them to push through… be the football coach in the locker room at half-time giving the passionate speech about how the team is going to come back from the absolute blowout of the first half. “Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can’t lose.”
It’s honestly not a bad approach. I just thought it was missing something.
My approach was to first fess up. Put it all out on the table. Say we fucked up. My boss at the newspaper I worked at in college—Hi Shawn!—used to call this a “Come to Jesus” moment. A time to dwell and articulate and talk about the problems instead of ignoring and pushing forward blindly.
My colleague’s response to my approach: “I don’t do vulnerability. You and I can talk about it, but this isn’t something I want to share with the team.”
I honestly don’t know who was right in their approach. I’ve read enough Forbes and Bloomberg articles to know that the Silicon Valley big wigs would never show their cards in the way I was suggesting. So maybe my colleague knows something I don’t?
What I can say is, some of the moments in my career I find most meaningful are where I’ve missed the mark, told those around me I screwed up, and then was immediately drowned in their help and support to fix it.
Most good humans want to help and they are particularly great at helping when you’re open and honest about the situation.
I also know that these failures make really great stories a few years later. Just last week I told my current team about the time we redesigned a popular feature only to find out we missed an important use case. We were getting messages in our support channel that were brutal. One customer wanted my name so they could send me a book on design. A gut punch at the time, but funny in retrospect. We fixed their concerns in following iterations. The story still goes over well whenever I tell it. It’s comforting to know others fuck up sometimes too.
Onward,
P.S. - I highly recommend checking out Boise State University’s MashUp lecture series going on this summer. It’s two wildly different topics presented over an hour. The one I attended was on Basque sheepherder tree carvings and One Direction online fandom. It was great! The next one is in a couple weeks. Also: They have a gong.
DEV
Software Engineer at Micron
Boise | Full-time
Senior Staff Android Engineer at Slack
Remote | Full-time
Senior Full Stack Engineer at Zapier
Remote | Full-time | Salary: $167–251K
Engineering Manager at The Krazy Coupon Lady
Remote | Full-time
Staff DevOps Engineer at Wealthfront
Remote | Full-time | Salary: $195-210K
Still hiring: Principal Software Engineer at Stitch Fix
Remote | Full-time | Salary: $226–240K
Good jobs need to be known
Hundreds of Boise-area professionals read and share the Good Jobs Report each week. Submit a job and it could appear in a future issue. Only the good ones though.
PRODUCT
UX Design & Research Strategist at Ford
Remote | Full-time
Senior Product Designer at Descript
Remote | Full-time | Salary: $163–192K
Product Manager at Super
Remote | Full-time
Senior Product Designer at HubSpot
Remote | Full-time
From last week: Senior UX Researcher at Etsy
Remote | Full-time | Salary: $126–164K
For many people, changing course is also a sign of weakness, tantamount to admitting that you don’t know what you are doing. This strikes me as particularly bizarre—personally, I think the person who can’t change his or her mind is dangerous. Steve Jobs was known for changing his mind instantly in the light of new facts, and I don’t know anyone who thought he was weak.
— Ed Catmull, an excerpt from Creativity Inc.
SALES, CX, MARKETING
Design Director at PetIQ
Eagle | Full-time
Senior Art Director at Balsam Brands
Boise | Full-time | Salary: $104–165K
OTHER
HR Business Partner at Intuit
Eagle | Full-time
SPOOKY & POTENTIALLY BAD
Store Manager at Spirit Halloween
Boise | Temporary, Seasonal
ZEN
And they want us to return to office.