Figuring Out Life @masslaxer - Tumblr Blog

I’m feeling anxious today thinking about how I messed up 2 deals:

1. Celsius- I should’ve led the whole call myself without Taimur even on it. What they needed was basic: Image & Video Templates, Creative Analytics, & Video Ad Assembly

-I should’ve had a list of questions ready asking about their creative workflow & showing an example ad like Simone does

-I should’ve set up the Image Template myself with Von

-I should’ve set up the Video Template myself with Omari

2. Boathouse- I got them to the finish line and just needed to present the correct price. I should’ve asked Steve L. to review my Pricing Proposal before sharing to make sure it didn’t seem too high

-If the price was too high, I could’ve brought it back to Anna P. or Vivek and told them what they’d sign for

Why my Mom Causes me Stress:

-For not letting her, my Dad, & Connor B. borrow our 🚗 for their Maine trip. My Mom says she had wanted to rent a car the entire time & it seems CC and I were used as a way to accomplish this. She has asked us to get our car’s A/C fixed so they could drive it to Maine and I’m disappointed that CC did this but now she’s not driving it. This seems insignificant so I’m not sure why it’s bothering me. I felt like my Mom’s story changed (“I wanted a rental all along”)

-She forces me to do things her way, even if they’re insignificant (ex. washing fruits with water without cleaning spray, not licking my knife). This seems insignificant so I’m not sure why it’s bothering me. This communicates “Do it my Way” even when these are such low stakes

-I’m frustrated my Mom and I walked less than 0.5 miles on the beach before she said she had to turn around instead of just resting on the sand for a bit and then keep walking. I wanted to continue the activity & didn’t get input into an alternative

-I really liked how my Dad let me choose what movie I wanted to watch tonight. My Mom almost always chooses what she wants, even if I don’t like it. There could be shows or movies we both like, but I get frustrated when visiting “as a guest” that she never asks. I always let my friends/guests choose what they want to watch when they visit my house. My preference isn’t being considered. I notice a lack of reciprocity that I offer to others

-Maybe I just need a lot of companionship that my husband fills when we travel here together?

-I have a hard time visiting my family because we’re always on my Autistic brother’s schedule. E can’t plan what time we’ll go to the beach because we have to wait for him and he can stall- this leads to what I perceive as boring downtime. The entire family system revolves around accommodating 1 person. Everyone else adapts. I experience long periods of waiting and uncertainty

RESULT: I feel like I have very little agency when I’m with my family in Florida. When I’m with my family, I often feel like my wants, preferences, & schedule are secondary to everyone else’s

-Individual incidents aren’t what’s bothering me…it’s the accumulation

-I feel that I have little input into decisions and am expected to adapt

RESULT: I’m grieving the family visit I wish I had. I repeatedly encounter:

-My Mom likes things done her way

-My brother’s needs drives scheduling

-Family habits haven’t changed much

One of The Diplomat’s pools in Hollywood, FL

The Diplomat hot tub in Hollywood, FL

The struggle is starting a new job

Say things better at work

I asked a practical pilot-success question: “Can we set up bidding AI in month 1 instead of late?”

Becca’s “not for a lack of trying” could be interpreted as cross-functional finger pointing if retold badly.

How I should have worded my question to Becca: “What is the plan for AI setup timing for future pilot clients?” or “Who owns that step?”

Even if you are objectively correct, your manager’s concern may be political: she may want to control how feedback lands cross-functionally so Sales does not look like it is criticizing CS or Onboarding.

So: not necessarily toast, but you should act like this is a credibility repair moment. Own the pattern, do not relitigate the facts, and make a concrete behavior change immediately.

She is asking you to route risk in a way that preserves trust. In cross-functional work, being right is only half the job. The other half is making the truth easy for other people to accept.

A phrase to keep in your head: “My job is not to prove the mistake. My job is to reduce the risk.”

My Dad wouldn’t ever write any constructive feedback to any colleagues (especially those with job titles above them). He would only write positive.

Dad recommends to never puts any constructive feedback in writing. He says it’s so easy to forward to others.

He would hate having to bite his tongue, but knew he had to.

Dad says no one likes constructive criticism.

Dad says if it was a good call, maybe I’m being nit-picky.

Krystin doesn’t want to cause waves internally because she’s the VP of Sales now. She wants to look good with other departments.

She doesn’t want any negative feedback about any of her teammates (can reflect negatively on her).

If Krystin brings this up to me, I should say: “You’re right to call that out. I was focused on the pilot outcome, but I understand the broader pattern you’ve flagged: even when my intent is constructive, it can land as me correcting another team or creating tension. I need to be more disciplined about routing process feedback through you. For future cross-functional calls, I’ll keep my comments to immediate execution needs and bring any broader observations to you separately.”

Also, be careful with the internal narrative you’re carrying. Calling the onboarding lead’s misunderstanding a “rookie mistake,” even privately, may leak into your tone. A safer framing is:

“There was ambiguity around platform capability and ownership.”

That sounds operational. “Rookie mistake” sounds accusatory, even if accurate.