宽宏

刚入行的时候，一个周五下午。我正在做一个客户要求的新功能，Ruby on Rails，就差最后一点了。东西很简单，我很自信，发布，关机，开车出城。这周末跟朋友露营。刚到露营地我的手机响了。是项目负责人，凯文。

“客户的网站挂了，咋回事？”

靠，我靠，不知道呀。我和我的笔记本电脑有三小时距离。

“算了别操心了。我来搞定。祝你周末愉快。”

没想到会有这种事。我会让队伍难堪，会搞砸别人的周末。我自责了好几天。周一上班我想我肯定要被开了。凯文走了过来。

“嗨，布莱恩，旅程怎么样？”

他在笑，脸上看不出一点失望或烦躁的痕迹。“还行吧，”我说，等着坏消息，“周五真对不起。都是我搞砸了。”

“没事，”他说，“我们都经历过。”停顿了一下，“不过你学到什么没有？”

我讲QA的重要，讲完整测试的重要，讲我应该多用一些时间保证事情做好。讲了几分钟。他把手抬起来。

“很好，听起来你明白了。我知道你会进步的。”

就这样。凯文再也没有提过这件事。

凯文给我犯错的空间，只要我接受教训就好了。在我最需要的时候他会跳进来，用他多年的经验帮助我。看重我的潜力，即使我犯错也相信我是好程序员。

现在我成了项目负责人，带年轻程序员。我经常回想起这一天。提醒自己要宽宏，看重别人的潜力。让他们放轻松。

就像凯文对我一样。

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Be Kind

One Friday afternoon, early in my career, I was wrapping up some new features for the back-end of a client's Rails app. Simple stuff. Confident in my work, I deployed the changes, closed my laptop, and drove out of town for a weekend of camping with friends. I had just arrived when my phone rang. It was my project lead, Kevin.

“The client's site is down. What happened?”

Oh shit. Fuck. I had no idea. I was three hours away with no laptop.

“Don't worry about it,” he said. “I'll take care of it. Have a good weekend.”

Like that was going to happen. I'd let the team down. I'd ruined someone else's weekend. I beat myself up for days. Come Monday; I walked into the office certain I was about to be fired. The project lead walked over.

“Hey, Brian. How was your trip?”

He was smiling. There wasn't even a hint of frustration or annoyance. “It was okay,” I said, waiting for the bad news. “Sorry about Friday. I completely blew it.”

“It's okay,” he replied. “We've all done it.” He paused for a moment. “But what did you learn?”

I talked about the need for proper QA. About thoroughly testing my changes. About taking the time to make sure the job gets done right. After a few minutes, he held up his hand.

“Great. It sounds like you get it. I know that you can do better.”

And that was the end of it. Kevin never brought it up again.

Kevin gave me the space to screw up, as long as I learned from it. He jumped in, with his years of experience, and helped me out when I needed it most. And still believed I was a competent developer, despite my mistake. He saw my potential.

Now that I'm the one leading projects and mentoring junior developers, I often think back to that day. And I remind myself to be kind and see the potential in people. Give them a break.

Just like Kevin did for me.