I could instantly tell that it wasn’t right. The sweet Japanese hairdresser had nodded vigorously when I was showing her pictures of my ideal cut, but perhaps the sheer volume of my hair overwhelmed her. The big unveiling, where I was finally swirled around in my chair and shown the end product, revealed me looking exactly like I did when I entered the salon. I suppose erring on the side of conservatism is the right approach for a hairdresser. I, however, wanted her to be very liberal.
My entire generation has been traumatized by parental attitudes towards service workers, and so, I did not complain. I quietly paid, tipped a standard 20%, and then stomped home in the rain. When I finally arrived home, I looked exactly like a drowned rat. My hair was soaking wet and beginning to frizz, entirely eliminating the smoothing effect of the hairdresser’s blowdry. “Wait, did you get a haircut at all?” my neighbor asked. Something in me snapped, and I immediately dialed the salon. “You didn’t seem very satisfied,” my hairdresser cautiously ventured. “Do you want to come back in?” I took them up on their offer: I showed up at their door, an hour later, sheepish and soaking wet, ready for a re-do.
The hairdresser wasn’t apologetic or upset, just intent on doing a good job. I was very precise with my instructions; she cautioned me that I might have way too much hair (why do they always say this?) for her to cut easily. She proceeded to give me exactly what I wanted. She was utterly meticulous, and wouldn’t let me tip her extra when I was leaving. To be honest, there was no reason for her to fix my haircut: I had already paid, I wasn’t really in their target demographic (everyone else at the salon was Japanese and I was not in their social network), and they definitely didn’t want me back (too much hair!) But I think the idea that she didn’t do an excellent job as a craftsperson offended her. She wanted to get it perfectly right.
We know that everything around us is a labor of love and demanding of passion: that the small restaurant next door and the big innovative company require so much determination and care. The scale of the project is not correlated with the level of intention and craftsmanship invested in it. There are many terribly built Fortune 100 companies’ products, and there are many perfectly crafted haircuts made by small Japanese hair salons in San Francisco.
It’s this anticorrelation that can seem baffling: if you don’t need to care that much to make money or be successful, why bother? It’s for the sake of the work itself. The motivation to build something great comes from simply wanting to leave something great in this world. If you’re looking for a clear financial reason to do so, you’ll never find it.
I didn’t always feel this way. When I interned at a firm managing set top box supply chains (the lives I’ve lived…), I used to cut corners all the time. I would write little VBA scripts to automate the spreadsheet work I had to do, and then escape to Whole Foods to eat my weight in free samples engage in petty theft at the salad bar. As the job came to an end, I realized I had wasted a whole summer that I’d never get back. I began to realize that what you put into the work is really what you get out of it. I didn’t need to go full Jiro Dreams of Sushi on cable box supply chains, but if I had put a bit more effort into my work, I wouldn’t have lost so much time. My time was too valuable to spend on half-assed anything, I realized. My work should always be the best reflection of my taste at the time. I’ve mostly followed that rule throughout my career. Every time I’ve slipped up, I’ve regretted it. It’s helped me reflect on my past work more gently, with some pride – skeuomorphism may be cringe, but I tried so hard! I cared so much! We are meant to pour ourselves into what we do. Loving something makes the time worth it.
As technologists, we are often in a scramble for the newest technology, the most innovative idea, and the fastest solutions. In contrast, aiming to do something deliberately, rigorously well is a marvel.