Fortunately I have friends, good friends, who don't hesitate to roll their eyes, shake their heads and take action to save me from my impulsive ways.
I worked for this creative director at Chiat years ago. The operative words in that sentence are "years ago." And he was a miserable person who made my life and everyone else's he came in contact with miserable. For some reason, this individual was taking up way too much brain space with me yesterday. So I did what I almost always do when that happens.
I wrote a scathing blog post about him that I thought revealed him for the monster he was (today I'm saying "was", because yesterday the thought never occurred to me that he may have changed in the years since we worked together).
But that's not the bad part. The bad part is I posted it.
Within moments, my friend Cameron rode up on his white horse in the form of an email that read, "Wow. This is how you make enemies. And you got a family and a mortgage."
Now if you know anything about me - and why wouldn't you by now - you know that making enemies isn't a particular concern of mine. This wasn't a creative director who held me in high regard anyway, if he held me in any regard at all.
Still, it was a venomous attack on someone who, deserving of it or not, shouldn't have ever been posted. It was me spending way too much time looking backwards instead of forwards.
Two more of my friends, Rich and Rob, also let me know they thought it made me look a lot worse than the person I was writing about. My friend Dale, while he thought it was good that I got it out and down on paper (screen), agreed with them.
So instead of doing what I should've done in the first place, which was not write it, I did the next best thing. I took the post down.
I was yelling at this person and tearing his head off online while criticizing that he used to do the same thing at work. I stooped to his level. Bad move - definitely not proud about it.
Anyway, a big thank you to Cameron, Rich, Rob and Dale for having my back, and good judgement, even if I didn't. Thanks to them I'm coming away from this having learned a valuable lesson.
Don't make enemies until the economy gets better.
