Except in real life people sometimes make malicious "mistakes" deliberately and when caught and called out on them either completely dismiss them or even gloat.
This reads almost like a fairy tale.
Be Kind
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Re: Be Kind
#72I run a number of side project sites and I do much of my work late at night.
I have one simple rule for myself - which is to never deploy anything at night before I go to bed. I've made several critical mistakes which I deployed to production and then went to bed only to wake up and find out that users couldn't use my products.
Thesedays, I do all deployment in the morning - that way, even if there is a critical bug, I am awake to catch it and fix it quickly.
Re: Be Kind
#73I'm re-reading Peopleware this week, and this is one of the core points it makes. You need to give the team the flexibility to make mistakes. I'm not sure I've ever met a manager who has read that book and disagrees with that principle.
Re: Be Kind
#74Stuff like this always boggles my mind - anyone can mess up. Mistakes happen, but if you didnt learn from it, history will repeat itself. I can't help to feel that common sense is sometimes lacking.. Why is that?
Re: Be Kind
#75I run a number of side project sites and I do much of my work late at night. I have one simple rule for myself - which is to never deploy anything at night before I go to bed. I've made several critical mistakes which I deployed to production and then went to bed only to wake up and find out that users couldn't use my products. Thesedays, I do all deployment in the morning - that way, even if there is a critical bug,…
Generally a good idea, if you don't have a setup where everything is validated end-to-end before you go to production - which is most software, and even if you have end-to-end automated verifications there's still risks outside of that scope / vision. (a server may run out of hard disk space from the new code, to name something random).
Re: Be Kind
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh his behalf, I apologize. I literally started laughing at a junior's code once but in my defense, he had spent 3 years at Amazon.
I'm sorry, but you have no defense. Laughing at a junior developer'a code is completely inexcusable. Simple fact is, if you worked for me, I would have fired you for that. Junior devs are supposed to do bad things - that's why they aren't senior devs.
While I admire the sentiment, I've NEVER seen an asshole fired for belittling juniors/co-workers.
Harsh, withering treatment is quite common not just with developers but in all technical fields. I wish things were different, but that's the reality as I've seen it.
Re: Be Kind
#77I have the similar problem with code reviews. It is really hard to not sound harsh when giving a code review, especially in ones from junior developers where a whole laundry list of fixes comes out.
I'm currently working as a junior dev. Not by title, but by experience. Honestly, I appreciate getting a laundry list of fixes over none. I know either way I can be doing better. As for sounding harsh, I feel it's a very subjective thing.
Re: Be Kind
#78This was so nice to read. I think back to my very first coding internship after my freshman year of college when I messed up big time. I made a bad mistake that ended up forcing my supervisor to put down everything he was working on for a full afternoon and do an emergency fix. I so vividly remember sitting down in his office, trying to just calm down and keep it together. He never got upset or annoyed (at least he never showed it), instead he listened to me explain what I had done, figured out what was wrong, showed me what my mistake was, fixed everything up, and calmly walked me through the entire process, turning it into a learning experience. At the end he asked me some questions to make sure I understood everything that happened and told me "everyone makes mistakes, don't sweat it, just make sure you learn from it" and that was that. I remember leaving his office that day thinking "if I ever make it to the point where I have my own interns, I'm going to do everything I can to support them and treat them as well as he treated me." A little kindness really does go a long way!
Re: Be Kind
#79Except in real life people sometimes make malicious "mistakes" deliberately and when caught and called out on them either completely dismiss them or even gloat. This reads almost like a fairy tale.
In my experience very few serious mistakes are deliberate and there is a huge gain to find a way to not make the same mistake again. Which include avoiding blame, but rather go looking for the root cause.
People who can handle serious mistakes in others are some of the best partners you can have in your efforts. IMHO they aren't fairy tales.
Re: Be Kind
#80Is that so uncommon? I mean, maybe I've been particularly lucky in my career but that sounds like standard behavior to me. I mean you already feel bad enough for blewing it that it's no use to add some more to it. And as the article says it happens literally to every one of us at some point. So unless your boss is a genuine bag, that's the expected way they should react
I've worked at a few different places now and have never seen junior team members treated badly either.