The Trouble with Being the Last Person Who Fixed It

I fixed a client's email template once. A few weeks later, I was being asked when their next newsletter would go out.

I once helped a client fix an email template while I was working on their website. An image was stretching the layout, and the person preparing the newsletter couldn't get it to behave. I knew enough HTML to be dangerous and, on this occasion, enough to be useful. We got the image sorted out and the email sent.

A week later, they sent me another formatting question. Then a request to swap a link. By the time someone asked when the next newsletter would go out, I had apparently joined the marketing department. There hadn't been an interview. My qualifications were that I'd answered the previous email.

I remember being mildly annoyed by that last question. I was building their website. Why would I know when their newsletter was going out?

The answer was sitting in the thread. Every time they'd sent something over, I'd handled it. I hadn't said I was taking responsibility for their emails, but I also hadn't given them much reason to look for anyone else. From their side, the arrangement was working quite well.

It wasn't even a series of unreasonable requests. The link change took a minute. Another image needed resizing. Once you've opened the template, doing the next little thing can seem easier than explaining which little things you're available to do. And it feels silly to arrange a conversation about responsibility when you could have finished the task during the conversation.

So I'd fix it, send it back, and return to the website. Usually after remembering which part of the website I'd been working on.

The problem became clearer when the question changed from how to fix something to when something would be finished. Somebody needed to collect the copy, check the links, get approval, and send the newsletter. I had only been doing the occasional technical repair, but there was no obvious point in the thread where my part ended and somebody else's began.

I also didn't have what I'd need to run the whole thing. I couldn't approve an offer or decide whether the copy was ready. If I accepted responsibility for the send date, I'd spend a fair amount of time chasing decisions from people who hadn't realized I was waiting for them. Being able to move an image doesn't give you authority over the sale it's advertising.

By then, a reply saying it wasn't my job would have been a fairly abrupt introduction to a distinction I'd kept to myself. We needed to settle the arrangement, including what would happen to the email already in progress.

I asked who normally prepared and approved their newsletters. There was someone doing that work, but they'd started sending the awkward parts to me after the first fix. Eventually, sending the whole draft over had become easier than deciding whether a particular problem counted as technical. I could understand that. I'd been making the same calculation from the other end.

We agreed that they'd keep preparing the email and taking it through approval. I would help with the formatting problem in the current draft, then show them how to replace the image without stretching it. Future technical issues could come through the same work queue as the website requests, where we could agree on timing. I wouldn't be checking drafts or keeping track of send dates unless we separately agreed to that work.

This required me to do something less satisfying than fixing the template myself. On the next call, I had them share their screen and make the change while I watched. They paused at a menu I would have clicked without thinking. I explained it, then waited while they found the setting. Taking over would have been faster that afternoon. It would also have left us needing the same call next time.

They sent the newsletter. The following one went out without a message to me, and I found out about it by receiving it like everybody else. I checked the image, which suggests I wasn't entirely over my involvement.

I write about making commitments clear in Default: No. Advance copies are available for early readers.