> This metaphor, coupled with the story, makes it seem as if it's "worth it" to hit a client back in front of a judge.
The point I get from that is that it was worth it to him to stand up for himself even though it was costly to do so. In both cases, just letting it go would have been the easier option, but he didn't. A little stubbornness can be a good thing.
> The point I get from that is that it was worth it to him to stand up for himself even though it was costly to do so.
He was the defendant:
> A few weeks later I received a small claims notice in the mail that I was being sued for $10,000 (the small claims maximum) by Donald Deep
Not being part of the process would have come with the risk of a default judgment and the ex-customer demonstrated that he's litigious -- the "he hit me, so I hit him back in front of authority" doesn't fit when the scenario is "show up or lose more money and maybe he'll kick me."
What I got from the article is that the design firm can be manipulated into doing twice the work for the same pay as long as you're okay with the CEO vaguely mocking you later on his personal blog.
He appealed and went to court again after losing the first time. It is the appeal that corresponds to hitting the other kid in front of the teacher. He could have walked away with only a 10k instead of 100k lesson, but then Deep would have gotten his $10k. In both cases he took a loss rather than let the other party get away with something.
As with the playground games, the point is to be seen as crazy and/or principled enough that other people are incentivized to care about your principles and show you respect. That's also the message he is sending by publicizing it. The story doesn't exactly make him look like a legal or a business genius, but it shows determination and willingness to fight, which may deter others.
> doing twice the work for the same pay
Yes, hopefully he learned a lesson there. His company did extra work but resented it, and once that happened the rest really isn't surprising. It was at this point:
> Our contract requires that before a website launches, final payment must be made. My team launched despite this and continued to work on it for him. When I reviewed the situation, I was quite frustrated at having lost money on this project.
Sounds like his team didn't understand the contract, or he wasn't involved enough in the process. Either way it's his fault this happened, but it sounds like because of his frustration he took down the work already done on the client's site, which is when all the real trouble started. In hindsight it's obviously that point where he should have eaten the loss, either renegotiated a new contract or exited gracefully, and then fixed his process to make sure this didn't ever happen again.
I think it's great the author published this and we can all learn something from it.
The point I get from that is that it was worth it to him to stand up for himself even though it was costly to do so. In both cases, just letting it go would have been the easier option, but he didn't. A little stubbornness can be a good thing.