Everyone has a different way of dealing with clients—or even bosses!—who send annoying, difficult, and even obnoxious messages. Yes, everyone has a client like that, the passive-aggressive [Insert a bad word here] who shoots off messages to you that are, at best, not carefully worded and, at worst, just plain mean-spirited or cruel. But they’re your client, so what can you do?
Here’s how I deal with those situations: I write up really angry emails in response. I get all my emotions out. I call him every word under the sun. I aggressively show him why his behavior was not just bad, but how it spirals out of control and makes me completely unenthusiastic to spend time working on his project. (“His” because I’ve found that people who talk like that more often than not choose to identify with the male gender role than the female gender role.) I really let him have my all.
But then I delete the email before ever sending it.
Why? Letting out my emotions, “telling it as it is,” I realized at some point, makes me feel good momentarily. But after that moment wears off, the results are disastrous. When have you ever received an angry message or angry email from anyone and then you proceeded to realize, “oh yes, he’s right, I was completely wrong and will change my opinion 180-degrees on this issue!” Answer: NEVER. Not once. At best you think, “wow, he’s had a bad day” or “wow, my little message really set him off, I didn’t intend for it to be this big of a deal.” At worst, you question the other person’s professionalism and maturity.
Instead, writing then deleting the email helps me let out my emotions so that I can then proceed to think clearly and more objectively about how to best confront the issue. How do I explain to him why he was wrong not only in the content of his message but in the presentation of it?
I often come up with different strategies—that I’ll outline in upcoming chapters—but they all have one common denominator: I meet him in person if we’re in the same city, if not, we have a video call. I never reveal my emotional response until that point.
Why not? For a few reasons.
First, the written word is very easy to misinterpret, in both directions. Maybe he meant the criticism as a super-minor issue but, since he didn’t explicitly say “this is a near-trivial, tiny issue,” you interpreted it as a huge thing? And conversely, if you write him your response, he could view it as a major escalation that will likely lead to war. And that’s not good! But the importance of the issue is just one of many ways to misinterpret it. Maybe his criticism was limited to one particular issue when you interpreted it as a broader, more existential criticism? The ways to misinterpret words are near-infinite.
Secondly, people tend to be much more aggressive when they’re not face to face. As a result, all the time, people will say strong things in writing, but as soon as you confront them in person, they back down. It’s easy to write, “your work is low quality” but it is hard to look someone in the eye (or in the virtual eye via Skype) and say, “your work is low quality.” As a result, voice conversations fundamentally become more positive.
Third, the time delays between written communication and their responses, and your mulling over it during that period, fundamentally leads to an escalation. But a 30-minute face to face chat leaves no time for mulling. Talk about it, solve it, move on, all done.
Fourth, the other person will respect you more. Let’s say you’re in a bad mood because your partner just left you. So, you send some angry emails to some people you work with. When you’re more sober, you would realize that you shouldn’t have sent those. But colleague #1 responds with a 10,000-word treatise via email to you, beginning, “No, you’re wrong because of X, Y, and Z.” But colleague #2 comes over to your desk, takes you out for a beer, and says, “So, I wanted to talk about your email and figure out why you’re so upset about this. How are you doing?” Your respect for which colleague has gone up? And for which has gone down? I thought so!
In another chapter, I’ll talk about what to say and how to turn these conversations around. But the first step is to let your emotions out, even in writing. But not to your client. Always talk to them in person or via voice, and when you are clear and calm, it is much easier to achieve a positive outcome to the conversation.
