Ask HN: Best constructive criticism
What has been the best constructive criticism you've received - professional or personal - and how did you handle it?
I didn’t like the instructor after that, but the lesson stuck. I never made excuses again. Over the years I noticed that a lot of the people I respected the most would do the opposite, take responsibility for everything, even if it wasn’t really their fault. It was a recurring theme in Naval Aviation. I saw a similar ethos when I worked with Special Forces.
At my current job, a late stage startup, I see directors blame other teams, blame subordinates, blame everyone but themselves. In Naval Aviation it’s called the ‘excuse matrix’. I’m sure that early in a startups life this behavior must be minimal since too much would doom the business, however, there’s nothing like life or death to truly hone the principle of not making excuses.
Not only did this provide a logical alternative but it was open to letting me defend my method... Thinking on it arrays were the way to go solves other issues like retrieval and storage.
My reasons were more or less, "cause that's how I learned it." The question might have been a bit more condescending but the open opportunity to defend myself made me think harder on what I was doing vs the alternative.
Made me re-factor a ton of code for the better, was a lot of work - but I could see it was the right way to do it.