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It wasn’t until a really honest chat with a buddy of mine, who’s also in the trenches, that it truly hit me. We were grabbing a beer after work, just shootin’ the breeze about the project, and he just came out with it. “Look, man,” he said, “you’re brilliant, your eye for detail is unmatched. But sometimes, it feels like you’re dismantling everything. We feel kinda deflated after your reviews. It’s like nothing is ever good enough.”
That conversation stuck with me. Like a burr under the saddle. I went home that night and just sat with it. Was I really that bad? Was I, without even meaning to, just being a relentless critic? I started replaying past interactions in my head. All those times I’d jumped in with “actually, that could be better if…” or “this isn’t quite right because…” It wasn’t just about the facts; it was the way I was delivering them. And the frequency. It was constant, relentless.
Realizing the Impact of My Words I began to see how my “constructive criticism” was landing more like a wrecking ball than a gentle tweak. I remembered an instance where a junior developer presented their first big feature. They were so proud. I, of course, immediately jumped to all the edge cases they missed, the slight inefficiencies in their code, the places where the UI wasn’t perfectly aligned. I saw their face fall, literally. I thought I was teaching, guiding. Instead, I think I just crushed their enthusiasm.
Another time, a buddy and I were planning a weekend trip. He had this whole itinerary sketched out. My brain immediately went to logistics, potential delays, weather issues, suboptimal routes. I started poking holes in everything, offering “improvements” to his carefully planned escape. By the end of it, he just sighed and said, “You know what, forget it. Let’s just stay home.” That really stung. I’d taken something fun and turned it into another problem to solve, another thing to perfect.
That’s when I really started to dig into what being “critical” actually means. It’s not just about seeing flaws. It’s about how you perceive the world. For someone like me, I’m always scanning, always analyzing, always looking for improvement. The problem is, sometimes that lens gets stuck on “what’s wrong” instead of “what’s good.” It’s like my brain automatically jumps to the ‘fix-it’ mode before it even registers the ‘appreciate-it’ mode.
It wasn’t until a really honest chat with a buddy of mine, who’s also in the trenches, that it truly hit me. We were grabbing a beer after work, just shootin’ the breeze about the project, and he just came out with it. “Look, man,” he said, “you’re brilliant, your eye for detail is unmatched. But sometimes, it feels like you’re dismantling everything. We feel kinda deflated after your reviews. It’s like nothing is ever good enough.”
That conversation stuck with me. Like a burr under the saddle. I went home that night and just sat with it. Was I really that bad? Was I, without even meaning to, just being a relentless critic? I started replaying past interactions in my head. All those times I’d jumped in with “actually, that could be better if…” or “this isn’t quite right because…” It wasn’t just about the facts; it was the way I was delivering them. And the frequency. It was constant, relentless.
Realizing the Impact of My Words I began to see how my “constructive criticism” was landing more like a wrecking ball than a gentle tweak. I remembered an instance where a junior developer presented their first big feature. They were so proud. I, of course, immediately jumped to all the edge cases they missed, the slight inefficiencies in their code, the places where the UI wasn’t perfectly aligned. I saw their face fall, literally. I thought I was teaching, guiding. Instead, I think I just crushed their enthusiasm.
Another time, a buddy and I were planning a weekend trip. He had this whole itinerary sketched out. My brain immediately went to logistics, potential delays, weather issues, suboptimal routes. I started poking holes in everything, offering “improvements” to his carefully planned escape. By the end of it, he just sighed and said, “You know what, forget it. Let’s just stay home.” That really stung. I’d taken something fun and turned it into another problem to solve, another thing to perfect.
That’s when I really started to dig into what being “critical” actually means. It’s not just about seeing flaws. It’s about how you perceive the world. For someone like me, I’m always scanning, always analyzing, always looking for improvement. The problem is, sometimes that lens gets stuck on “what’s wrong” instead of “what’s good.” It’s like my brain automatically jumps to the ‘fix-it’ mode before it even registers the ‘appreciate-it’ mode.
