On Tuesday you merged a change
that broke the main build.
Red for forty minutes.
Somebody posted
the failing test in the channel.
You fixed it,
apologised,
and felt your face go hot
for the rest of the afternoon.
On Wednesday
you went into stand up
expecting someone to mention it.
Nobody did.
On Thursday
you were still replaying it,
on the walk,
in the shower,
at the sink.
Here is what the rest of the team
was thinking about on Thursday.
Their own Tuesday.
Psychologists have a name
for the gap.
The spotlight effect.
In a study published in 2000,
Thomas Gilovich and colleagues
asked students to put on
an embarrassing T-shirt,
a large picture of a singer
nobody at that university
wanted to be seen with,
and walk into a room
of other students.
Afterwards the wearers guessed
about half the room
had noticed the shirt.
About a quarter had.
We are the centre
of our own experience,
so we assume
we are near the centre
of everybody else's.
We are not.
Everybody else
is busy being the centre
of their own.
The same gap
works in the other direction,
which is the useful part.
The clever fix you were proud of
also got less attention
than you think.
Nobody is keeping score
as carefully as you are,
for good or bad.
So spend the attention you have
where it pays.
When you make a mistake,
fix it,
say so once,
plainly,
and write down what would have caught it.
A test.
A check before merge.
A note in the template.
That part is worth your time.
The replaying is not.
It costs you
whatever you could have built
on Thursday afternoon,
and it buys nothing,
because the audience you are performing for
has already left.
Most people around you
will remember how you handled it,
if they remember anything at all.
Handle it well
and then let it go.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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