Work life: February 2008 Archives

This brilliant list comes from http://www.execupundit.com/2006/12/career-manifesto.html.

1. Unless you're working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut.
2. Yes, your boss is an idiot at times. So what? (Do you think your associates sit around and marvel at your deep thoughts?) If you cannot give your boss basic loyalty, either report the weasel to the proper authorities or be gone.
3. You are paid to take meaningful actions, not superficial ones. Don't brag about that memo you sent out or how hard you work. Tell us what you achieved.
4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.
5. If you suspect that you're working in a madhouse, you probably are. Even sociopaths have jobs. Don't delude yourself by thinking you'll change what the organization regards as a "turkey farm." Flee.
6. Your technical skills may impress the other geeks, but if you can't get along with your co-workers, you're a litigation breeder. Don't be surprised if management regards you as an expensive risk.
7. If you have a problem with co-workers, have the guts to tell them, preferably in words of one syllable.
8. Don't believe what the organization says it does. Its practices are its real policies. Study what is rewarded and what is punished and you'll have a better clue as to what's going on.
9. Don't expect to be perfect. Focus on doing right instead of being right. It will simplify the world enormously.
10. If you plan on showing them what you're capable of only after you get promoted, you need to reverse your thinking.

My favorites are #6 and #9. I'm devoting a chapter in my upcoming book to the ideas hidden within #6, which technical people are notoriously bad with.

When you're in a job that makes you unhappy, it can be easy to start thinking about making a move elsewhere. Maybe the work's not as fun any more, or you're not advancing when you should be. While there are plenty of good reasons to leave, there's one that shouldn't enter your mind: Not liking the people you work with, even if it's your boss.

It doesn't seem like something you're likely to be able to get past. You deal with them every day. But don't think that you can go to a new job that will be jerk-free.

The jerks of the world follow you around. Remember how there were people in school you didn't like? And then in college there were people just like them? And then your first job, you get a new set of people, most of whom you like, but some are jerks, too? They are everywhere.

What's more, they move around. You can be in a perfectly swell department, with a great boss and great co-workers, and blammo! In comes some socially stunted goober who screws it all up. Or who can't code his way out of a paper sack. Or maybe your boss decides to take off and gets replaced by some micromanager who calls you "Pal".

You might think a bad boss is a bigger deal than a bad co-worker, and it is to a degree. When a boss is bad, it has bigger effects on you than just an incompetent co-worker in the next cube, so that much is the case. When you dig deeper, though, it's more an issue of the company and company culture than about any individual person.

Imagine working at the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin (on the US version of the TV show "The Office"). It's not that so much that Michael Scott is a terrible boss, but that he's allowed to keep his job in the face of his egregrious shortcomings. Michael has problems, but the company doesn't care, or doesn't seem to care. You take pride in your work, but why doesn't the company show the same pride?

The distinction between the bad co-workers and the company that allows them to work is an important one. The bad co-worker or bad boss may go away over time, but the company is a larger problem that may be well entrenched. Before you make for the door, make sure you know what the problem actually is. If it's just a person or two that rub you wrong, you're probably better off to live with it for a while until things change.