The First Rule of Crow Haus
The first rule of Crow Haus is No Assholes.
(I bet you can guess what the second rule is. That’s right: No Assholes.)
Like a lot of people, over the course of my career I’ve worked alongside my share of those who seemed committed to being rude, doing the absolute bare minimum, being passive-aggressive (or just plain aggressive), creating drama, lying judiciously — and that’s just some of the supervisors I reported to. Stories of this kind of behavior stopped me from pursuing a couple of what I then considered dream careers, because I function poorly when working with people who behave like angry, drunk toddlers. (Admittedly, this is perhaps my own character flaw.) Back in the ‘90s, a friend who’d found a great job as an assistant at one of the big 3 talent agencies in the US told me about a colleague who failed to answer the desk phone quickly enough. Their boss removed one of his shoes and sent it flying across the room at the assistant’s head.
Nah, I thought.
Similar tales made their way to me about creative agencies, magazines, and various and sundry other places that had sounded attractive to me. That’s just how it is, people said. It’s part of the deal. You just accept it.
At one point I took a job with a small, local creative agency. I was thrilled. Finally! These were my people! It was great up until about a month in, when the owner yelled at me for doing exactly what he’d asked me to do, and afterward my colleagues urged me not to worry, that this was just a thing he did to everyone. That he would have forgotten about it by the next time he saw me.
Reader, there was no next time.
Look, obviously we all reach adulthood with some damage. All of us are guilty of having let that spill over into areas where it didn’t belong. But over the years I’ve gathered enough self-awareness to know how to more or less temper my damage so that I can have productive, useful, and pleasant interactions (if not outright friendships) with the people around me. It’s not a lot to believe that the majority of us can learn this skill.
I love what I do. Love it madly. Few things are as exciting or as satisfying as creating the most elegant turn of phrase or design that says more with its simplicity than a wordy manifesto might. (For the record: I love putting together a good manifesto — but as with everything else, I will only use the words that are necessary. Written fluff is my enemy.) I’m enthusiastic and sincere about this work because I love it. And I don’t want to mix in vitriol, lies, a lack of impulse control, or anything along those lines to the work I love. There’s enough of that waiting for all of us out in the world. If I can ward it off in my immediate environment, I’ll do it. (Just another benefit of running your own business.)
So, yes: no assholes. Not on my team, not on my client roster. All our energy goes into creating the very best work we can create, and into building long-term relationships. We do our best to be transparent and kind while providing elegant solutions. That’s just how it is. It’s part of the deal.
~ Emma