When the person in front of you is in distress caused by an intentional feature, this is not actually the time to dig in and fight to justify why the feature is necessary. Not as your first reaction. Your first reaction should be, in the name of your common humanity, "holy shit, the situation you are in sucks and I am sorry." Not the "sorry" of "it's my fault or the fault of the larger entity I represent", necessarily, but the "sorry" of "we are fellow sentient beings, and the distress of one of my kin is in some way my distress, no matter how small". This distress is present and real.
You may believe wholeheartedly in the necessity of the feature and the decision process that led to it, but this is not the time to get on board that train. Yes, even if you were the person responsible for implementing the decision or whatever. This moment is not about your self-image and need to be validated and right, this moment is about somebody having a really shitty corner of their day.
Even if whatever portion of your good and/or service that your companion is cursing is necessary (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and discreetly checking up on whether it could be done a better way is often a valid life choice) this doesn't mean that it's an objectively good thing.
Sometimes the best choice for the health of the product as a whole is in fact a choice between the least bad of several crappy options. The fact that someone is right now distressed by it, and they're not actually a spammer or other bad guy that the feature was intended to foil, means that this was less than ideal. Even if there's legitimately nothing better that could be done.
Being the person who observes someone's sobbing meltdown over not being able to make something work, and then saying "But the fact that this is happening is actually a good thing" doesn't make you a champion for whatever product or service you're shilling. It makes you an asshole. Break out the goddamn empathy.
You may believe wholeheartedly in the necessity of the feature and the decision process that led to it, but this is not the time to get on board that train. Yes, even if you were the person responsible for implementing the decision or whatever. This moment is not about your self-image and need to be validated and right, this moment is about somebody having a really shitty corner of their day.
Even if whatever portion of your good and/or service that your companion is cursing is necessary (sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and discreetly checking up on whether it could be done a better way is often a valid life choice) this doesn't mean that it's an objectively good thing.
Sometimes the best choice for the health of the product as a whole is in fact a choice between the least bad of several crappy options. The fact that someone is right now distressed by it, and they're not actually a spammer or other bad guy that the feature was intended to foil, means that this was less than ideal. Even if there's legitimately nothing better that could be done.
Being the person who observes someone's sobbing meltdown over not being able to make something work, and then saying "But the fact that this is happening is actually a good thing" doesn't make you a champion for whatever product or service you're shilling. It makes you an asshole. Break out the goddamn empathy.