Stop Being Dicks: PianoFight

We, at PianoFight, have a confession to make -- we are dicks. So we decided to make ourselves the subject of our recurring column, Stop Being Dicks.

8 emails throughout the morning regarding a film competition we are setting up resulted in this email:


From: dan@pianofight.com
Date: Wed, Aug 13, 2008 2:52 pm
To: eric@pianofight.com, rob@pianofight.com
Cc: xxxxxxx@pianofight.com, xxxx@pianofight.com, xxxxxx@pianofight.com
Subject: So it seems we've let the beast out of it's cage....

...and it's good, but it needs to be disciplined. I'll try and be brief mainly because (as Rob pointed out by sending me a picture, which I've attached) I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. But to a certain extent, it's because I have to focus on
my DAY JOB for a good portion of the hours of 9 to 5 and I simply do not have the time to explain all of my feelings (see attached).

Reading through the last 7 or 8 emails between Rob and Eric conjures up an image of a group of people standing around, puking on eachother. Or rather, two people puking on themselves, eachother and a couple of people sitting quietly beneath them, listening but not being able to talk over the puking sounds. Seriously, it's kind of ridiculous to hurl lists of things into people's inboxes, re-package it, hurl it back, CC everybody and call it productive. You're not even really listening to eachother. Most of the questions are answered twice and even if they are, there ar rebuttals. This is what I think MEETINGS are for. I think EMAIL is for communicating, updating, and informing others in a group about individual progress or group progress if not all the group was there at a meeting.

In my opinion, too much gets lost when you just puke out a bunch of crap into people's inboxes, especially if they can't respond. While the few that are able to respond during a pre-designated "time for day job" are figuring things out in a relatively bungled and blundering process (read you're guys's emails again, your strings often contain answers to your own questions), the group (and the project development) is missing out on key input from those who can't email during the day with the same regularity.

If there's specific details that need to be worked out(i.e. date/time, lineup, name suggestions, etc.), by all means puke all over eachother. But we're not there yet, we're still in the theoretical with Film Fight and email is not the most efficient way of getting out of theoretical in our current company-state (i.e while we all have other jobs). I'd invite everybody to read this email chain and come to a different conclusion. Then let's meet and talk about it.

And now, please see attached.

Dan


And, the Diplomatic Response:


From: eric@pianofight.com
Date: Wed, Aug 13, 2008 3:24 pm
To: dan@pianofight.com, rob@pianofight.com
Cc: xxxxxxx@pianofight.com, xxxx@pianofight.com, xxxxxx@pianofight.com
Subject: So it seems we've let the beast out of it's cage....

What??? It was my intention to keep everyone informed on how the meeting went last night. Highlight the topics discussed and have a back and forth dialogue to iron out the kinks so we can move forward and get this thing up and running by the end of September. I didn't think it would be taken as puke in your inbox. This was an attempt to keep you as informed as possible as to the progress and get feedback to make sure we're on the right track. Sometimes that takes a detailed email. I am fully aware of what MEETINGS are for and I THINK I know what email is for but if you want to expand on those two topics as well as you expanded on puking on each other then I think I can carve out a few more hours during my DAY JOB to read it and possibly respond. Now, if email is not the most effective was of getting these ideas out then how will you find the time during your DAY JOB to get back to us? Or, why don't you come up with a detailed plan explaining exactly what you want us to do and we can just send you back a checked checklist of things we accomplished during OUR not so busy day jobs.

Next, and I apologize if this email crap stinks up your inbox of wafer thin emails that don't come with attachments like the one you sent earlier promising a picture of Rob no doubt puking on some overly theoretical email, I think we got a few things accomplished today and got some clarity on how to move forward. No, Dan, we all aren't blessed with your superior organization and communication skills and swamped down by our day jobs choking us so that we can't PUKE out emails but... by some stroke of heavenly intervention I still was able to get us $500 today from Creative Marketing Concepts with no strings attached. I almost didn't think I could make it happen due to my novice communication and bargaining skills but I managed to spit out the proposal between dry heaves and he agreed. I'm sure you could have gotten $5000 but I had to run to the bathroom and puke on my iPhone.

Lastly, take the attachment that you didn't attach in your rebuttal email, an email that ironically provided no more insight as to the direction of this endeavor, and shove it up your ass! I've got to run the the bathroom and puke again!

Love ya Bro! We're meeting next week.


So, to sum up: PianoFight, stop being dicks.