Yep! Being nice takes very little effort. Being kind requires thoughtfulness. It's possible to be nice and not kind, and also possible to be kind and not nice.

Yep! Being nice takes very little effort. Being kind requires thoughtfulness. It's possible to be nice and not kind, and also possible to be kind and not nice. For example, if I worked on your team, and always gave harsh PR feedback, I wouldn't be nice, but if I always sent feedback to your manager after you fixed up the PRs, saying how rigorous you were in your followups, and how good your code is, I'd be kind. On the other hand, if I always gave you positive feedback on good things you did in the code, didn't call out nits in your code, I'd probably be nice. If months later I went back and looked at your codebase and it was a mess due to lots of little things adding up and told your manager you coded poorly, then I wouldn't be kind.