Good Vibes

I've changed jobs twice in the last three months. Straight off the bat that doesn't scream good vibes - but lets put that aside.

If you're a dev and want a new job then all you need to do is put your CV up on cwjobs or cvlibrary and you will have more unknown number calls than Harvey Weinstein's lawyer on a Friday night.

I've been to a lot of interviews and all anyone wanted to talk about was how much I knew about what to avoid doing. The focus is always on "you can't do that" or "you shouldn't do it this way" and this feels like a theme that blights our industry. I always have an answer and mostly I don't do things I'm "not allowed to do" - but recently I've been thinking.

Our industry focuses loads on the negatives; telling us all what to avoid, pointing out imperfections with solutions, commenting on pull requests with "this is a bug" or "this is not the best way" but in my experience we never focus on the good work our colleagues do and we never comment on code with "this is cool!" or "nice idea". We mostly fuel negative vibes.

If you sit back and think about it - when was the last time you told someone they did a good job on something specific? Or put a nice job comment on a pull request? I think I could count the times I've received good vibes on two hands in my two and a half years of deving (and that includes mandatory progress reviews).

If thinking about it surprised you then I would encourage you to change your ways, and I'll try too, because in a job where it can feel like you're constantly waiting to get caught out on something we need good vibes too.