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As a writer, I wish I could do this. But they’ll notice if the text is still exactly the same.
Have you considered trying italics ?
Maybe I should try submitting the same text, but in a different font…
Times New Roman? Ew. I want my smut to exclusively be in Comic Sans MS, 14pt.
That would work on me.
I used to be an animator, and we’d deliberately put in obviously bad things just so the director could spot them and tell us to take them out so he felt like he was doing something lol.
But that’d probably work for writing too
We did this at my last job. Couldn’t get user specs or feedback on fucking anything. Total unwillingness to commit.
So we’d build the software wrong just so they could feel powerful and smart ‘making’ us change it. System requirements the stupid-hard way.
Leland never realizing the producers were just invisibly throwing up their hands and thinking ‘that’s just what this guy sounds like…’
The most powerful move is having nothing worth taking.
He’s played with everyone. Just take a look at his Wikipedia page. He knows how to handle producers.
Yeah! It’s so loooooonng
Such a bassist move.
I heard in the film industry back before drones that directors would get the scripts to how they want them and then add in a shot from a helicopter. Then the execs whose job it was to cut unnecessary expenses from the film would obviously nix the shot and the director was left with their original vision intact.
I work as an appliance repair technician, servicing household appliances such as refrigerators, dryers, and washing machines. Most of my work comes through home warranty companies, so the homeowner isn’t paying me directly. My responsibility is to diagnose the problem and perform the necessary repairs.
Every so often, you encounter a customer who has convinced themselves that a particular part needs replacing, and no amount of professional explanation will persuade them otherwise. As a technician, I have a few options. I can simply refuse to replace a part that isn’t defective and justify my decision to my supervisor, or I can replace the part the customer insists on having replaced without actually changing anything. I can bring in a component, make it look as though I’ve performed the replacement, and call it a day.
Sometimes, people just want to feel vindicated. They want confirmation that they were right all along, regardless of whether they actually were. And occasionally, it seems easier to give them that satisfaction than to spend an hour arguing with someone who has already made up their mind.
Sometimes, people just want to feel vindicated. They want confirmation that they were right all along, regardless of whether they actually were. And occasionally, it seems easier to give them that satisfaction than to spend an hour arguing with someone who has already made up their mind.
You’d go far in politics.
As someone that has sent the literal exact same robot-vacuum-cleaner about 10 times for repair (because they just keep sending it back without doing anything): sometimes the customer is actually right.
The customer is always right in matters of taste.
Is the full saying.
If a customer wants to buy an ugly sweater, for example, they should be able to do so.
There is no saying. I didn’t say “always right”. Notice how I said “sometimes right”.
Customers are human beings. If I know I’m right (because I can see with my own eyes that the vacuum doesn’t work), and you treat me like that because “whether the vacuum works or not is not a matter of taste” I’m just never going to do business with you again.
I’m amazed any of your clients actually let you repair anything. Field service is the norm in my (day job) industry and customers just do nothing but bitch and moan and whine and tantrum and threaten and obstruct because they think it’s going to get them a new product delivered instead of a repair. “You mean now I need to wait for parts? That’s unacceptable!” “I paid for a new product, not a repaired product!” “I paid a ‘lot of money’ for this [obvious convenience item] and I can’t live without it, you need to get me a new one immediately or I’ll charge back my credit card!” Etc., etc., et-fucking-cetera. If I took another drink every time I heard any of the above in one day, I’d be dead before quitting time.
Oh my god, dude. Every. Single. Day.
“You mean I have to wait a week?!”
Yes. It’s a home warranty. Parts requests take longer to process. If you want it fixed quickly, you can pay me out of pocket, and I’ll be back tomorrow.
“Why won’t they just replace it? It was repaired once ten years ago!”
I have absolutely no influence over whether your home warranty company decides to replace your appliance. If I did, I’d have them all replaced.
“But they said you have to recommend it for replacement!”
I have no control over the decision-making process at your home warranty company. I can diagnose the problem, recommend the necessary repairs, and provide my professional assessment. What the company chooses to do with that information is entirely up to them.
These people don’t seem to understand that they’re paying into a multibillion-dollar industry for what amounts to a contractual gamble with some very significant limitations.
I have to spend an absurd amount of time explaining to customers that they’re not necessarily being ripped off or scammed. They voluntarily signed a contract agreeing to a particular kind of service, with specific terms, exclusions, limitations, and a claims process that is often considerably less convenient than they imagined.
The home warranty industry isn’t designed to provide you with the fastest, most convenient, or most comprehensive solution to your appliance problems. It’s designed to provide a service within the financial and contractual limits established by the company.
You can argue about whether the contract is worth what you’re paying for it, and that’s fine. But you cannot sign up for a product without understanding what it actually provides and then act surprised when the company delivers precisely the kind of service its business model is built around.
And somehow, I’m the one who has to explain all of this while standing in your kitchen with a toolbox.
Sorry. Rant over.
My father would tell a story about an IBM tech from back in the pre-PC days. She had one of those Dick Trickle kind of names, where the name parses as a phrase? To not outright dox her I’ll call her Robin Banks.
Robin would be at a customer’s site working on an IBM minicomputer or unit record equipment, when a secretary would flag her down and ask her to adjust the “tension” or “weight” or something on a Selectric typewriter. IBM Selectric typewriters don’t have any kind of adjustment on the key travel or typing feel. What she would do is walk up to it, type a little, agree that it felt off, take a small flathead screwdriver, stick it through an opening in the side or back of the case, pretend to adjust something, she’d take a cloth, damp it with some of the light oil they used on all the intricate little mechanisms in old computer hardware, wipe the key caps with it. Then say “Okay, try that” and inevitably they were happy with it.
Another story from Robin, in an office with a good size secretary pool, one of the secretaries kept bitching about her typewriter. It doesn’t type right, it doesn’t work right. Robin noticed that this particular secretary had been issued a blue Selectric, all the other secretaries had red ones. She swapped out the case with one of the other typewriters, just the shell, same machine, and wouldn’t you know it typed much better!
What she would do is walk up to it, type a little, agree that it felt off, take a small flathead screwdriver, stick it through an opening in the side or back of the case, pretend to adjust something, she’d take a cloth, damp it with some of the light oil they used on all the intricate little mechanisms in old computer hardware, wipe the key caps with it. Then say “Okay, try that” and inevitably they were happy with it.
50% chance that this actually changed something, namely the smell of the device. the machine would have an unpleasant smell and people would complain about it without knowing what it is. she goes over it once and now it smells nice, and people are happy. doesn’t need any screwdriver for that, that’s just for show.
She wasn’t cleaning it, she was applying a thin sheen of oil to the keycaps, to slightly alter their texture. That would make the act of touching and removing your fingers from them feel slightly different. Most of what it did was satisfy their need for attention.
Bikeshedding - where people feel the need to give feedback even when none is needed, resulting in inane comments about things that don’t matter.
Pro tip, if you’re a software engineer, especially working on UIs - leave something annoying on your UI in the demo. Something small enough to not be a huge deal but big enough so that an exec or director would notice it. Make a button slightly too big, or the width of a divider too large. They’ll call that out, feel like they contributed, and likely the entire demo will be spent talking about the inane thing on the page. Then go fix the 2-ish lines of code and move on with your day.
Your tip is also known as The Queen’s Duck.
When designing, I try to provide options and typically one is a “throw away” simple option that took no effort. Like I change a color or a minor element. Just to provide the illusion of choice.
If I don’t provide multiple options on the initial drafts people lose their damn minds. They try to redesign something that shouldn’t have their input. This let’s them talk about which one they like better and not fixate on one design and tear into it.
Also I get the low effort feedback. Everyone has some opinion on visuals, because it’s easy to say “what if…”. Big part of the job is coming prepared knowing what people will start picking at with answers ready to why you did what you did. Or just bullshitting on the spot.
Or just bullshitting on the spot.
ah, so like pretty much every job ever. got it.
Illustrators know this as the “hairy arm”: adding an undesirable minor detail to give the art director something with whose removal they can put their stamp on the project, without wrecking the rest of it or making too much work for the artist.
I use this a lot in presentations, and have taught this to colleagues I have mentored.
However I kind of understand the urge, when I’m on the other side and have to give feedback, saying “everything looks great” seems kind of lazy, or a cop-out. I have to fight the need to find something to nit-pick.
I used to do a similar thing when I was in middle/high school. I do not consider myself to be a great writer, but when I was in school, I did very well for what my teachers expected at my grade level (I liked to read a lot). Most teachers I had wanted us to write essays or stories and then spend the next few classes fixing up our rough drafts into a final draft. I knew my first rough drafts were better than most other students’ final drafts so I would purposely put in spelling and grammar issues and maybe spend a few sentences off topic. Those would be the things I fixed to create my final draft. Doing that gave me more time to focus on subjects I had a harder time with.
This is valuable advice I wish I had known decades ago. You can’t always avoid shit managers.
or customers.
it works everywhere, even on me
I use it with customers, to hide something I haven’t quite figured out yet or know will result in a lengthy conversation that’s been had a dozen times before with no change in outcome
my team knows that there’s only so much time for review, so if they put dumb things to catch in reviews of their work, they can slip larger things by the quality review process. they also understand that that’s on them — if there’s so much wrong with something that it would simply take too long to point it all out, the problem is with their work, not with the reviewer.
only somewhat related, but shout out to the guy who would repeatedly make the same mistakes on drawings over and over again. he would put up a review package of 100 drawings, the common mistake would be noted explicitly on the first couple, and then on the 3rd the note would read “applies to all subsequent drawings”. that guy would then only fix the ones that were explicitly called out. either a complete dumbass or lack of giving a shit, I don’t know which. I’ve probably worked with both.
Been in contexts to give feedback and people pressure me when I say things like “I’m not a stakeholder, so no standing to give feedback” or “Ok, seems fine”. It’s evidently not “leadership” if I’m actually content with something or content to leave something alone I have no right to meddle with.
Actual leadership is, “This work looks good, let’s not waste any more time talking about it.”
Don’t be noncommittal, instead approve the work and push for moving forward. When someone suggests that more criticism is needed, indicate that they’re the one holding up progress.
When I was a software pm I loved being able to tell someone “you nailed it that’s awesome can’t wait to show this to [person relevant to their review packet]!”
That’s the value that the engineers wanted me to add.
Though you do run the risk that they love something you intended to be annoying. “The dart board value selector widget will make our product fun and exciting for gen Zs, I must report this to the board immediately so we can invest in converting all of our widgets to darts-based!”
Or make it too annoying and they might question your competence. “Yeah, he did quickly change the button that counted how many times you pressed it to a text box where you can enter a value but why would he have thought we’d have wanted that button in the first place!?”
How is it called when you make a comment, the artist pretends to do something, you are too hesitant to say thats still shit and proceed with okay thats fine?
I think bikeshedding is more commonly that people will argue about the materials of the bike shed over more important points of discussion. ex a bad thing because it detracts from more important decisions, not because it requires unnecessary change
queens duck as mentioned below better fits the tip (which is valid)
Yeh, this is common.
I’ve heard of PPI (Producer Pleaser Indicator) which is a mixing desk channel not routed anywhere but can be fiddled with to meet client demands.
And there is the DFA (Does Fuck All). Similar conceptYeah we had a DFA slider on our board! Good for placating meddlers, but also excellent for pranking new people. “If it starts to sound too tinny, lower the DFA very gradually till it sounds right” and then watch them very seriously fiddle with it for ages or until someone laughs lol.
Lots of udiophiles buy lots of gadgets which do this same thing or make the sound worse, but they love it.
Studies have shown that more expensive placebos are genuinely more effective than cheaper placebos. Not in the sense of, “har har, it’s a placebo, 2x effectiveness of zero is still zero” but actual reported higher rates of improved health and diminished symptoms.
It works in a similar way with audiophiles. The sticker shock is part of the effectiveness for them.
“It adds warmth!”
Motherfucker, that’s just adding a low-frequency buzz to the sound.
you know a lot of vinyl collectors?
Maybe I like it this way?! You are not my mom!
Or am I?
dun dun duuuuuunnnnnn
I have a friend that is a producer. They’ve had people try stuff like this before.
Producers just assume you’re an idiot and difficult to work with, and move on, knowing that you’ll have to do it yourself, later.
I like how the comment ✨ evolved ✨
It’s important not to be rude
The resignation in this comment is palpable and I laughed a lot. Thank you.
:(
I use to run sound mixers for events and local bands, and had a dummy slider that I’d move when a family member wanted to hear their special boy or whatnot. Everyone in the industry knows this trick. Almost everyone plays along.
I once worked at a place that had a piece of equipment that still had one of the old analog drives and a few operators would complain and complain until they found an electrician to adjust it and then it would run like crap until we hooked up a scope to it to fix it. So I told one of the senor electricians to mount a potentiometer to the panel and run the wires to ground and just tell everyone to use that to make adjustments. Worked great for years.
I understood some of those words
They gave it a knob that don’t do nothin
a knob that don’t do nothin
Nothing to be ashamed of. Happens to one in five men.
Still can be fun to play with, too
The origin of the DFA control.
Similar story, not mine: TV repairmen back in the day would have frequent in-home callbacks, with the TV owner stating the TV picture wasn’t as good as before the repair.
So, after a repair the repairman would adjust the v-hold so the image would slowly rotate. “Tell me if the picture is getting better or worse.” If it was getting worse, they’d flip it back the other way until the customer was satisfied they were seeing the best picture.
Apparently cut callbacks to near zero.
