Why your boss doesn’t praise you
And 9 ways to get the feedback you need
After graduating with a degree in Computer Science, I moved to New York City to pursue my first job as a Junior Developer at a small software firm.
When my first day rolled round, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to show my new colleagues what I could do.
I spent all day coding up the graphic designer’s wireframes.
But within a minute of sending the mockups, I received an email from my new boss. He was disappointed, and he didn’t mince his words.
Back at home, I experienced something resembling the 5 stages of grief:
Anger (on my first day!),
denial (what do they know, anyway?),
bargaining (maybe if I redo the coding tonight I’ll still have a job tomorrow),
and depression (I should never have left Connecticut).
Finally, I reached acceptance.
The coding had been shoddy. But it still hurt.
I felt my boss’s hyper-detailed breakdown was overkill and he could have at least cushioned the blow with some praise.
