Rake

Yesterday I sent a thoughtless email to a friend and colleague for which I had to apologise. What worries me is that I wrote it and sent it without thinking to filter it for likely impact. I do often write or say ‘Rake-ish’ things but always with awareness and often when I am bored, or sick of the hypocrisy of the environment, or just wanting to have some fun. But this was an occasion where I had no idea until it blew back on me. Admittedly I was harried and up to my neck with the incompetence of others but that is no excuse. One apology later and I hope it is sorted – but I know how I work; I forgive but I do not forget and I suspect other are the same. From past experience it is 10-100x harder to remove a negative data point in the mind of others, than it is to put it there in the first place. I learned this during my PhD by borrowing and not returning tools from the workshop – a long story only suitable for a beer conversation. In the meantime the filter is going to get more processor time for a while until I can feel it can be safely run on autopilot again, in the background.