March 16, 2008

• Why you should be nice to Natalia and Eugenia

  Oooh.. I’m so steamed!  I was on TheXangaTeam page’s chatboard the other day, and I came across the following comment directed at Natalia. 

  Staff wise, Xanga is what you’d call a “tightknit” company.  We all share a very tight bond – since we all essentially work in a one big, open-air, no-walls-between-us office – and in general, we spend more time together than we do with our significant-others or spouses.  Even though I’ve only worked at Xanga for little over six months, I consider the folks here to be my second family.  In general, we’re pretty chill about people being rude or obnoxious to us, since we understand that a person’s weblog can be a very important part of someone’s life and that it can be agitating when something goes wrong.  We’re happy to listen to complaints and suggestions, and we totally try our best to follow through with those suggestions given our own limited resources.  (Seven entirely insane, but extremely talented software engineers + me, and three fulltime product designers).  Additionally, knowing the devious nature of my coworkers, it is entirely possible that one or more of us deserve it – though to date, I don’t think we’ve actually pranked a non-Xanga staff user. 

  However, the two people who do NOT deserve your flak, insults, self-righteous, or asinine comments are Natalia (and Eugenia).  Here is why. 

  1)  Eugenia is probably one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.  I think she rescues kittens in her spare time.  Think of the kittens. 

  2)  Besides being an amazingly cool person, Natalia is a ninja.  She can kill you three times before you hit the ground. 

  3)  The two of them work
  their tushes off trying to make the Xanga Community a better place.  I’d
  estimate that 99.9% of requests for help are answered by them.  If
  you’ve had a problem with your Xanga, and you aren’t a close personal friend
  of someone else on the Xanga team, then chances are, the person who helped you solve your problem was either Eugenia or Natalia. 

  4)  If feature doesn’t work properly, or breaks regularly, then it is the fault of me, or one of my engineering brethren.  (and we’re very sorry!)

  5)  If you don’t like a new feature that we added, or think that we’re totally missing an important feature that you need, then it is the fault of one of the people involved in product decisions.  (pssst.  Their user names are Marc, John, Dan, Chris, Ayca, and Ben. )

  6)  If you don’t like the ads, then blame capitalism for not allowing us to provide you with Xanga services without some sort of monetary compensation.  (I’ll try and post more about which pages do and do not have advertisements and how premium effects those pages) 

  7)  Don’t think that we can’t just fix someone else’s problem instead of yours.  Because we can.  Especially if you’re a jerk. 

  Alrighty.  I thinks its out of my system.  Night!

  • 1:07 am
  • 31 Comments