Noping. Sucks.

A lot of the work that I do evolves around writing. And as the writing that I do is usually a main component of the tenders that we handle – these texts are under the harsh scrutiny of a lot of eyes and stakeholders, all with their own opinions.

This past year I have very quickly had to learn to work with different sorts of people and different types of criticism in a 1000-fold increased capacity from my previous occupation as a tester (which was mainly me telling others what THEY were doing wrong). These days….every text that I produce is reviewed, reworked, reviewed again and again and again until it is going to guarantee us the much needed wins that I’m doing the work for in the first place. Which, as a quality-minded person makes me happy, mind you. But as a human being – not so much. A wonderful opportunity (and necessity) for growth, though. I guess.

Now. I’ll have you know – that this is NOT easy for me. I suppose it wouldn’t be easy for anyone, to be fair, but for me especially, it’s been hard. My words are my babies, and my first and foremost response to anyone criticizing anything I do in any way is to go on the defensive. On the defensive for keeping my text intact AND on the defensive for the quality of my work. I take everything personal. Force of habit, I fear. Which in and of itself is not a problem. It is important as a team that we do challenge each other on input and decisions to reach the best possible solution. I get that.

But I have to get something off my chest. There IS a difference between constructive and destructive criticism. With a whole world of unhelpful criticism in between. And the worst of these is the ‘nope. nope. nope.‘ type of criticism that I have dubbed ‘noping‘.

A lot of times I work with people who, on average, do not enjoy writing. The mere thought of having to (start to) write a text like the ones I’m writing would send them into a flaming pit of despair. They wouldn’t want to (and honestly, most of them couldn’t because their strengths reside in other professional areas of expertise that I am totally lacking in). They have great ideas. They deliver input. They have a general concept of where a text should be going and ending up, but they couldn’t create one to save their lives. Which makes them 100% ‘nopers‘. People who know exactly what they DON’T want – without helping you figure out what they do want, only going ‘YES. THAT’S IT.’ when you do hit the sweet spot.

When it comes to ‘noping‘ it means that a lot of my days are spent creating text only to then see it shot down for a myriad of reasons. People will read what I’ve written and go full-on ‘Nope. That’s not it. That’s not what we should say. That’s not what we mean. That’s not what it should be.‘. Sadly. For the classic nopers – this is also where their input ends. They are fully comfortable expressing that something is imperfect without feeling the need to elaborate further on such matters or, more conveniently, provide suggestions for betterment and improvement of said texts.

We’ll have meeting after meeting after meeting to gather insights, see me taking notes to the best of my capabilities and then have me transforming those notes from hours-long chaotic brainstorm sessions to sensible texts that answer to a tee the questions laid on us by our clients. To then have a group of folks sit there and just be like ‘that’s not it‘. ‘Do it again. But differently’. With me then bravely venturing forth and attempting to do just that (working in ever crystallizing increments to hopefully grand results). There’s progress on every attempt – surely. Each time we get a little bit closer to understanding and our goals. But the process of it can be EXCRUCIATING.

Because when you only work with ‘nopers‘ – you have to read between the lines of everything they shoot down, and try to figure out what it IS that they DO want, because they’re sure as hell not going to tell you. It’s like playing Mastermind. You know you have the right colors of pegs (aka ingredients to a text) somewhere in your hands. But it’s the arranging them in JUST the perfect order that takes all the effort.

And with a mean game-dealer playing the opposite side, they’re not even going to give you the slightest hint as to what needs to go where. You need to figure that out. With attempt. After attempt. After attempt. Sometimes you’ll swing and miss. Sometimes you’ll find a match, but in the end – things only work when you get all the pegs in the right spots. And that’s effing hard. With nopers. Noping sucks. I hate noping.