The Feedback That Made Me Want to Quit for an Hour

Someone sent me a bug report that made me sit back and stare at the wall. Not because it was harsh. Because they were right, and it was a fundamental problem, and fixing it properly meant rebuilding something I had built a year ago and was proud of.

For about an hour I did not want to do it. I wanted to close the tab and pretend I had not read it. The whole thing felt like being told my house had a bad foundation and the roof was fine.

Then I fixed it, over three days, and the product got better, and I got better, and it was fine.

The hour of despair is always the hardest part. The work itself is usually just work. The story I tell myself in the first hour is always louder than the actual problem.

How long is your gap between the bug report and starting the fix? And what do you tell yourself during it?