The other day I got some valuable feedback from my manager. Too often I come up as too pessimistic, borderline bad-tempered.
This didn't shock me. I know that some days I'm "short". I get pissed and I'm not a person who hides their emotions so it shows. Yet, hearing it might have changed something with my approach to this problem.
Up until now I walked around thinking that I have all the reasons in the world to be pissed. I own a very popular product based on very crappy, legacy code base. I'm struggling to make an offshore team work and there are no experienced devs in my team. All very talented, but none of them is a "senior".
On top of that, my manager doesn't always provide the needed help and I'm also the only person in the team considering strategic moves and making them happen.
So yes, I think to myself, I work extremely hard, in a thankless job, putting everything I have into it, so I'm entitled to be pissed at stuff. I have so many context switches because I'm the only person in charge so things slip, there are setback and it makes me angry, and as I said, I'm not of those who hide it...
But it rubs off on everyone around me. I know that. That's bad.
What the latest feedback did (In addition to another piece of advice a dear friend gave me) is made me understand that if I want to the guy in charge I need to act differently - to be positive, look at stuff from a slightly higher level, don't get upset about details.
At this very moment I think that's it's nearly impossible. I can't act as if I'm sailing at 30000 feet when a significant amount of my time I'm spending in the trenches, fixing bugs, creating tasks, tracking, etc. It hard, but I now think that I will be able to overcome this difficulty. Not sure why, but the good thing is that I'm no longer moping at my status but thinking how I can live with it, and keep my smile on.