The three-month joint project did not go smoothly.
This was not a failure. It was a test, the kind that produced information you could not get any other way, and the information it produced was useful.
Helen and I disagreed about the hotel bar on three separate occasions in the first six weeks. The first disagreement was about the material for the bar surface, which I wanted warm and she wanted cold. The second was about the lighting scheme, where she was right and I acknowledged it. The third was about the client relationship itself, because Helen's style with clients was direct to the point of bluntness and mine was direct in a more modulated way, and the client in question found Helen's approach disconcerting.
Each disagreement was resolved. The resolutions were sometimes hers and so
