🙇 Here's to another stretch of dedicated service
Ep 43: Parsing praise sandwiches, memories of summer camp, and celebrating a professional milestone.
It’s July 4 tomorrow, so if you’re in the United States I hope you have a really nice day off of work. I’ll be getting some fitness in, spending time poolside with family, and enjoying a little island of respite in the middle of an otherwise busy work week.
A Tip for the Modern Worker
Look for the filling in praise sandwiches. It’s evaluation time. You may evaluate your own performance if you’re solo, or get feedback from your manager or peers. Ask for specific ways in which you can improve. Feedback may come to you as a praise sandwich, where negative feedback is hidden amidst positive feedback. Minimize the bread of that sandwich and focus on the filling. That's where the true, actionable feedback lives.
This tip is one of 365 in my Handbook for the Modern Worker. When someone gives you feedback, they care enough about your growth to share it. Look for the motivation, though: if it’s 100% positive, they are sharing because they think you’re awesome and they want you to know that. If there’s any hint of constructive criticism in there or ways to improve, that’s the intent of the communication. Don’t let any of the sugary sweetness around the key message get in the way of its delivery.
#365DayDraw
I drew this and wrote the accompanying annotation as part of my #365DayDraw project 7 years ago today.
He threw his pack on his bunk, hopeful that the week would fly by, little knowing he'd have a blast
I spent many summers with my Boy Scout troop at Camp Barton on the shores of Cayuga Lake. This is a pretty accurate take on the accommodations there. The inspiration for this drawing came when my son attended the same camp and I hoped that he’d have a good time, ‘cause I know from firsthand experience that when you’re not having a good time, the week can simply crawl by. As a camper, I did enjoy it mostly, as I had a good peer group and enjoyed the activities. Plus, it was only a week. As a counselor there for the entire summer, and being incessantly bullied? Well, that’s an entirely different story.
There’s a semi-recent video clip of me at the camp when I stopped there on the route of my COVID-era run to help out our local running store. This should start at 4 minutes into the video when I’m at the camp.
Plans to sell the camp to New York State have been progressing, but the latest press article I can find signals a winding road ahead.
Commentary
It’s a season of milestones! I will hit a birthday milestone next week. Amy and I will celebrate an anniversary milestone later this month. And I hit a professional milestone in early June when I celebrated 10 years with Intercontinental Exchange. It’s only my second job: my first with Citi Private Bank lasted 17 years. My “iceberg” commemorating the occasion arrived this week and joins my 5-year on the corner bookshelf in my office. It's a pleasure to work with the people on my team to solve big problems with best-in-class user experience. I posted about this on LinkedIn, so if you’re active on there I’d love to connect, too.
Miscellanea
⌛ Words matter, especially when talking to machines that can’t react to the subjectivity of your message. This Tidbits article won’t change the way I talk to my watch because I always qualify my timer commands with hours, minutes, or seconds, but it does make one think (especially designers of these interactions) how you should design in some accommodation for changes in speech.
🏃 I published a blog post this week about my experience running the Gorges Ithaca Half Marathon.