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Work. The hamster is a superhero.

2018-03-22 21:00:00

Hi! Finally, I have thoughts I would like to share with you. This time I will talk about working as a programmer. Once I have already written about this, but passed many years, and views have become broader. Looking back, you can realize that many mistakes could have been avoided with the current experience, but without those mistakes there would not have been this experience. Therefore, the time is for making conclusions and looking in the future. Definitely, I can share the accumulated knowledge, but few people learn from others' mistakes, your own experience costs an arm and a leg, so it is more effective. I hope so much, this article allows somebody to look with different eyes at corporate life for doing its better.

When I came to a new job, the first time I was surprised how much freedom is given to employees and how responsible they are about it. In my previous job, I had different performance monitoring and accounting systems. For example different fines, cutting bonuses and other things. And as control on people was getting harder, the less motivation they had to work. Just waited for the end of the day and went quietly home. Here is on the contrary: free schedule, no strict conditions and control. Nevertheless all are responsible about the work and stay late at workplace to finish tasks; it's a business as usual. In addition, various bonuses such as opportunity doing sport for free, tea, and coffee with cookies make the work even more enjoyable. And gradually you are merging into a new culture. But at some point with these sweets, your responsibility for projects sneaks beyond the work. In some cases, you can work weekends. Then comes the project, with which you are constantly late to deadlines, you begin constantly to overwork and stresses are getting more and more. You consider, when I finish the stage I will rest, but immediately begins a new one. Your health is getting worse, but you are so responsible, you cannot quit and let the team down. Sometimes it is fun to work so hard together. Soon, you have time for nothing except for work and the gym. You are like a highly motivated hamster running with all the dope in this wheel, leaving behind the perimeter of loved ones, friends, entertainment, self-development and everything else. The superhero inside of you is working harder and harder until this rhythm crushes the hood and your health drops, next you need long and expensive health treatment. And only then you make a pause to think why all this because in the wheel there is no time to think.

Why is it happening? There are many reasons. For example it can be bad management or misleading evaluation of something, poor scheduling of deadlines, contingencies. All this increases the time for making tasks and you have to work overtime to keep up. If you sit until the night in the office, you start feeling valuable and an irreplaceable employee yourself. Some of them are so responsible for work that is the reason why they try to do everything on time at any cost. Everyone has different motives. Moreover, usually, everyone works in teams and departments. And the rest looking at these bad examples of good programmers also start working overtime. Often companies encourage this. So the corporate culture is formed, where constant overtime working is an ordinary case. One-time this situation in itself is not terrible, but in the long run, it is bad for both the employee and the company for a number of reasons. If an employee is constantly overworking, it means that he doesn't have time to do everything in time; most likely one has bad time management and problems with putting priorities.

In the mode of constant deadlines, there is no time to plan the body of a project and solve global issues; you need to urgently close the current tasks. The developer rushes around in a heap of tasks, and not seeing the global issue, he solves them in the circle of the current problem. Often it is an ineffective method. After a while, this task has to be redone because you need to take into account another related task and then another. This leads to a lot of barriers, which eventually transform into a high wall on your path. This style of development is also very far from effective in the long term.

All this leads to stagnation of the company, and hence to the backlog. Employees get little out of it, except constant stress condition and frequent sick days. In the end, the so-called hamster the more work the more errors appear, more rework and more tasks and more work.

How to solve this problem? In my opinion, the most important thing is well-built corporate culture. It is not only the traditions and rules of the company but also the general relationship between employees, the spirit of the company and other important details. The right culture is able to give high efficiency and growth of professionalism, as well as pleasure from work. But this is in general terms. Specifically, I try to consider both sides.

If speaking about employees, they should realize there are many interesting and important things around them in addition to work. You should take a responsible attitude to health, do sports. Find your hobby; communicate more with family and friends. Apart from this, there is such a technique "The Wheel life." The Wheel of life, analysis and planning, the sense of this is the next: the areas of life are graded on a scale and marked on a circle, the greater the satisfaction; the further from the center the label is put. In an ideal, you should get a smooth circle so that your wheel can roll; otherwise, you have unresolved problems that need to be paid attention to. Your working process is going well when you're not distracted by personal issues. In addition, I repeat that for a good mind process we need in exercise. Here's a link, if you're interested, where popular language describes how physical activity and the brain are related. I would like to make additions to this: during physical activity our brain gets the fuel for mental activity. Well, in the end, you need to prioritize your life. Work isn't everything.

From the employer's side: forming work culture in the right way, solving problems qualitatively instead of quantitatively. Care of employees should be: as an example, our company gives us the opportunity for sports free. If employees transfer work responsibility into their personal lives, it would be a big advantage for the employer to take on social responsibility. For example it can be encouraging weddings, birth children or aid young families. The company should give motivation and support for the personal life of employees.

In addition, the company, like employees themselves should try to improve the professionalism of the staff. It can be various courses, conferences and so on. Firstly, it is useful for employees; why their value in the market is growing. Secondly, it is beneficial to the company — the more qualified employees, the more income they bring. In the third footage is the capital of the company, better staff— more capital.

In fact, this is just my view on the problem of overtime. It is subjective and does not reflect the diversity of situations and issues. In addition, all people are different and attitudes to work are different. I simply wanted to say that private life and work must be in harmony, without one another not will yield happiness and pleasure. Don't be hamsters, develop, dream. And definitely as much as possible exercise, walk by foot to work, give positive more.

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