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I’ve recently started to see a behavioral therapist. During my second session I realized my scrum master at my previous company was essentially doing the same thing for me.

During sessions with my scrum master (SM) I always thought it was a good thing. However, now that I look back at it and I’m able to compare the two I think some of the advice he gave me wasn’t that great. My therapist has been recommending that I lean into my anxiety and share my fears with others. Allow people to clarify themselves and don’t assume they don’t like you or that they will be mean intentionally. Doing so can lead to you wanting to work harder to try an impress someone when you actually don’t really need to. Simply having a conversation can clarify a lot.

For example, I had a Senior Engineer (SE) who loved to code golf during code reviews and I loved learning how to review code in that manner. However, this impacted my deadlines. Upon learning this my SM wanted me to take more ownership on my tasking and pushback by mentioning my deadlines. I quickly learned the SE didn’t give a damn about what deadlines I had. I also learned even though he’s an SE he doesn’t have to be my mentor and he’s not boss or my stakeholder. His main concern was tech debt and his own deadlines. He wanted to merge code in that he wouldn’t get a call about during happy hour or in the middle of the night.

Talking to my SM just made things worse. My SM’s advice would never take into account my SE’s own motivations. During sprints I would give my SM continuous updates on oversight and he would get frustrated. He would continuously want me to think of ways I could step in front of oversight next sprint.

Talking to my SE seemed like he wanted nothing to do with me other than to give me feedback on my code. If I tried to small talk or connect with my SE during work he would stare back at me with a blank face. This was confusing since at company outings where we were allowed to drink we would crack jokes and share stories. On top of that, sometimes when I asked his preferences on code he would just say “meh.” He wouldn’t give me any more insight. He’d just stop at “meh.” None of it hurt my feelings and I kind of liked it. It made me feel like I was in an anime or action movie and I was trying to earn my Sensei’s respect. However, it frustrated my SM. He kept giving me advice on my communication skills and prioritization skills. For example, when I gave him scenarios that had a lot of fears behind them he would give me advice that seemed to be straight out of a _for dummies_ book. It didn’t really acknowledge everyone’s own motivations and concerns.

I think my SM meant well. But, it felt like he was continuously watching deadlines and wanted us to move like drones. My SE wanted his code to be kept clean so he could drink his beer in peace after work. I wanted to connect and I wanted gain respect from my SE. I wanted him to invite me to hangout after work. And i thought he’s invite me once I heightened my skill set.

However, I think I had it all wrong. I think the lack of small talk was that the SE wanted to stay focused and maybe he just didn’t find what I had to say that interesting. Maybe he knew I was “forcing” conversation? Like he could pick up it wasn’t that natural.

I think how I read the situation was solely based off of my own fears and less on facts. I think it caused tension when I would see my SM calling individuals to the office one at a time. I feel like since I was in this mental rut it never actually allowed the SE and me hash it out. Although, maybe the SE didn’t want to hash it out? Maybe there wasn’t anything to hash out? Maybe I was just walking around with all these fears that my SE saw me more of a nuisance than a friend?

Eventually my SE changed jobs and so did I. Since then I’ve been able to contribute to open source projects with high confidence and review code like a champ. I’m very appreciative of those times. I just wish I got a couple more times to crack jokes with my SE and I wish I didn’t cause so much tension. Oh well. We live and we learn. 😁