SCRIPT CHECK · 60 SECONDS
Five quick questions show how often it appears, how believable it feels, and what it makes you avoid. You’ll get one private next step.
This is not a diagnosis and there is no pass or fail. It measures the current frequency, credibility, and behavioral cost of “The previous engineer was lazy, and now I look lazy for not fixing it”, including the private rule underneath it: If a flaw is visible while it's under my ownership, the visibility itself is proof of my negligence, regardless of who put it there or how long I've actually had to find it.
QUIET
“The previous engineer was lazy, and now I look lazy for not fixing it” appears, but it rarely gets the final say. Keep this line available for higher-pressure moments: “I inherited a timeout bug, not a decade of his habits. The date on the commit is the evidence, not my silence about it.”
PRESENT
“The previous engineer was lazy, and now I look lazy for not fixing it” wins some small decisions before you catch it. Your useful interruption is: “One unfixed shortcut is a queue position, not a character reading.”
ACTIVE
“The previous engineer was lazy, and now I look lazy for not fixing it” is shaping action often enough to deserve a deliberate counterexample. Start privately and concretely: Open a private draft and write two sentences: what broke, and the commit date it was introduced. Don't send it, just save it.
DOMINANT
Right now, “The previous engineer was lazy, and now I look lazy for not fixing it” is steering many of the moments you measured. That is a pattern reading, not a diagnosis or character verdict. Begin with one reversible receipt: Open a private draft and write two sentences: what broke, and the commit date it was introduced. Don't send it, just save it.