[HarryHirsch]

I am sorry your work has been frustrating.

We had an incident that was worse than it could have been due to long neglect of infrastructure (dare I say that sloth and cluelessness figure heavily?). That's a different kind of complaint. Sometimes work is hard, sometimes things shouldn't be as they are.

even in the most horrific cases we have a section on "what went right"

Yes, in the distant past someone knew what they were doing and bought a bag of cat litter that our current crew of clueless hoarder freaks thankfully kept. It doesn't make them less clueless, though.

In a corporation, we are playing a repeated game.

We as well. We want to ingrain proper habits to get in front of the crazy train. That doesn't mean that we say to every passing serviceman "Thank you for your service and good job you are wearing proper headgear".

I'm tired of the sugar-sweetness. I want quiet and good practice, and the continuous din of "positive reinforcement" is the opposite.

[bethly]

I would recommend reading the blog post; I think there is context you have missed.

I'm describing interactions here I am having with my peers, not people I'm in a service relationships with. We are practicing a highly-skilled trade, and acknowledging the times our skill pays off isn't a "continuous din", or even "positive reinforcement". It is just refusing to be dour sourpusses who have to pretend our work isn't super cool.

Code reviews are most closely akin to a Writing Workshop. When someone in a writing workshop says, "that description evoked Oregon in spring" or whatever, it isn't banal positivity: it is specific feedback on how the craft is functioning.