It turns out I’m hard to please… at least at work. I’ve realized that over the course of the last year I’ve gotten in the habit of responding to most proposals with the phrase “I don’t hate it”. That’s about the most praise I can muster for most ideas – not because they’re bad ideas, but because they’re incredibly hard problems with no bright, shiny solutions. And only bright, shiny solutions truly deserve more praise than that.
That led to a conversation with Matt today about how to level set those statements against other less common phrases that I also use:
- “love”
- “like”
- “not bad”
- “I’d buy that”
- “I don’t hate it”
- “I don’t love it”
- “are you sure?”
- “hate”
- “loath”
This was all brought on by an idea to which I responded “not bad”… I think it surprised him that I didn’t hate it. :)
