How to deal with bad comments about your brilliant work
This writing is about how I deal with these kinds of situations. As it is my personal view on the subject, feel free to comment with how you would deal with it. And in the end, there might be a strategy for you to be used on occasions like this.
This is the situation
After a certain period of time a colleague and I finally finished our best work ever. We did every possible thing, because we know the drill.
There's tests with an almost 100% code coverage, there's documentation how to use it, and this time we made a video presentation about it to explain to everybody how this would change the world of today.
Before that
Of course there are some colleagues, who know what we are doing and sometimes we show a bit of the unfinished work.
We get some feedback and try to improve the software as much as we can, because the colleagues made some valid points.
They want to know how it is going, and all the interest gives us the idea that we're on the right track for a place in the company's hall of fame. We made jokes about it that we might even receive a tiny little golden statue for it.
The state it's in
So we've spend a lot of time making this solution. Because of changing requirements, it isn't completely ready. It is however useable and it's just a matter of 1 month which will make it feature complete. And if we just can get it out in the field by now, we can prove it works for the simpler cases already. There are some arguments against it, but since this it a product that will save so much time, we can make a shadow of a real solution. We know the real deal will take about 2 weeks and with ours it's just a matter of hours.
The soap bubble
And then somewhere on the middle of a beautiful sunny day the message comes in.
STOP THAT
From high up the tree, followed by an explanation. But your brain somehow is shut off a bit. Some of the information still arrives in your braincells, but some information takes a wrong turn making you feel sick or sad or even angry.
It's a K.O. (knock out) by words and you feel misunderstood.
As a real introvert, my external being shuts off and reacts to basic behaviour.
This is what happened to me and describes the very first moments after the explosion of the soap bubble.
What did they say
Does it really matter what they've said? No, it doesn't.
In our case it was about the investments (or time) spent on it. You might run into an open source project that does about the same, but isn't "home made", so they think that is cheaper and maintained by others.
Or sometimes it's just that they're not ready for things like this.
How I deal with that
I remember those occasions where this happened to me. Yes! More that once I was misunderstood. People with an IQ like me have that all the time, so I am used to this.
In the very beginning this really hits me like the unexpected return of the stick I threw, which turned out to be a boomerang.
But then I started to smile, because I like to smile a lot.
(And I know, what my brain tells me.)
It's not that I am looking for some hidden camera to see if I was tricked. It's about knowing what I did.
What do I like?
As a principle software engineer, but perhaps just as a developer, I like to learn. Learn about possibilities, learn about how to solve a more than complex puzzle, learn about estimating the impossible. Did I mention growth? I like to grow from the "expedition into the middle-earth" and take the knowledge with me into the future.
I also like to get paid for doing my job, which of course was the case.
If I'd asked any developer about their ideal job, this outcome would probably be the same:
Learning, gaining knowledge and get paid.
so... wait a minute (this is my brain talking to me)
You did your ideal job during this "expedition" and yet you feel bad about it?
In a couple of years you will think about this again and remember this "bad moment" as it was just a moment in your entire life. You've grown so much since then.
Come on, get a grip of yourself and be happy.
Find your next expedition and ....
Smile !!!
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