don’t send angry tirades at Step One

I’ll call this one an advice post.

When writing to someone holding a position of authority or quasi-authority, it’s pointless to send an angry tirade at Step One. Maybe after you’ve hit your head against the wall several times dealing with an unreasonable person, sure. But if you start out on that note, here’s what happens:

1. You can’t escalate if they do anything worse, because you’re already screaming at the beginning.

2. You’re probably going to look bad.

3. You’re ruining your chances of improving the situation, because no one can afford to give in to a screaming tirade even on the off chance it’s justified; this just invites more of the same treatment.

4. It’s probably false when you start off assuming the person in question is unfair, unprofessional, unreasonable, motivated by selfish biases, etc. Here’s what is much more likely: you don’t have all the information yet. And that leads me to the fifth and final point.

5. If you start out with a screaming tirade and then it turns out you weren’t in possession of all the facts, it’s going to be very tough for you to stop the tirade. Most likely you’ll have to change the subject and keep screaming about something related but different, simply because it will too embarrassing suddenly not to scream anymore.

By analogy… the wackos who are already calling Obama “Hitler.” What would they be left with if Obama actually invaded every country in the Western Hemisphere and set up a network of death camps? (Or maybe they think he’s already done this.)

In any case, you don’t want to be one of these people. Don’t scream at Step One.