Why am I working at my job? What am I getting out of it? Asking myself these questions and coming to a firm conclusion has made a night and day turnaround in my attitude.
The Turning Point
On Monday this week (being late to work), I was picking up a bunk-bed for my girls. A good friend of mine was letting me use his truck, and had tagged along to help load up the bed.
He asked the simple question “how do you like your new job?”, and I found myself responding at long-rambling-length. I was partially thinking out loud, but mostly what I was doing was half rationalizing, half realizing that I wasn’t very happy at all. When I trailed off, he responded, showing me the he really saw to the heart of the matter.
Being a gentleman, he didn’t hit me with the point, he simply told me how it is for him.
I understand, the way I think about my job is that I realize that I make a lot of money at it, and that I need that money to pay for my real passion, real-estate investment. Whenever I get depressed, or when they lay on the pressure, I just think about my real goal, and the tension goes away.
I’ve been thinking about that statement ever since. Monday evening, I talked it out with my sweetie and came to the conclusion that I hadn’t really been clear with myself about what I want from the job.
No focus = No fulfillment
Naturally I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. For me, no goal = no fulfillment on the job. Without a goal, I had was a reverted to previous behavior and expectations. I’d whine to myself about the fact that I don’t get to program very often, usually less than ten hours a week. More of my time is spent problem solving, facilitating, information gathering, planning and discussing. From a straight “developer mindset”, all that stuff is at best a diversion from “my work.”
But, the truth is that I’m already a very experienced and skilled developer. I don’t really need any more skill development in that area, since that isn’t going to be my career for much longer. It has too low an income ceiling for me to want to pursue it any farther.
New focus
As my entries on the blog over the last few months show, I’ve been bitten hard by the entrepreneurial bug. So what I need is experience with project management, leadership, ownership of goals, and interfacing with non-technical people. I’m “OK” at these things now, but I have a huge amount to learn. The very stuff that I used to deride as “not work” has become what I feel I need to learn in order to be a success in my career change.
Focus, decisions. My goal at work is to make a reasonable living while learning everything I can in the areas I most want to grow. Anything else is off-topic and off-focus.
My attitude flipped overnight. In just a couple days, I’m now reinvigorated at work, I know what I should be working on, and I am clear with my boss about my priorities.
I couldn’t “fake it until I made it” either. I was trying, it wasn’t working, and I just felt like a phony. I needed to have a goal I can honestly, wholeheartedly pursue, or I was simply going to have a miserable experience.
Immediate Results
I think it is quite fitting that after a couple days of planning and priority setting with my boss, he’s sending me off to a convention he’d been planning to attend (HostingCon). I’ll learn a lot there, and it clearly fits within my new focus, so I’m getting excited by the prospect.
I’m certain if I’d had the black clouds over my head that I’d been dragging around since my vacation, I would not have been asked to be my employer’s representative. Funny how things happen at just the right time.
Thanks R, for the truck loan and the advice.
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