Do Software Engineers REALLY Need So Much Self-Help?

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all right just leaving CrossFit on Saturday morning put this down for a second it's a a terrible workout it's just like Pure Cardio the whole time um the good thing is the strength part cuz again the workouts are usually like a strength piece and then uh and then like something that's a little bit more Fast Pace like more cardio kind of thing but it's either strength and skill and then a workout kind of thing so strength part was nice I was uh was deadlifting so we had Sumo deadlifts and uh fortunately that's something I'm good at even I haven't done a Sumo deadlift in probably five years 6 years it pulled uh 4 425 without a belt no straps no belt so that was kind of nice the uh the last time we deadlifted at CrossFit oh my camera's about to fall that's awkward one

sec close call dropped the camera it was uh hanging from the the sunroof was like holding it in place which just kind of funny um why is this GPS tell me to turn here anyway yeah um we did deadlifting conventional deadlifting a few weeks back at CrossFit and I hadn't done that in probably a few years um and that I think I pulled like 440 or something or close to that so I think I think my conventional is better than my Sumo which is kind of weird usually it's not the case um for most people I would say and uh yeah I think for me it was actually it was mostly rip that was a challenge kind of expected that actually but it's cool anyway enough about CrossFit that's not why you're here um I said from this morning's video I had a topic I

wanted to go over and it's from a comment on a LinkedIn post so not knocking the person uh personally or anything um and I don't think they were like I don't think they were like attacking me like that's not how I felt so I'm not I don't want to make this video and then like make it sound like I'm like trying to defend myself I guess like oh this person's so mean I just wanted to like bring awareness to to this in general right so I had a post that was around kind of like a a mental health kind of focus it was about being kind to yourself right so um I just think that not for everyone apparently but I think for a lot of people uh that are trying to be helpful right like you're trying to help other people it's like Junior

software engineer your colleagues whoever like I think for a lot of people they find it easier to be kind to others like they can be empathetic they can be helpful they can be understanding they can be patient they can be all these things like forgiving and they do this because they know that by making space for someone by listening by doing all these things like you can help them tremendously but but what we're generally not very good at is like being kind to ourselves so we don't give ourselves the same sort of treatment a lot of the time right so the idea being that you know you're investing into other people you know all the right things to do in terms of being helpful and kind but like why can't you do that for yourself so that's what my post was about just kind of

like this little reminder that's like look it's good to set the bar High because you want to keep improving you want to keep getting better but like don't be so hard on yourself that like it feels crippling um cuz that's no way to go through your life um and it's all like kind of like what I was saying in the previous video it almost ends up being like the wrong motivation it starts to not be empowering it starts to be like a I'm doing this because like I don't want to be pathetic like it's kind feels like the wrong I shouldn't say wrong it doesn't feel like a sustainable way to go through life and I think that can be motivating for some people to be like I just don't want to be I don't want to be bad like I want to you know

avoid being this you know person that sucks I don't want to fall into like this pattern of being crappy but like why can't you just like try and transform the message right like reverse it like said if I don't want to be something that's bad like I want to be something that's good like don't use negatives to do it anyway the whole point and what I want to talk about is that I thought this was important to talk about in terms of a reminder and someone was kind of like laughing about it again I don't think they were like making fun of me or whatever but more like like since when or like how has it happened that software Engineers like in our industry everything is like a I can't remember the exact phrasing now but uh kind of like why are we all so

weak right like why why do we always need to like why is it like a perpetuated um like self-help book I think is what he how he was saying it like why is everything like this like why are we kind of like yeah like almost like why are we so weak as as h s for engineers like an IT industry um and I I thought it was so weird um because like I don't even know like is that not an indicator of exactly the type of like attitude I'm talking about here where like people don't even have awareness like like literally this person and again I'm not I'm trying to pick on them so I don't mean I'm kind of uh kind of passionate about this and I don't mean to like make it sound like I'm taking it out on them and attacking them

cuz I don't think they were attacking me but by making a statement like that is that not an indicator that people simply do not have enough awareness of of the people side of what's going on because I don't think it's specific to software engineering in general I don't think that's a unique thing about software engineers I think that this is something that happens all over the place in like most careers probably I don't have stats to show but like it's not special to software engineering I think again my opinion is that someone making a statement like this simply does not have awareness of other people they might not even have awareness of themselves um I don't know like I don't know the the individual at all I don't know if it's a matter of like they they act to Macho right like I don't know

maybe that's the case where they're perpetuating like this masculinity type of thing or like a stereotypical masculinity type of thing where like can't be vulnerable can't ask for help can't be like any sign of weakness no fault um so maybe maybe that's kind of what they're like again I don't know just from one one comment but uh yeah like I've managed people for 12 years and I can tell you that people from all sorts of different levels of experience backgrounds and stuff like that you see all kinds of stuff all kinds and the a position in management affords me the opportunity but it doesn't make me special to have um conversations and relationships like this right like when I'm the the thing that the opportunity affords me is like a a space to have these conversations I still have to make sure that I'm building

trust and respect with people and once they feel comfortable with me and they start opening up about stuff I don't know to me it's not a surprise when I talk with someone and they're having issues that um that aren't just like Hey how do I solve this technical problem like people issues or they have um self-esteem issues like so many different things and I have never never been like oh this is a weakness thing like I don't know like it's it's bizarre to me but again like maybe it shouldn't be a surprise to me like I think that there are a ton of people that just simply do not have enough awareness now this is related but I had a couple threads going on on Twitter on threads at myself discussing uh poll requests and code review feedback and I had like sort of the

overwhelming majority of people were like yeah I've had bad experiences with people being like total jerks on P requests and code reviews and um and that's not surprising to me I think probably every single software developer that works on a team has or will experience like people leaving crappy code review comments where you're like you feel bad after for whatever reason I think that's unfortunately going to be most people's reality that they'll experience that but I had some other people being like no like you like and not just like one person but like a good handful of people being like no like we should be able to give direct feedback and like people should just like understand like it's not personal and I'm like I get it I get it but like here's the problem people like you are the problem because it's uh it's

extremely situational right so I understand the the idea behind that and I agree with it that if everything else in a team is perfect and you have like like everyone on the team feels like best friends like you're you know you're always working together on stuff you're super close and like you can leave direct feedback and you could even leave sarcastic feedback and your friends aren't going to be offended that's a that's like a different level and do I think that it would be awesome to strive to have that kind of like relationship building within the team like that would be absolutely awesome that would be so good and I have literally worked in teams like this where code reviews are almost trivial for us to do because we know what's going on you can leave you know snarky comments about things because you're like

you know we talked about this and you forgot to like remove the dead code or you forgot to refactor it like you know I'm going to I'm going to bother my friend on this he's going to get a laugh out of it but like again situational there's no way I could do that on like almost most other teams I've been on so I think when individuals say like as a blanket statement you should just be able to do this like I'll tell you what when you start doing that and you don't have awareness of who else is on the poll request and you have new people on the team that that aren't good that way you are literally going to be the person that's being defined when we talk about these bad experiences so again I'm not disagreeing with that's the goal state I'm saying

that you can't apply a blanket statement and not treat things situationally to give you an example if I Ed the person I was talking about a good friend of mine were working on something I'm reviewing his code I leave a sarcastic comment whatever he gets it it's a joke whatever um if I had a new person on the team same team but a new person I might even consider being careful of leaving joke comments or like short comments without explanations on my best friend's poll request if is a new uh Team Member because if they're reading it I don't want them to get the wrong opinion I don't want them to go oh because they're not on the inside of the joke I don't want them to go oh man is that what's up here like oh man I got to watch out for this

or oh I guess that's how we do things like I guess I can be rude and condescending too like it's all about awareness and being situational so it felt like um from the feedback from some of these people I was getting on on this thread was like I I genuinely do not get the feeling that when they're explaining some of these things that they have sufficient awareness and again I'm not really surprised I'm I'm a little taken back because it's like man really like you're you're coming out and making it as a statement like you know proud proud to say that I don't pay attention to anyone else on the review because we should just be able to to tell people and implementation's wrong and they shouldn't be offended or take it personally I'm like man like yeah you're describing you're describing the north star

of where we want to be but guess where you are right now probably not at your North Star and uh there's probably people on your team that don't like feedback like that just so you know right like it's uh it's kind of rough but this is the kind of thing like I like having threads like this and conversations online so that so that there is awareness I don't think for these individuals that are talking about like being more direct with their feedback and a little bit more critical I don't think it's going to get through to them they're not going to change um I don't really have that expectation with the content I put out there like I'm not I'm not out there to like change anyone's ways if they're not at least open to it I think that's a key part is they have

to be at least open to change um but yeah I think just having other people have awareness of like like this is a this is literally an opportunity where you can hear someone defending why they think it's okay to just be very direct um and not have you not take it personally maybe that's helpful for other people to hear like look it's not that this person is picking on you right they're they're expressing that they're they think it's okay to be direct um just to close on this because I'm almost home here the last part I wanted to mention was there was a comment thread might have been on that same same topic but the idea was like someone was yeah I think it was cuz someone was saying like hey I think that people should be more kind and someone responded and they were

like kind of like sounds like a you problem man and and it's funny because the way that they both explain their points I'm like I feel like they're both right so I said like communication is a two-way thing right um if people that are doing the communication like doing the speaking or doing the writing if they put in more effort and it doesn't take much but if they put in more effort to help people understand their point and then if the person receiving the feedback puts in more effort to um not take everything personally and like everyone's attacking them you put an effort from both sides and then overall we just focus on like trying to be nice to people trying to be kind to people I think we'd see a significantly better collaboration and teamwork but what do I know right what do why

now I'm back so I hope you enjoyed that and I will see you next time take care