S1:E15:P1
[00:00:00] Todd Libby: Welcome to the Front End Nerdery Podcast, a podcast about front end development and design. I'm your host, Todd Libby. And today I decided to mix it up a little bit and go with UX, user experience. And my guest today is a UX consultant, speaker, author, musician, and Cleveland Browns super fan himself, Joe. Joe, how are you today?
[00:00:28] Joe: I am excellent, sir. How are you?
[00:00:29] Todd: I am doing well, thank you. Now that I have all the things in where they need to go and everything's all right. My mics in the right laptop. So,
[00:00:41] Joe: Amen. We're not even going to talk about the trouncing your team game this past weekend.
[00:00:44] Todd: No, I wouldn't do that. Not at all. 45 to 7, but anyways, I think we got a little video. Oh, there we go. Your video froze for a second there, but all right. So, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?
[00:01:00] Joe: Oh boy, that's a long story. I am essentially, I mean, I'm a consultant. I am a teacher at heart and, I've been working in this industry for the last three decades of my life. I split my time between consulting with clients, teaching online courses, of which I am very, very, very fortunate and privileged to have well over 200,000 students at this point, on my own platform, as well as places like Udemy.
I speak at conferences and on podcasts, whenever anyone will have me, because I love to talk about this stuff.
[00:01:37] Todd: Yup
[00:01:38] Joe: As most people know. And I'm an, I'm an author. I've written several books. I'm working on actually three books at the same time right now, because I'm insane. So, I split my time between all those things, because I, I, I love all of it.
You know, there's, there's lots of parts of this profession that really, still excite me to this day. And the parts that, that matter most to me are the people parts. Right? The great thing about UX and design and development and product, of any kind is at the end of the day, there's a lot that we can do that help people have better lives.
Right? Any number of ways whether it's work or personal or otherwise. So, that's kind of me in a nutshell.
[00:02:12] Todd: Yeah. I actually am a member of the Facebook group, so I kind of lurk in there from time to time. When I venture into that realm of madness. Shall we say it's called Facebook or Meta or whatever it is, or whatever it is this week?
[00:02:31] Joe: Yeah, it's a, it's a tough sell. I mean, Facebook is there, there are lots of reasons, right? That, I, I think if it weren’t for the group. I would probably give it up to be honest with you. But there are so many people there and so much like direct message activity, number one, that, that, I can't see forcing all these people to go somewhere else.
[00:02:47] Todd: Right.
[00:02:48] Joe: But yeah, Facebook’s tough.
[00:02:51] Todd: And how did, oh, I was looking up UX courses. Yours came up in the search, and that was what, wow, that must've been a year or two ago, maybe more, but I don't know, time is a construct in this COVID thing. So,
[00:03:06] Joe: You're right. The last two years feels like 10 years.
[00:03:10] Todd: Yes, it does. It certainly does. So, let's get right into the questions. And I'm going to
[00:03:15] Joe: Sure
[00:03:15] Todd: my first question is how did you get started in your web design or development, UX journey?
[00:03:22] Joe: Well, that's an interesting story. I started out in graphic design and went to school for graphic design, and I was fortunate enough that in that program, the way that we were taught design was not, it was about aesthetics, of course, right?
Visual communication, visual principles about how elements work together, language, typography, imagery, you know, how, how you're sort of telling the story, but the, the key emphasis was on what are you communicating and is it relevant? And is it appropriate for the people on the receiving end, right? Which is very, very much a precursor to UX work.
So, I, I, I was really lucky. I was working for design firms and ad agencies. And then when this little thing called the internet came about and was made public because that's how freaking old I am. I could not sense the old, rich white men who ran this agency I was working at. As a director of, production department I couldn't convince them that this was a thing, okay?
That they needed to pay attention to this. The clients were going to want to have web presences that they're going to want it want to have pets that they were going to, and they were just like, whatever, it's a trend it’ll pass. Go make me some coffee.
So, me being me, I was, I was either dumb enough or naive enough or stubborn enough or angry enough or a combination of all those things to say, well, fuck you guys, I'm gonna go do it myself.
[00:04:41] Todd: Right
[00:04:42] Joe: So, I left, and I said, I'm gonna start my own firm. And then that was it. That was the extent of my thought about doing this, which is I don't recommend for anybody.
Okay? There's, there’s some planning that should go into these kinds of decisions.
[00:04:54] Todd: Yes
[00:04:54] Joe: But man, that's, I've kind of always been that person. That's like, screw this let's go. Right? So, I took one employee with me who was working with me at the time, hired two more people in quick succession. And I was lucky, okay? I hit this internet thing at the time when it exploded, when everybody needed a website, it was a wild west.
No one knew what they were doing. Right? And clients were like, well, can we do this? And can we do this quick? They didn't even know what questions to ask, and we didn't have the answers, not me, not anybody. Okay? So, the answer to everything was yes. And then in your head, you're going all right. We've got to figure it out.
[00:05:33] Todd: Right, yeah.
[00:05:34] Joe: No one knew anything about, about design and development for the web, especially the coding part. I mean, this was a mystery, right? It was an absolute mystery, but we all figured it out pretty quickly. And a lot of us who hit it at that period got a lot of business very fast, probably because, like I said, clients were looking for anything.
This is a time when companies were being valued on the market by their burn rate, by how fast they could go through their venture capital money.
[00:06:02] Todd: Yeah.
[00:06:02] Joe: It was a crazy time to be alive. Okay?
[00:06:05] Todd: Yep.
[00:06:05] Joe: So that was, that was sort of the impetus, you know, where it just really took off. And I did that for about 10 years and then, I got burned out to be honest, and I sold the company to an IT firm.
Thinking that that would be a good partnership. because they were doing a lot of, government work, a lot of body shop type work, right. Asses in seats work. And, they said we want to establish a UX practice. And I thought, cool, take some of this pressure off me. Right? Someone else can do a lot of logistical management stuff.
I can find clients. I can do the things I'm best at it was a, it was a command and control, very toxic environment, right? Like I was bringing them millions of dollars in accounts that they'd never seen before. And I'm out with a client having a meeting, like trying to win business and I'm getting texts and phone calls like, where are you?
No one knows where you are.
It was just a mess. So, I remembered why I didn't want to work for anybody else. And went back to independent consulting. And then I think the next phase to sum this up was Udemy. My wife, who's a business marketing coach, Ellie got wind of courses on Udemy. And she said, you've given 8 million presentations to clients up to this point.
Why don't you take one of these and turn it into a course, throw it out there, and, but let's see what happens. And that was, again, that was the extent of the thought. Let's throw it out there and see what happens, which I did. And pretty soon, like, okay, a hundred people enrolled thousand people enrolled like, holy shit, what's happening?
And it just exploded from there. I had no, absolutely no way of knowing that this would become, you know, what it is. It constantly amazes me. How many people out there who are really hungry to learn, like on a daily basis, the stuff just never gets old for anybody, which I think is really cool. It makes me feel good.
I love the fact that people are out there, like more, more, give me more. Right? I wanna, I want to know more. I want to do more. So that, that's the stuff that gets me out of bed in the morning.
[00:08:10] Todd: Yeah. That visual communication that brought back. That's what I went to school for.
[00:08:16] Joe: Is it?
[00:08:16] Todd: It, it was, and then ended up, so I went to this accelerated program college and, they had me doing public speaking, but I was taking online classes cause I was too far away from campus.
Cause I had moved from Anaheim, California to San Diego. So, I had to do that, but then I was enrolled in the bachelor's program and then I just dropped out for whatever reason. And at that time, I had just been tinkering around starting my “professional” career, you know, doing freelance
[00:08:16] Joe: Yeah.
[00:08:16] Todd: and, and I got, so I got, an associate’s degree, but the school ended up going bankrupt or filing for bankruptcy. They closed their doors, left a bunch of students out hanging dry, you know, and
[00:09:09] Joe: Yeah.
[00:09:10] Todd: I think it turned out, I think there was, people that, that went there were actually being, the loans were all forgiven. If, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:09:19] Joe: Wow. Well, that's a good thing at least. Were you doing, were you doing design work or were you doing, were you starting to code at that point?
[00:09:23] Todd: I was doing both actually. Cause that's the time I was learning. This brings back a lot of memories of Quark Xpress I was doing.
[00:09:37] Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:38] Todd: Flash and Action Script
[00:09:38] Joe: Yeah, man, yeah man.
[00:09:39] Todd: I was doing Final Cut Pro work, you know, editing here and there. So, I was doing a bunch of different stuff and that was when, back when they had the, the big Macs with the different colored, I can’t even remember.
[00:09:52] Joe: Yeah, the big candy machines.
[00:09:53] Todd: The candy. Yeah. And
[00:09:58] Joe: We had, that's what we had, the big ones. We had a huge, they weighed like 80 pounds.
[00:10:02] Todd: Yes, yep, and I remember in the, HTML CSS class Firefox was in its infancy. I think it was right around, it was right around version one. And we were using Internet Explorer for MAC 5.2 on the, on the apple, on the Mac. And I was like, no, let's please let, let's not do this.
[00:10:28] Joe: Which was horrible, it was horrible, it was horrible. It was the worst implementation of that browser I think I've ever seen in my entire life of any browser, really for that matter.
[00:10:34] Todd: Yep
[00:10:35] Joe: Their port to Mac was so buggy.
[00:10:36] Todd: Yeah, yes.
[00:10:37] Joe: Just unbelievably.
[00:10:39] Todd: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Joe: You had, like, I remember when we would build things, you'd build something to be compatible with, like, you know, a series of browsers and then you had to do like almost an entire different build for Internet Explorer.
[00:10:51] Todd: Yup, yup. They didn't understand it. And I explained it to him. I said, I think the school should go to Firefox, put Firefox on these, on these machines. And they ended
[00:11:01] Joe: Yeah
[00:11:01] Todd: up doing that. They ended up doing that
[00:11:03] Joe: That’s great
[00:11:03] Todd: to my surprise. And so, yeah, it was just visual communication, brought back a lot of memories. So,
[00:11:10] Joe: That’s cool.
[00:11:11] Todd: let's talk UX because that's why I got you here because I haven't
[00:11:15] Joe: Alright.
[00:11:15] Todd: talked to UX yet on this podcast.
[00:11:18] Joe: Oh boy.
[00:11:21] Todd: You mentioned the one size fits all approach. So, what is the one size fits all approach? Why are we seeing this and why is it a myth?
[00:11:32] Joe: Here's where we get into trouble. Here's where I make more enemies. Look, I have a real problem with dogma of any kind. Okay? I always have, always will.
What I see in this profession and, and, and what bothers me most about it is that it steers a lot of people who are new to UX in the wrong direction. It also steers clients in the wrong direction, gives everybody this false understanding that we can come up with a UX recipe. Okay? And we can come up with a process.
We can come up with steps and a wonderful diagram that cleanly explains those steps. And here's how these things take place. And we can follow the recipe and great things happen. It is absolutely unequivocally false every single day of my life. I see articles and videos and courses, and I swear to you, Todd is going to make me sound arrogant.
All right. I really don't mean it to. I get like one paragraph in, or I get two minutes in, and I'm done already. Like, I'm just, no, I'm not reading the rest of this because it's bullshit. Okay? It's again, it's like, this is, this should be your process. You follow these steps first, you do this, and then you do this.
Here's the problem. When you work with a client of any kind, or if you work in-house somewhere, people who work in-house don't need me to tell them this they're living it. All of that wonderful ordered, structured shit goes right out the window.
[00:13:05] Todd: Yeah.
[00:13:06] Joe: Because number one, human beings are messy. Number two organizations.
The motivation of every single person involved in product design and development is different sometimes by design, right? Sometimes just, that's just a function of people's roles is just a function of what each department needs to accomplish. Right? It's a function of how management works. It's companywide mandates, it's political pressure.
It's all sorts of things. None of these perfect world process, none of these one size fits all things account for any of that ridiculous movement and churn and chaos. So, every day in my life, okay? I swear to you, I get younger UX folks and people who are new to the profession in particular are asking me, what should my process be?
Nobody likes my answer to that question. Because the real answer is you have to start somewhere with a basic framework. Okay? But you absolutely have to go down the path. And be ruthless about throwing out the parts that obviously are not working. I feel that way about UX processes. I feel that way about lean, lean UX.
I feel that way about agile, scrum, about a safer, I mean, any of these things. Okay?
[00:14:29] Todd: Right.
[00:14:29] Joe: The theories behind them are very sound right. They're all very good ideas. There's no articles. None of the articles I'm talking about are necessarily bad premises. They're not, but you have to take those things and tweak and adapt based on what's working.
I mean, I know teams who follow these iterative processes for development and their backlog is expanding by a factor of like 200% every week. All right. If you are shoving shit to the side at that magnitude, you've got a problem.
[00:14:59] Todd: Right.
[00:15:00] Joe: All right. The things you're doing are not working.
[00:15:03] Todd: Right.
[00:15:04] Joe: You got to pivot, you got to change. I mean, I've been inside organizations who had stand-up meetings, for example, where it's a check-in people read off the checklist, like here's what I'm doing. I'm stuck with this and here's what to do next, next. There's no collaboration. There's no, okay. Well, what are we going to do about that? Right? Let's pair off.
Let's talk about this after this. Like there's no activity coming out of that, that thing. So, and their meetings, cause I sat in with them for three days before I opened my mouth about that. I mean, these would go on for like 40 minutes and I said, look, folks reclaim this time and do something else with it. Okay?
[00:15:49] Todd: Yeah.
[00:15:51] Joe: 15 people don't need to stand around and listen to everybody else rattle off things that are already, you know, stating in, in Jira or the project management software or whatever. Like that info is there. We're not learning anything new here. We're not doing anything, replaying the time to do something else with it.
But people and companies have a real sort of stumbling block to doing that. Everybody wants an easy answer. Students want our recipe. And I keep saying, there is none, right? People get upset, sometimes in my courses, they're like, well, I expected a, you know, a step-by-step thing. You have to learn this stuff.
You have to take it; you have to apply it. You have to try it. And you have to figure out which parts work for you and your situation with your team, with your client, with your product, your context, and you got to figure it out. There is no other recipe. Anyone who's telling you that, in my mind, is full of shit. They're lying to you.
[00:16:51] Todd: Right.
[00:16:52] Joe: They're lying to you. It doesn't work. So that's the one size fits all thing. Okay? I just think it's a false hood. And I think we continue as an industry to perpetuate with all these wonderful diagrams and, and recipes and you know, the one process that you need, like come on,
[00:17:09] Todd: Right?
[00:17:10] Joe: Messy.
[00:17:11] Todd: Yeah.
[00:17:12] Joe: It's messy. It's unpredictable.
[00:17:13] Todd: Yeah.
[00:17:13] Joe: I think you have to have your bags packed at all times; I mean. That's how this works. So, yeah. I've got a problem with that. Obviously. Remember you asked.
[00:17:25] Todd: I did, I did. No, that was a great answer. I, so let me ask you this is, is that approach kind of like, oh, you know, we'll do it like Amazon or, oh, Apple does it this way.
[00:17:41] Joe: Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:42] Todd: Yeah, so.
[00:17:44] Joe: Google.
[00:17:45] Todd: Yeah.
[00:17:45] Joe: Google, right? Well, Google does it this way. Like people's people still talk about Google's HEART framework or
[00:17:50] Todd: Right.
[00:17:50] Joe: you know, Material Design or like Spotify, the whole Spotify process thing got blown up into this thing that wasn't really accurate anymore about the way that the company actually worked, you know?
And, and that's because people have this need to be like, oh yeah, we're gonna do that because this is chaos and, and, and there's all these moving parts and we can't seem to get a handle on it. So that must be the answer. We'll do that. It's not the answer but reason the reason things are chaotic is because you refuse to embrace that chaos.
Right? You refuse to see it for what it is. You refuse to change the parts that aren't working.
[00:18:27] Todd: Yeah.
[00:18:27] Joe: Forget the dogma, forget the rules. Figure out what the hell is going on here and pivot where you need to.
[00:18:36] Todd: Because, you know what may work for Amazon, Apple, Google, Spotify won't necessarily work for
[00:18:44] Joe: That's right, that’s right.
[00:18:45] Todd: you know, this agency or that agency, so
[00:18:47] Joe: It won't, all of it won’t, okay? 50% of it might, 60% of it might 20% of it might. There's no way to know.
[00:18:54] Todd: Right.
[00:18:55] Joe: It's constant. You have to pay attention and, and really, really focus on, okay, what's going well. And where are we spinning our wheels? Right? What are the parts that are hanging everybody up to some degree?
Where are the parts that we have a massive disconnect between us and our, and our stakeholders or us and our customers or us and our clients, right? Where are those gaps? And wherever they are, you got to stop doing whatever you're doing in that part of the process.
[00:19:24] Todd: Right.
[00:19:5] Joe: Right? Like a companies where teams fight with stakeholders, right? Where stakeholders are involved, maybe at the very beginning. And then they disappear for six weeks. And then they come back and say, well, that's not what I imagined. Do you know, when we talked about the requirements for this, and then they throw a wrench in everything, you can't let six weeks go by without that person being involved somehow, or without that person, seeing something without that person, you can't, if you allow that to happen, you are asking for big surprises later, that will suck.
[00:19:59] Todd: Right, right.
[00:19:5] Joe: You just can’t, I don't care what your process is. If that's happening, you got to change it one way or another, because you're just hurting yourself.
[00:20:09] Todd: Yeah. And that's where I think, and I think ad that's where adversity comes in. So
[00:20:20] Joe: Sure
[00:20:20] Todd: I wanted, wanted to talk about that a little bit. I mean, we know, you know, I, I know a lot of people, you know, that don't look that don't look like me, you know, not the white guy, not the privileged white guy.
[00:20:34] Joe: Right.
[00:20:34] Todd: That have overcome a lot. And I'm sure you have, as, you know, you know, you know a ton of people like that as well.
[00:20:42] Joe: I do.
[00:20:46] Todd: What advice would you give? So, a perfect example is, back pedal a little bit here. A couple of people I know have swung their career paths from development because the toxicity in that part to UX and, you know, under the adversity that they, you know, have been a part of, you know, or, you know, gone through. They're doing great in that category that space of UX. So, what would you, what advice would you give to someone looking to get into UX that, you know, it doesn't look like me or you, you know, and I mean, even, you know, maybe even people that are older, you know, like me.
[00:21:42] Joe: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:47] Todd: What advice would you give those
[00:21:48] Joe: I think it's tough on all fronts. my, my, my advice to just about everybody usually follows two paths. Okay? Some of which sounds a hell of a lot easier than it actually is in practice. Number one, I think you have to draw very hard, very firm boundaries around what is acceptable and what isn’t. Okay?
In terms of the way people treat you, in terms of, of these boxes that they draw around people, like you said, especially people who don't look like me or you.
[00:22:20] Todd: Yep
[00:22:21] Joe: Right? People who aren't white. People who aren't men. I I've been in plenty of rooms. Okay? Where, where that has happened, where I've watched conversations, move around certain people in the room.
Now my particular take on that is if I'm in that room, I'm going to be the person that said that is going to say, well, hang on a second. You know, I think we need to hear from Janet over there. I think we need to hear from Tyrone over there or, or whoever it is, who, who was actually that person. This young man by the name of Tyrone was, was an intern with me many, many, many years ago.
And he now works for a very large tech organization who if I named you would know, and he's had a hell of a, a, a time coming up in the ranks. But what I learned from this young man is that he absolutely refuses to let people talk around him. And he is absolutely willing to make people in that room uncomfortable by saying, you know, look, I have something to offer here.
And it's really starting to bother me that the conversation keeps moving around me. Okay? So, you hired me to do this job. I'm here with you. I would like to contribute, and it makes people, I've, I've seen him do that on like three or four different occasions and it makes people ungodly uncomfortable. But that's what needs to happen.
[00:23:53] Todd: Yes.
[00:23:54] Joe: All right.
[00:23:55] Todd: Yep.
[00:23:56] Joe: In those instances, people who get uncomfortable need to be uncomfortable
[00:24:01] Todd: Yep.
[00:24:01] Joe: Right? So, the advice back to the advice part it's number one, you can't take anybody's shit and you cannot accept a situation where people are sort of silencing your voice. Now that's difficult and it's painful because the minute you speak out, if you're surrounded by people who are, you know, toxic one way or the other, or, whether that racism is systemic or not, right?
It's usually there. So, you're, you're in for a fight. The minute you do that, you're in for, in some cases, even subtle retaliation. When you do that. I don't know any other way. I think that's important. I think that one of the most important lessons I ever learned. I had a, I had a boss once who apropos of nothing ran in my office and on the whiteboard in front of him, he wrote in red marker.
You get what you tolerate, put the marker down, ran out. That was it. That was sum totally exchanged. I never forgot those words
[00:25:07] Todd: Yeah.
[00:25:07] Joe: as cliche as they may sound. So, I'm, I’m always hesitant to say these things, because like I said, the minute you speak up, you're inviting war. You are. That's the hard part about all of these conversations, right?
About diversity and equity inclusion. But I believe that starts with empowerment. You have to absolutely refuse to accept less. You're either going to respect me, or you're not, and I'm not going to allow you to marginalize and silence my voice and my contribution. I'm just not gonna do it. So, you have to insert yourself in conversation.
Right? That's the first part. and the second part is I I'm, I'm writing a book on this topic right now. Two books, actually, if you count the one that I'm working on with Vincent Brathwaite, that's called Designing Difficult Conversations. You have to build an inordinate amount of emotional resilience because those experiences will wear you down as anyone, who is a person of color or, you know, has it has, a different gender defines themselves differently.
These people are fighting everyday of their lives, and they are taking a lot of, it's like a ship taken on water. Okay? I mean, you're, you're, you're getting it all the time. You have to build some tools emotionally to deal with that. Right? And to keep getting up after you keep getting knocked to the canvas, because that's what happens.
So, I think those are the two parts. Number one, you have to just refuse to, to allow anybody to treat you as less, as difficult as that is. Right? Lots of people have done it. And lots of people have paid very high prices. I know some of them personally, but there is no other way. I don't think there's any other way.
It's certainly on everybody else to be better human beings.
[00:27:04] Todd: Yes.
[00:27:04] Joe: Right? There's no doubt about that. You talk about that a lot. and, and like I said, in those situations as a consultant, as an outside person, I'm more than happy to be that, that guy, because, hey, I don't work here.
[00:27:18] Todd: Yeah. Right
[00:27:18] Joe: So, it's easy for me.
[00:27:19] Todd: Yes.
[00:27:20] Joe: I can say whatever the hell I want and if people get mad, they get mad. I don't really care. But those are the two parts. Okay? I think you have to accept the fact that people are not going to go quietly, unfortunately. and you can't accept that. You can't accept that as an answer. It's not an acceptable answer, right? You're a human being, you deserve respect period.
And the second part is you got to develop some sense of emotional resilience, self-care. To deal with that. I watched Vivianne Castillo, Castillo's talk on, she called it the Siren Call of, of Self Neglect. I think it's an older talk, but I literally watched it twice yesterday morning, two times in a row. It was so good.
And that was a lot of what she talks about. You have to realize what you're taking on. If you're in that position, you have to realize just how exhausting this can be, and you have to make it a point to take care of yourself proactively. So long-winded answer, but I mean, those are my two things
[00:28:25] Todd: That takes me back to my job search from when I left freelance into, the, the world of, I worked at a small little place, and I did front end development. And I also did some, well tried to do some UX accessibility stuff, which I have a question about that we'll get to later. But that was
[00:28:53] Joe: Ageism is the same as the same problem.
[00:28:57] Todd: Yes. Yes. Well, I had over, I kept a spreadsheet over the years of my job searching and I had over 2200 resumes. And at the time before I started at the place where I'm now and before I started at Knowbility, it was, I was only one place that hired me, and it was that place. I worked to prior to these last two jobs, and I remember being interviewed by people half my age.
And going this isn't going to go well right out of the gate.
[00:29:37] Joe: Right.
[00:29:37] Todd: And that's, that's where the, a lot of big companies too, you know.
[00:29:42] Joe: It wears on you.
[00:29:44] Todd: It does. So, self-care, you know, when you said self-care, that was like, yes, that's crucial to me. I'm sure crucial to everybody. So, with that, I'm going to swing it all the way back around to toxicity because we're in tech and tech can be, I don't want to say wonderful and sound like I'm starry-eyed, but it can be good, it can be great.
[00:30:14] Joe: Sure, it can.
[00:30:15] Todd: And again, but then, but then again, it can be a cesspit, you know?
[00:30:18] Joe: Yes.
[00:30:19] Todd: I think
[00:30:18] Joe: Those people are right in every aspect of tech, right?
[00:30:22] Todd: Yeah
[00:30:22] Joe: UX and design included.
[00:30:26] Todd: Yes. Yes.
[00:30:26] Joe: Those people are everywhere.
[00:30:27] Todd: Yes, you know, we have gatekeeping, virtual virtue signaling, you know, everything like that. We see toxic situations, you know, misogyny and all that. I feel like I have a duty to call that out.
[00:30:41] Joe: Same
[00:30:44] Todd: And if I say something, I need to hold myself accountable and responsible. And which is why, you know, on Twitter, especially I see, I see certain conversations and I go, no, I'm not going to jump into that one because that's not absolutely not. But if I see
[00:31:04] Joe: You gotta, you gotta pick your moments for sure.
[00:31:08] Todd: Yes. Cause I never used to, you know, that’s the oh, I, I need to insert myself into this conversation. I don't need to insert myself into every conversation. So, what can you and I and other people do that have privilege like we do about toxicity in your opinion?
[00:31:26] Joe: Well, I, I think like, like you said, I, I, I think there is a duty. I, I really believe this. Okay? I I've always felt on certain things. I cannot remain silent.
I think it is an abdication of responsibility for someone like me, who for better or worse a lot of people pay attention to the things that I say. So, to remain silent on certain things. I think to me, silence is agreement. Okay? So, I can't say nothing. And it bothers me quite frankly, that, some of my, my peers in this industry choose that road.
Okay? I don't, I'm not, I say that carefully. I, I'm not judging anybody for that. Okay? But it does bother me. It's disheartening. Okay? A, a lot of times when, when I sort of hope that more people will get involved and I do think that's changing. I think there's a, there's a whole, I think that there are a lot of people who are challenging existing thinking, and I think that's awesome.
And I applaud all those people. The people I'm talking about who tend to remain silent are people my age, right? Are people who have been in this, this game for quite a while, who are the elder states people, in whatever way you want to define that. And I think that their absence is very conspicuous, and I don't necessarily think that's a good thing.
So, responsibility. I think you have to call it out when you see it. I think you have to be careful about the way you do. Like you said, I'm learning just like everybody else, because I am a privileged white man. Okay? There are lots of instances where my take is not needed. So, what I do in those situations is I try to amplify other people's voices perspectives who are really nailing it and who are coming from a place where they're experiencing, what's being talked about, right?
[00:33:20] Todd: Right, yeah.
[00:33:20] Joe: That they know a hell of a lot more about it than I do. They have better answers than I do. so, I just, I retweet that stuff. Right?
[00:33:29] Todd: Yep.
[00:33:29] Joe: I share it. It's like noted without comment. I don't need to say anything about this. I just need more people to see it. Right? So, a lot of cases, that's the better move. you win some and you lose some.
And I've put my foot in my mouth several times. I've said things unintentionally that I didn't really realize how they were landing. And thankfully, there are people in this community who will quite kindly point it out and say, you know, I know where your heart is, but Joe here's, how this, here's how this lands.
And I go, oh shit. Which is hey, I think that's good. Right? It's, it’s, it's how we learn. So that's the first part. I, I think you don't have to insert yourself in everything, but I think you do have to amplify this stuff. And I think there are other times where, and I, I've done this, and I've made enemies. I, I don't care who it is.
Okay? Wrong is wrong. There's certain things that I could not sit by and say nothing about. Right? This whole thing with, with, what's her name? Geez, it’s escaping me. The human factors thing, or was it, ISDF,
[00:34:47] Todd: I don't think I saw that.
[00:34:49] Joe: But can be any stuff about, it's totally escaping me.
[00:34:52] Todd: I don't think I saw that
[00:34:54] Joe: Anyway. There are, there are certain instances where I just sort of feel like I have to say loud and clear, look, this is unacceptable. Stop what you're doing. Right? And if you can't find the empathy in your heart, if you can't get past your own ego and your own bullshit and conditioning and whatever it is, then shut up.
Stop talking. Okay? Just be quiet. You have nothing to offer.
[00:35:22] Todd: Yeah.
[00:35:23] Joe: You know, I mean, some people are not willing to hear how it lands. I, I, I got this advice. I saw a consultant years ago when I was very young in my career. And he was talking about the conversations he would have with his wife. And he said, his wife used to say to him, like when he'd say something and she would get upset, what she would say to him is I think I understand what you're saying. Would you like to know how it landed? Right? You know?
[00:35:55] Todd: Yeah.
[00:35:55] Joe: And, and that was a huge lesson, right? Like you have to be willing to hear that part and change and educate yourself. And if you can't do that, if you're unable to do that shut up, right? I've never been one to shy away from a fight, for a long time in my personal life that was one on one.
[00:36:14] Todd: Yep.
[00:36:14] Joe: And that's just because I think certain things are unacceptable and I think we cannot remain silent. in certain areas like gatekeeping in this industry makes me absolutely batshit crazy.
[00:36:25] Todd: Yes.
[00:36:25] Joe: I hate it. I hate it. That's about privilege. That's about fear. It's about protecting my position. It's about all I'm the expert. You're nobody.
[00:36:33] Todd: Right.
[00:36:34] Joe: Okay? You're ridiculously fortunate that a lot of people happen to dig what you do, right? Or pay attention to what you do. That's, that's, that's unbelievable good fortune. Okay? I'm under no illusions about what I do. I tell people all the time, I am not the smartest person in the room by any stretch ever. I don't have any magic powers. If I got this far, anybody in my opinion should be able to get twice as far.
Okay? All I am doing. All I ever try to do is, is tell the truth in as loud a voice as, as I can muster. Right? And, and hopefully I had a conversation with Nick and Lisa recently about this. And they came back to me with one word that has always been at the core of what I've tried to do. And that is give people hope.
[00:37:25] Todd: Yeah.
[00:37:25] Joe: Right? And if I can't do that, I'm not actively trying to do that. Then I shouldn't be open to my mouth. So, all this stuff about fighting back about speaking out about things, that's really what it's about. I want people who are feeling that pressure, who are the targets of these kinds of things to know that no, it's not cool.
It's not Okay. All right? And people who have a platform should be saying out loud, this is not cool. This is not Okay.
[00:37:54] Todd: Right.
[00:37:54] Joe: At the very least mean it's a very least any of us can do.
[00:37:58] Todd: That's kind of that brings me to the example of in the development world, where men from all walks seem to think it's alright to slide into a woman's DM’s on whether it be on Twitter or Facebook, whatever, or some of the platform, and use that as a, as, as Tinder. And it's just like, don't do that. Just don't do that.
[00:38:26] Joe: What’s wrong with you?
[00:38:27] Todd: Yeah. And
[00:38:28] Joe: I direct message, I have direct messaged some of those people.
[00:38:34] Todd: Yeah. Yeah. I used to be, you know, shut the fuck up, you know, just shut the fuck up. Now it's more of, you know, like you said, retweet, but I'll add men, don't do this perfect example. Don't do this so
[00:38:50] Joe: It’s unfathomable. Okay?
[00:38:51] Todd: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Joe: It's absolutely unfathomable. If I was a woman. I don't know how; I don't know how I would deal with this. I mean, I wouldn’t, okay? I would not deal with any of that well. And it's ridiculous. It happens even in the most professional of settings
[00:39:09] Todd: Yes.
[00:39:09] Joe: someone's giving a workshop. Okay? And, and people are making comments in a chat, like what the actual fuck is wrong with you?
[00:39:18] Todd: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:39:18] Joe: You know?
[00:39:21] Todd: It, we've lost in this profession, web, you know, whatever space it may be. We've lost a lot of brilliant women over this, over, over this shit that men do, you know, thinking it's, you know, a dating app, it's not a dating app. You know? It, it, it, it's a communication tool. It fall back to Twitter as an example, but it's just, you know, do your work and like you said, keep your mouth shut. You know?
[00:39:53] Joe: Well, I mean, part of the problem is its culture, right? And, and, and not just U.S. culture, it's culture in different places as well. All right? Men and boys, I'll, I’ll just speak for the U.S. cause that's my, my sort of sphere of, of experience. Culture for boys from a very young age it's, it's toxic in any number of ways, the messages that boys get about what it means to be a man and how you're supposed to conduct yourself and jokes you're supposed to make with your friends, right? And here's how you fit in. And there's nothing more important to a child or a teenager in particular, right?
Then fitting in and being accepted.
[00:40:35] Todd: Exactly.
[00:40:35] Joe: And one of the ways you get accepted is by going along with stuff, even if it makes you uncomfortable. All right? I went through that when I was a kid, I was, I've always been a sensitive person. Okay? Sensitive, which in other words, “sissy”.
[00:40:52] Todd: Yeah.
[00:40:53] Joe: Is, is the label that you get, right?
[00:40:54] Todd: Yeah.
[00:40:54] Joe: When you're a kid,
[00:40:54] Todd: Yep.
[00:40:54] Joe: Until I was old enough to start hitting people and I never got that. Okay? There, there was a lot about how my friends conducted themselves that never made any sense to me. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't like it. and I, and I couldn't sort of sit with it and abide by it. And as a result, I, I never, I mean, I felt isolated to some degree from my, my male friends for most of my life, until I met people who are good human beings later on in life.
And I think that's that toxicity. It just comes in from word go. I mean, watch an hour of TV. The stereotypes are unbelievable. All right? This is the shit that people get fed. Like it's okay. It's not okay. God almighty. It's not okay. So that stuff is just unacceptable. And, and, and, you know, the, the thing about social media and electronically mediated conversation is that it makes everybody brave. Okay?
[00:41:52] Todd: Yes, yes.
[00:41:52] Joe: Men say things over electronic mediums that would get their teeth knocked out were they were in person. Okay?
[00:42:01] Todd: Yep.
[00:42:01] Joe: That's cowardice is what that is.
[00:42:04] Todd: Yes.
[00:42:04] Joe: It's cowardice.
[00:42:05] Todd: Yep.
[00:42:06] Joe: Right? So, yeah. I, I don't know how anybody deals with that. I do not know how women deal with that. It's, it's infuriating
[00:42:17] Todd: And I've been on both sides. Well, not harassing women as much as back when, and I, and I freely admit when I talk about it to people, I was a troll back in the day early well in, in the mid to late nineties when IRC was still a thing. And no, I was, I was looking for a fight wherever, cause I was angry and there were a few other
[00:42:47] Joe: Right.
[00:42:47] Todd: variables
[00:42:48] Joe: Right.
[00:42:48] Todd: included into that. And it just, so thinking back on that, I wrote on a little piece of paper because somebody had told me this a long time ago, you know, do better than you did yesterday. And that, that has always stuck with me. And I have that right here on my desk do better than you did yesterday. And it,
[00:43:12] Joe: Yeah.
[00:43:12] Todd: when I look back at that it’s like, I don't feel good about myself, but then I think about.
[00:43:19] Joe: You're not who you were. I mean, nobody's who they were.
[00:43:22] Todd: Right, right.
[00:43:22] Joe: I mean, I've made, I've made a lot of mistakes
[00:43:24] Todd: Yeah.
[00:43:24] Joe: in my life and I, I grew up with a lot of internalized anger from the stuff we were just talking about as well. So, when I was a teenager, when I was old enough to get into fights, I got into fights because all that stuff needed to go somewhere.
[00:43:42] Todd: Yeah.
[00:43:42] Joe: You know what I mean? And, and, and there's nothing good about that.
[00:43:45] Todd: No, no there’s not.
[00:43:45] Joe: There's nothing positive, nothing positive about that. Right?
[00:43:49] Todd: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Joe: But that, that's kinda my point. If, if you just, you don't, you’re never sorta taught properly to deal with that. I think, I think boy, culture, men culture is just toxic in general. It just really is.
And you have to be very sure of yourself to sort of step outside it. And I think just like the, the previous conversation, I think it is on us, largely to call that stuff out when we see it. Okay? And to not expect it, I I've done that in meetings as well. Right? Where someone would make a snide comment. You know, when a young woman in the meeting would volunteer some brilliant insights and some would be like, well, I think we need to hear from somebody with a little more experience.
Well Jim, from what I understand, and I've only been here for a week, but I think Laura does have a lot of experience. And quite frankly, she's the expert on this particular topic in this room. So, I think we need to let her finish. Daggers, right?
[00:45:03] Todd: Yeah.
[00:45:03] Joe: Everyone goes who the fuck is this guy?
[00:45:03] Todd: Right, yeah.
[00:45:07] Joe: I don't care. I'm a consultant. Okay? Fire me. I, it doesn't matter.
[00:45:12] Todd: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:45:14] Joe: Right? You want things to get better or not? This is the smartest person in the room. Shut your mouth and listen.
[00:45:19] Todd: Yep.
[00:45:20] Joe: Give me a break with this, anyway.
[00:45:23] Todd: So
[00:45:26] Joe: I don't know where I'm going at this point. Just venting.
[00:45:31] Todd: There's an awful lot of similarities that I'm hearing between yourself and me.
So yeah, I, I get it. I guess that kind of brings me to the resilience piece too, where, you know, we just, we talked about adversity, you know, and, and I've had to sometimes explain to people, adversity and resilience while they can be the same, they're a little different.
[00:46:01] Joe: That’s right
[00:46:01] Todd: So, like with my instance as a, I mean, an example off the top of my head, you know, I can't do coding interviews right off the bat because I freeze up, my brain instantly tells me you're going to fail and I have failed a ton,
[00:46:23] Joe: Sure
[00:46:23] Todd: a ton of those interviews. and it's exhausting, you know. But I've seen people and I know people who are, you know, they just, they go through those interviews, or they go, they go through the interviews that you and I hate where they're oh, well we have six interviews that you need to do in a four hour period. And,
[00:46:44] Joe: Ridiculous
[00:46:45] Todd: they, they make it all the way through. They're resilient and then they don't hear anything for a month and then they hear back, well, you know, that automated email, while we loved your resume and, you know, appreciate all your experience. We decided to go with another candidate, you know, well, fuck you. This is what I would say.
[00:47:06] Joe: Right. And it's rude. I mean to, to leave somebody hanging for that long and not communicate with them all, that's a whole other topic. But, yeah, come on. It’s rude.
[00:47:13] Todd: Yeah. So, I guess my question is, you know, and again, you know, when I've seen a lot of resilient people, what can we learn from those people about resiliency?
Because I'm still learning how to be resilient, after, you know
[00:47:26] Joe: Yeah
[00:47:26] Todd: it's over 20 years for me being a professional, and I'm still learning from these people.
[00:47:32] Joe: Right. And that doesn't stop. Okay? And that's the important thing that you just said is the key that doesn't stop. You don't get to a point where you are now.
Like I have reached full saturation of resilience. You know what I mean? Like I've got it now. it doesn't work that way. It, it's, it's a constant rethinking refueling re like sort of re remembering, like, okay, here's what I have to do here. Yeah, like you. Okay? I, I have struggled with, with a lot of things on my life, with anxiety, with depression, with, add attention deficit, right?
Which as a kid was never diagnosed. So, what would happen to me is I can always do the homework. I can always do the in-class work straight A's no problem. When I did standardized tests, I tested like three or four grades ahead of where I was constantly. The minute I had to take a test, the minute I had to remember something right?
Or memorize things. C's, D's, F's in a lot of cases. Okay? Math in particular, where you had to memorize all these formulas, right? For algebra in order to take the test. And if you couldn't remember the formula, well, guess what, you're fucked. You take the test, right?
[00:48:48] Todd: Right
[00:48:48] Joe: So, I would get A's on my homework and D's on tests.
[00:48:52] Todd: Yep.
[00:48:52] Joe: Right? And every teacher I ever had was like, doesn't apply himself
[00:48:58] Todd: Yes.
[00:48:58] Joe: And I’d be like, I can't remember any of this shit. And no one was sort of buying that. Well, when I was in my thirties, the therapist said to me, have you ever been tested for the different forms of attention deficit? I said, no, I've never even considered it.
I said, okay, well, let's, let's go through this. And they walked me through the test and my numbers are off the chart. Okay? And that's literally it's, it's like up until that point, I started therapy and meds. It was like having 12 different radios on it at the same time. And each one of them is tuned to a different station and you have no choice as to which you can pay attention to and remembering things, memorizing things impossible.
Absolutely positively impossible for me still is to this day. So that was the light bulb moment. Okay? That was all right. Number one. There's an answer to this. And number two, I have to find a way to adapt and what I have learned over the years from that experience from very difficult life experiences from very difficult work experiences.
You have to accept the fact that life is going to hand you some difficult shit it's going to hurt. You're going to get hit repeatedly. I don't think that's different for anybody, people who don't admit to that are lying. Okay? I think that everybody pays one way or another, right? Constantly. I, I just that's my belief, everybody pays two words.
It's one of my mantras. You have to accept that part of the pain that we experience, is by insisting that it shouldn't be this way, right? Or insisting that it should be some other way. It can't be any other way than the way it is. Right? Buddhism as well has helped me a lot with this. The first tenet of Buddhism is pain is inevitable.
Suffering is optional, right? That there is a suffering comes from our refusing to accept the situation as it is. You gotta train yourself to say, all right, that happened.
[00:51:06] Todd: Yeah.
[00:51:07] Joe: Pretty terrible.
[00:51:08] Todd: Yeah.
[00:51:09] Joe: I don't know how I'm going to get through the next moment. And sometimes all, you know, how to do is put one foot in front of the other or breathe in and breathe out and continue to tell yourself to do those things until it becomes natural again.
Right? And you don't have to think about it. There is no other way, but it's, it's a constant process. Like I said, you don't reach a point where you're suddenly magically resilient to everything that comes your way. It's training and it's practice. It's like everything else. Okay? It's like exercising or it's like practicing your craft.
You have to do it over and over and over and over again. So that at the very least your response becomes somewhat automatic. Like, okay, bad shit. What's the very next thing?
[00:51:56] Todd: Yeah.
[00:51:56] Joe: Right? Like my father always says that the engineer carpenter, he never looks too far ahead in any situations. Like, all right, what's the very next thing I have to do here.
And that's, as far as my focus goes, you know? And that to me is the only answer. And you also have to realize, I think that most people don't realize how strong they really are. If you really sit down and I mean this for anybody who's listening or watching right now. If you really sit down and take stock of all the shit that you have been through, right? At this point in your life, take stock of all of it.
You're still here. Okay? You're still here.
[00:52:40] Todd: Yeah.
[00:52:40] Joe: Whatever it is, whatever's taken place. You still exist. Okay? That means you made a conscious decision to say, I'm going to move through this shit. Your ability to move through all that shit and still be standing. And being able to carry a conversation is testament to your strength.
That is the definition to use a cliched term. That is the definition of a warrior. That is what a warrior does. A warrior is not a victor. Okay? Necessarily. Who like conquers all odds very easily? No, a warrior is someone who takes those beatings over and over and over and says, you know what? You can hurt me, but you are not going to break me.
It's not going to happen. Okay? I've had days where I've said that out loud to nobody like to the sky, literally. All right? I've looked up in the air and said, you're not going to break me. Not going to happen. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to deal with this, but you are not gonna break me, seriously.
Sometimes that's all I got.
[00:53:46] Todd: Right, yeah, yeah.
[00:53:49] Joe: So, I, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I mean, that's what it is. There's no magic secret. There is you have to believe in your own ability to transcend which in most cases you've already proven that you have, you just don't realize it, you know? I mean like your case, you mentioned a minute ago looking for a job, what'd you say 2000 resumes, right?
How many doors slammed in your face? How many, how many people ghosted you or couldn't be bothered to get back to you? Right? That's painful
[00:54:20] Todd: Yeah.
[00:54:20] Joe: over and over and over again. A lot of folks I know who talk to me on a weekly basis are going through the same thing. There's only one answer to that. You have to keep going and you have to realize that eventually it will come.
Why? Because you're good enough to do it. Period. If you were good enough to get a job in the past, you're good enough to get a job now, period. People who are new in positions, right? I just got this job and I feel overwhelmed and I'm like, that's okay. But if you got the job, that means you were good enough to get the job.
[00:54:52] Todd: Yeah.
[00:54:52] Joe: Right? If you're working every day, you're good enough to do that work period. That's why you're there. You have to remind yourself of these things. And I think we, as human beings are really lousy at doing that, right? At giving ourselves any credit for what we've been able to accomplish, what would have been able to beat and survive and transcend.
So, to me, Todd, that that's really all it is.
[00:55:17] Todd: Yeah, yeah. And so, this kind of tied in ties into, well, it does tie into my next question. You know, when, when going for those interviews, whether it be, you know, my case development or what whatnot, and with the people that, you know, you have in, in your, in the courses, taking your courses in UX, you know, how can they best prepare themselves to not come out of that interview going, you know, that, that was probably the worst interview ever?
[00:55:53] Joe: Right. I think that I think you have to do it. This is kind of always my advice. Right? I think you have to remember a couple of things. Number one, you also have to remember that you are interviewing them
[00:56:04] Todd: Yeah, yeah.
[00:56:04] Joe: and you have to treat those interviews as that. Right. So, you do have to, I think really work to turn the tables a little bit and ask as many questions as they ask you about how they work. How does work with move through this organization? who approved this? Right? How does, how does a request start? Who does what? How do developers and designers work together?
Any number of questions, right? What happens when people have life events or people get sick or right? You have to put yourself in the mindset of, I am qualifying them. They need to be good enough for me as well.
[00:56:38] Todd: Yeah.
[00:56:39] Joe: That's absolutely true. Okay? Nobody talks about that for reasons I don't understand. That that's part of it.
The other part of it is when it comes to like the challenges part, right? Or they're like, what if they ask me a question, I don't know the answer to? Then that's your answer. Okay? I don't know the answer to that.
[00:56:55] Todd: Yeah.
[00:56:55] Joe: I can't tell you how many interviews I've heard about people have told me about where client companies are asking questions.
Like we have a situation that's like this. How would you, how would you deal with this? There's only one answer to that question because you've only been in a room for 10 minutes. Okay? You know this much about this organization and their work and their clients, the only acceptable answer is, to be honest with you I don't know enough about your company or your clients or this product, or how it's performed historically, or any number of things to give you a good answer.
What I can tell you is here are the areas I would need to look into. Here are the questions I would have for people who work here. Here are the questions I would have for customers, right?
In order to answer your question. That's the right answer. Not coming up with some bullshit that you think they want to hear.
[00:57:47] Todd: Right.
[00:57:47] Joe: It's not going to serve you
[00:57:48] Todd: No.
[00:57:48] Joe: at all right? They're not going to get the answer that that they want. And I didn't want, who wants a bullshit answer out of you, not a place you want to work
[00:57:57] Todd: No, right.
[00:57:57] Joe: alright? For any number of reasons.
[00:57:57] Todd: Yeah.
[00:57:57] Joe: The other thing about interviews like challenges. I, I had a mentoring session with a young lady a week ago, who said, they're doing this thing, they call it a whiteboard challenge. But what they really want me to do is they want me to use software and like design as they, as we go through this, this challenge in 2 hours.
And there are a laundry list of shit that they wanted her to touch was, was way too long. And I said, look, I wouldn't email this person back and say, based on what you're asking, if I do this with the software, I, I'm only going to address maybe 10% of this because the rest of my effort is going to be just trying to arrange shit on the screen and like doing the things that need to be done.
If you allow me to do this with pen and paper instead, right? With a webcam on my, on my desk, that'd be a hell of a lot more accurate. Okay? It would be more relevant it would allow me to think through and work through these problems, it would allow us to collaborate better, any number of things. And I said, you should say that. They may accept that, they may not.
And even then, if they don't, you still have to do that session the way you think it should be done. Ask questions. They're like, what if she's like, what if I'm not allowed to ask questions. I said, there's no such thing.
[00:59:19] Todd: Right, yeah, yeah.
[00:59:19] Joe: Alright? You asked the question, what happens when, all right? That's a real world situation. If you're going to put me in a situation where I have to do a design challenge, Okay?
And you’re going to give me this premise problem I have to solve. I'm going to treat it like a real world thing, which means there are other humans in this room. I'm going to ask you questions
[00:59:37] Todd: Right.
[00:59:37] Joe: about the things that I don't know, so that I can do some relevant work and fuck you if you have a problem with that.
[00:59:47] Todd: Yes, exact, exactly.
[00:59:47] Joe: I'm very serious.
[00:59:48] Todd: Yeah.
[00:59:48] Joe: All right. Let's that's I, I tell candidates this all the time, just because it gives you parameters, doesn't mean that those parameters make sense. It doesn't mean that you automatically have to obey them. Okay? You got to get real. If you hired me, here's what you're going to get.
[01:00:06] Todd: Yes.
[01:00:06] Joe: So, you got to do it the way you think it should be done and don't make any apologies about that and don't lie out of your ass.
[01:00:13] Todd: Right. It doesn’t work.
[01:00:14] Joe: If they ask you a ridiculous, if they ask you a ridiculous question that you can't possibly answer, you need to politely say I don't have nearly enough information to answer that question. It's premature in this case.
[01:00:26] Todd: Up until
[01:00:28] Joe: That’s the right answer.
[01:00:29] Todd: Yeah, up until last year I always thought that I needed to answer every question from an, from an, a potential employer
[01:00:38] Joe: and which is normal.
[01:00:40] Todd: Yes. And it never got me the job. Never not once.
[01:00:48] Joe: No, no.
[01:00:48] Todd: When I start, when I found out. it's okay to say, I don't know when asked the question. That's when those interviews got easier a little bit for me to just say no, I don't know that, but I can find out I know how to do the research to find out.
[01:01:07] Joe: That’s right, that’s right.
[01:01:07] Todd: Or I will ask somebody that knows.
[01:01:11] Joe: Yeah, yeah. Because that approach changed the way I, I dealt with clients as well.
[01:01:17] Todd: Yeah.
[01:01:17] Joe: Right? I found that I got better clients, but long-term clients.
[01:01:22] Todd: Yes.
[01:01:22] Joe: When I started ignoring these ridiculous questions that they asked me in our very first conversation
[01:01:27] Todd: Yeah.
[01:01:27] Joe: about what they should do.
[01:01:29] Todd: Yeah.
[01:01:29] Joe: There's no way I'm giving you an answer to that.
[01:01:32] Todd: Yes.
[01:01:33] Joe: No way. Cause then you're going to go do it. You're you to go? Well, Joe told me, sorry, not going there at all.
[01:01:39] Todd: Yeah, right, right. Speaking of
[01:01:39] Joe: So, you're absolutely correct.
[01:01:44] Todd: Yeah. Yes. It, it just, it got easier when I started saying, I don't know. And then asking questions too, up until again last year. I never, I would, okay, I shouldn't say I never, I rarely asked questions.
Rarely did I ask them. How much is the job? How much is the salary? Maybe that one, maybe even, what's an average work week?
[01:02:13] Joe: Yeah.
[01:01:14] Todd: But then I got some enlightenment from our friends, Mike Monteiro and Erica Hall.
[01:02:22] Joe: Right? Kings of the free world, Kings and Queens of the free world. I love them both.
[01:02:26] Todd: during the, yes, yes. During an impromptu zoom pep talk that, Mike dragged me into, with a few other people he knew right before I interviewed for a job, I ended up not getting the job, but it was an experience that I won't forget because I asked the questions that were suggested that I give.
And I was like, holy shit, this is so much easier than trying to not only bullshit my way through an interview and try to answer everything,
[01:03:00] Joe: Yup
[01:03:00] Todd: but asking more than just one or two questions.
[01:03:05] Joe: Yeah.
[01:03:06] Todd: So,
[01:03:07] Joe: Yeah. And see that. I think that's the key. Okay? I, I've always been that person when I started my own firm, when we wrote proposals, my proposals were always, they were long, they were, they'd be like 18 pages, 20 pages. And I was packing education in there. Basically. I was, I was sort of given a mini class inside proposal of here's all the shit that you really need to think about. If you want to do this and you want to achieve these things that you're telling me, you want to achieve.
The clients who appreciated that were the best clients they paid the most, they were the easiest to work with. They were the most collaborative, they were the most interested, right? And the most engaged in the process. When we used to respond to RFPs, the rule in the world of responding to RFPs is you must go by the letter of the RFP.
If they ask for something that very specific way very strict format, that's exactly what you provide. I never did that. I mean, I would, I would, I would follow 70% of the rules. And then for other things, like they would ask a question like you have to respond to this question. And my response would be, there's no possible way I can answer that and, and trying to answer it would do you a disservice, because I would be guessing.
Which essentially means [inaudible, dropped connection] and you're not supposed to do that with RFPs. Like you're not allowed to deviate. And a lot of times that got my proposal thrown out completely because some companies are like, well, they didn't follow instructions. Other people were like, you know what? You were the only person out of 65 people who said this.
Talk to me about that. Alright, now we're in business.
[01:04:49] Todd: Right, so I have a lot
[01:04:51] Joe: You have to believe your way is okay.
[01:04:52] Todd: Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot more questions, but I am running short on time cause I have an eight thirty.
[01:05:01] Joe: That's my fault. I talk a lot.
[01:05:01] Todd: No, no, no, no. Not your fault at all. I am, this is actually, this has been an awesome conversation and I expected an awesome conversation going into this. So, this is
[01:05:13] Joe: Cool.
[01:05:14] Todd: right, right where I thought it would be. Would you like to do a part two?
[01:05:19] Joe: Yes.
[01:05:20] Todd: And we can schedule that for, you know, whenever next week or whenever you have time to do that.
[01:05:27] Joe: Absolutely.
[01:05:28] Todd: Cause work calls, and I have a stand up.
[01:05:34] Joe: I hear ya, I hear ya.
[01:05:34] Todd: But actually
[01:05:35] Joe: Yeah, no problem. I would, I would love to do more, yeah, no problems.
[01:05:37] Todd: Why don’t I just squeeze one more in because I still have a few, few minutes left here.
[01:05:40] Joe: Go for it
[01:05:41] Todd: So, I wanted to touch upon that, you know, we were talk, you know, you were discussing clients, difficult clients and how to deal with them. I've learned, and again, I go back to Mike Montero's Fuck You, Pay Me talk. Which is brilliant. It's still, I think
[01:06:05] Joe: Like the 10 commandments, right?
[01:06:08] Todd: Yes.
[01:06:09] Joe: Absolutely. I live by that rule.
[01:06:10] Todd: What, without going into much detail is the worst case that, or the worst example of a client that was very difficult for you, and what did you do in that situation to, I guess
[01:06:27] Joe: Yeah.
[01:06:28] Todd: you know, remedy the situation or cut ties?
[01:06:34] Joe: Well, I don't know if it was, yeah, I dunno if it was the worst. Okay? But, but it hammered this lesson home.
I had mentors when I first started my business side there's an older guy by the name of Ed Gold, who was my mentor. I really looked up to, he was sort of a big name locally here, in particular. and he was kind enough to sort of take me under his wing. We used to go to lunch. And I used to bitch to him right, about clients.
And all of a sudden, he used to tell me all the time, he's just say, Joe, you have to fire bad clients. You cannot put up with this shit. You either, you lay down the laws, this is what you agreed to via contract. You either honor your end or we're done. And you say it diplomatically and politely, but that's basically the thing.
It took me years before I was able to take that advice. Because at that point you're like, how dare I turn down work? Like who the hell do I think I am? And you're struggling because you're trying to pay bills. Anyway, I had this woman who was a client in my contracts, they were, there were fixed fees. Okay?
And they were set out at very certain milestones. So, she knew upfront exactly what she was going to pay. I did not ever deviate from those numbers ever. Not once. For a period of two years, every single invoice I sent her, she would fax back to me. This was the age of fax machines. She would fax it back to me and it would, the amount would be circled and say, why is this so expensive?
I’m like, you fucking agreed to this in a contract. You knew what it was going to be. What do you ask? Anyway, in that example, and I spent an inordinate amount of time handholding with her on the phone with her answering to these ridiculous emails, questioning the work, like things that we already discussed.
[01:08:11] Todd: Right.
[01:08:11] Joe: And then she changed her mind 45 times. So, I'm spending all this extra time, right, to the tune of like an additional four hours a day, just dealing with this one person. Time I'm not getting paid for. Finally, after two years of this, I finally, I had a conversation with her by phone. I said, look, I can't do this anymore.
I laid out the situation, you know, I, I've done everything I can to accommodate you. That's obviously not working. Okay? You're, you’re insisting that things should be this way. They're not, and I cannot spend all this additional time anymore. So, I think it's best that we part ways, and she was shocked, shocked that I would fire her.
Like you can't fire me. I fire you. That kind of thing. Right?
[01:08:55] Todd: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:08:57] Joe: And, it was the most liberating thing I had ever done. And I never looked back from that point. From that point, it's like, we're going to set expectations very clearly up front. My contracts are very simple and very clear and everything everybody's responsible for is lined out the minute someone doesn't do what they said they're supposed to do.
I simply say, per contract, you know, you, you owe us this and work is going to stop until that gets taken care of. And that's it. I don't debate it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't have conversations about it. It's a statement of fact. And I do it unemotionally, right? I don't argue. I'm literally unwilling to have that conversation.
That's how I approach this. This is what you agreed to. I'm holding up my end. I need you to hold up yours. That's all, that's all.
[01:09:47] Todd: Yeah.
[01:09:47] Joe: And you cannot for a minute entertain anything else.
[01:09:51] Todd: Right.
[01:09:52] Joe: Period. And, and again, you have to, I think the key to that is I say this all the time to people, you have to do it. I learned this from my lawyer Eliot Wagonheim, who's a friend of mine.
We’ve been working together for like 20 years. He, he always told me, he said, when you respond to people, it cannot be emotional. You cannot be pleading your case. You simply say, I've held up my end for this contract. I need you to hold up yours. And until that happens, everything's on pause. That's it. That's all you are ever willing to say on the subject. That’s it.
[01:10:27] Todd: I remember
[01:10:28] Joe: That’s my approach.
[01:10:29] Todd: I remember my first firing of a client and they had brought in somebody that not only looked at the work that I was doing but manipulated it a little bit. And I was like, Nope, that's it. We're done. We are done.
[01:10:45] Joe: Right, right.
[01:10:46] Todd: It's like you said, liberating, you know? Oh, wasn't it liberating because they were not only that micromanagement, the owner, the owner of this company would send me emails at one every half hour, 45 minutes. How's it coming along? How's it coming along?
[01:11:13] Joe: Yeah, see exactly, exactly. That’s distrust.
[01:1:16] Todd: And I, yeah, yeah.
[01:11:17] Joe: That’s someone who doesn't trust you.
[01:11:19] Todd: Yeah. And it, and it was almost like having that person over my shoulder, which again, I, I, I don't know how many, going back to the interviews. I don't know how many interviews when I was doing in person interviews, where I had somebody looking over my shoulder, I'm trying to code and it's like, dude, I can't do this. I actually walked out of interviews because I can't have somebody over my shoulder so.
[01:11:45] Joe: Right, right. Like there are things that I refuse to accept. Okay?
[01:11:49] Todd: Yeah,
[01:11:49] Joe: For example, I've had a couple clients, this happened to me three or four times in my career in the last, you know, 30 years where you have people who are angry.
For whatever reason they hate their lives. And they'll call and you pick up the phone and instead of hello, you get screaming on the other end. I have only ever responded to that one way. And that's with two words we're done.
[01:12:14] Todd: Yeah, that’s
[01:12:15] Joe: I’m done. I'm literally done. We're not working together anymore. Okay? You can have your deposit back. I don't give a fuck. We're done.
[01:12:22] Todd: You gotta do that sometimes.
[01:12:24] Joe: I'm not going to lecture you about how you shouldn't lose your temper. You're an adult.
[01:12:27] Todd: Yeah.
[01:12:28] Joe: We’re done.
[01:12:30] Todd: Yeah, yeah. Well with that, why don't we go ahead and, we can stop right here. We'll get scheduled for the second part. because like I said, I have a lot more questions.
[01:12:42] Joe: Yeah. I might be able to do it next week.
[01:12:45] Todd: Okay
[01:12:45] Joe: As a matter of fact, so let me know. Or should I just take a look at your calendar? How do you want to do this?
[01:12:51] Todd: Yeah, go ahead and take a look at the calendar and we'll get something in there, at some point, but for right now, though, I will just do my little outro here. Thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Front End Nerdery Podcast.
I'll be back next time with a new guest. No, I won't be back with a new guest because we're coming back to do the second part of this. See,
[01:13:13] Joe: We got more to talk about
[01:13:15] Todd: We got a lot more to talk about it. Yes, indeed. So, I'll be back next time with my guest, Joe Natoli here. We will have more conversation about a lot of different things that I have questions on, as far as UX goes and some other stuff, as well.
And yeah. So, if you would please rate this podcast on your podcasts device of choice, like subscribe and watch on the Front End Nerdery YouTube channel. Links, transcripts, and show notes are there. I’m Todd Libby and this has been the Front End Nerdery Podcast. Thanks. And we'll see you next time with the second half of this interview.
So, we'll see you then.
[01:13:58] Joe: Yeah