In the End, Work Is About Money. Letting Other People’s Opinions Control You Is Ridiculous

The other day, I wrote a blog post about how angry I became after someone made an unreasonable complaint about my work.

At the time, I recalled the Buddhist teaching of “the first arrow and the second arrow.” I wrote that I should stop making myself suffer by replaying an unpleasant event over and over in my mind.

Some time has passed since then, and I have calmed down.

So I thought about it again. Why did it make me so angry in the first place?

I arrived at an answer I was not entirely willing to admit.

In the end, I cared about what the other person thought of me.

Why Do Other People’s Words Make Us Angry?

Suppose a complete stranger suddenly complains about you on the street.

You would probably dismiss it as an encounter with a strange person. Even if someone shouted something at you in a foreign language, it would not make you angry if you could not understand what they were saying.

Yet when someone you work with says something similar, it can bother you for a long time.

Why? Because you care about what that person thinks of you.

If it is your boss, you fear a poor performance review. If it is your romantic partner, you fear being disliked. If it is a client, you fear losing future work.

In my case, I probably wanted the other person to recognize my efforts and evaluate me fairly.

That was why I could not simply let the unreasonable words pass and remained angry for so long.

In the End, I Work for Money

This led me to an even more fundamental realization.

What am I working for in the first place?

The answer is simple: money.

I do not work to earn a client’s gratitude or to have them validate me as a person. I do the work and receive money in return. That is the whole relationship.

I do the work I agreed to do properly. If there is a problem, I address it, and I provide whatever explanation is necessary.

But whether the client likes or dislikes me, or whether they are in a good or bad mood, should not really matter.

If there is a problem with my work, they can point it out specifically. If something needs to be corrected, I will correct it.

I agreed to do the work. I did not agree to manage the other person’s mood.

Smile on the Outside and Stop Caring on the Inside

At work, there are times when you need to accommodate the other person.

Even when someone says something unreasonable, there are many situations in which there is no need to argue. You can simply reply, “Understood,” or “I’ll look into it.”

You do not have to genuinely agree with them. If keeping up appearances is enough to keep the work moving smoothly, is that not sufficient?

You can answer pleasantly while thinking to yourself, “What a difficult person.”

Once the project is over, you will be strangers again. You will probably never see that person again.

Thinking about it that way makes me genuinely glad to be a freelancer.

Use Other People’s Opinions Only When You Need Them

Client evaluations are important if you want to keep working. A poor evaluation can mean losing future work.

So you pay attention to the other person’s opinion to the extent necessary. That is part of sales.

The trouble begins when you bring your personality and pride into it as well.

A client’s evaluation matters because it can help you win the next job. It does not determine your worth as a human being.

Professional friendliness is part of the product. There is no need to throw in your true feelings as a free extra.

I was probably so angry this time because I had brought unnecessary emotions into a business relationship.

If I am working for money, it is ridiculous to take home anger that earns me nothing.

The next time something like this happens, I will respond politely on the surface and, inwardly, let it roll off me.

Still, it took me an entire day to become this detached. At my hourly rate, this job has now run completely at a loss.