Commenting vs. making

chiefofstuff Share The biggest change in my professional maturity came when I became Actually Responsible for things. Not in the sense of “if there’s a mix of dashes and em-dashes in this powerpoint deck someone will get mad”, which characterized my early career, but “ if someone doesn’t fix this problem soon, we’ll get to go looking for new jobs”. I gained a lot of appreciation for people who make things, and lost a lot of tolerance for people who only pontificate.1 I found myself especially frustrated with my past self, whose default was to complain and/or comment, then wonder why things didn’t magically get better.2