MFJS

Yesterday, Seth Godin’s daily blog covered a type of person he refers to as a Troll. I, far less delicately, refer to these people as Mother-F*****ing Joy Suckers (MFJS). I couldn’t have written about this as beautifully as Seth so I am copying his blog about Trolls, in its entirety, and also the blog he sent out today called Begrudging – which I believe he should have called MFJS 2......

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/trolls.html

Trolls

Lots of things about work are hard. Dealing with trolls is one of them. Trolls are critics who gain perverse pleasure in relentlessly tearing you and your ideas down. Here's the thing(s):

1. trolls will always be trolling
2. critics rarely create
3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls
4. professionals (that's you) get paid to ignore them. It's part of your job.

"Can't please everyone," isn't just an aphorism, it's the secret of being remarkable.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/begrudging.html

Begrudging

I don't know if this happens to you, but I'm noticing it more and more. Someone offers you a refund, or agrees to sell you something or even hires you to do a project, but then spend a lot of time explaining that it's a one time thing, or that it's against policy or it's not even something they like to do.

What's the point of agreeing to anything begrudgingly? Does it get your partner to do his best work? Does it increase the chances that you'll get to win next time?

If you're going to do something, do it. Go all in. Doing it half in makes no sense at all to me. It's a like a store that has so many rules and regulations about sales and exchanges that you wonder if they really want to be bothered to sell you anything at all.