Expectations....

...seldom seem to match up with reality.  At least in the work context, I'm finding.  Nick Malik had a great blog entry about that very thing the other day - and how it could be a leading contributing factor to workplace burnout. 

It was an interesting theory and I quickly saw the logic of it.  In my life, I'm a bit of a workaholic.  I work 60+ hours a week consistently.  I have since I first entered the work-force.  My grandfather always told me that no matter what job I had, I had a responsibility to myself to do it well.  I also grew up with a father that is quite the hard worker himself, so those values were distilled in me at a young age.  That always translated to long hours and surpassing expectations.  So long as the work was rewarding and I felt that I was learning, I never experienced any of the tell-tale signs of burnout.

But I digress...Nick mentions:

"Each time I burned out, it was because I expected something different from the job than I actually got from the job.  It was not because I was spending too much time, or because I was addicted to working day and night.  I've had jobs where I spent 24 hours a day (literally) and did not burn out, and jobs where I spent eight hours a day and started to burn out on the first day."

I can certainly identify with that statement.  As I mention above, I have high expectations from an employer - I expect the work I do to make a difference in the world.  I'm not talking about saving lives, but I am talking about waking up in the morning knowing that my users lives are a little better as a result of my efforts.  I expect that my hard-work be recognized.  I expect to learn daily, to be confronted with a challenge that I can rise to and as such gleam a reward, not necessarily monetarily but certainly intellectually.  I expect that I would become a better person for having confronted the challenge and solving it in whichever way is best for the greater good.

I agree to working a lot of hours, as long as the above expectations are met in some way.  I see that as an agreement of sorts, between the company and its employees. 

When I was originally hired by my current company, all of the above expectations were met in abundance.  As the years have worn on, the company has gone through many changes - new management (4 managers in less than 3 years), layoffs, outsourcing, etc - but through it all, I've felt that my lofty expectations have been met....until recently.

Lately, most of the work I've been doing has not been technically challenging.  I think this may be more of an industry-wide trend, though.  It seems, these days, to be all about churning out the code, getting a project done as quickly as possible using a (perhaps inefficient) previous solution.  Innovation is almost never rewarded because innovation costs money and who is willing to pay for that?  Very little "lip service" is done to promote elegance in a solution, programming for extensibility, forward-thinking.  Even when I use a Design Pattern to solve a difficult  problem - people in the know think it's cool, but outside of that?  Management doesn't get it, so it doesn't get publicized.  It seems that if the payoff isn't immediate, it's not worth mentioning.

Am I wrong?  Is it just my company?  I'd love to hear from some people.

Current Mood:    Thoughtful