Feeling good at work: a priority...
14 April 2009
Read by 1789 persons
I know this may seem like another unnecessary reminder... and yet I feel I must reiterate this, given the circumstances: many acquaintances and/or friends are experiencing working conditions or a job that is harmful to them (and no, I won't name names, if you feel targeted, ask yourself some questions)
10+ hours at work
You can do the math however you want, but we spend an impressive amount of time at work five days a week... I spend more time working than in my bed (ok, I don't sleep much, I admit) and more time with Karl and Fadi (my two bosses) than with my wife or daughter. We therefore spend a lot of time at work, including travel time, a good half of the day, so feeling good at your job is just essential, otherwise 50% of your day (excluding sleep time) is ruined.
Stress, a productivity booster?
Many believe in the productivist virtues of stress... wrongly in my opinion, I am never more productive than when I am dealing with a subject I love, without stress, working with people I respect or enjoy working with. Many people (and I was in this case a few months/years ago) also think that a (even short) phase of stress is necessary to accomplish something... from experience, stress just leads to more stress and sloppy or never finalized work. There are also several forms of stress (I could write articles on this subject), and certainly positive stress, but the most common, the stress suffered, the pressure from the ignorant and stupid superior, is useless.
Finding the right balance
How to find happiness at work? The dream job doesn't exist... it's always an unstable balance between obligations / annoying things / pleasure... For example, coming to work every day and keeping decent hours (or not showing up to work in pink underwear) are obligations. The annoying and pleasant things vary depending on the paths, professions and what you like... but if you only have constraints and annoying things in your work, you may be partially productive, but very quickly demotivated. Finding the right balance between all these facets of a job is difficult and also requires a certain vision: what do you want your job to look like? what are the acceptable constraints for you and those that are less so? what compensation for annoying or constraining things?
Always a choice...
No matter what is said (or what we are led to believe), we always have a choice... We always have the choice to try to improve our working conditions, to make it less harmful (this can be material or relational), we can change our attitude or behavior towards work, we can change jobs, fields... nothing is impossible as long as we know what we want.
It's a difficult alchemy, to feel good at work... an environment, people, the work itself. We spend so much time there, it would be stupid to ruin our health or life for it.
Posted on April 14, 2009
travailleursduweb.com
10+ hours at work
You can do the math however you want, but we spend an impressive amount of time at work five days a week... I spend more time working than in my bed (ok, I don't sleep much, I admit) and more time with Karl and Fadi (my two bosses) than with my wife or daughter. We therefore spend a lot of time at work, including travel time, a good half of the day, so feeling good at your job is just essential, otherwise 50% of your day (excluding sleep time) is ruined.
Stress, a productivity booster?
Many believe in the productivist virtues of stress... wrongly in my opinion, I am never more productive than when I am dealing with a subject I love, without stress, working with people I respect or enjoy working with. Many people (and I was in this case a few months/years ago) also think that a (even short) phase of stress is necessary to accomplish something... from experience, stress just leads to more stress and sloppy or never finalized work. There are also several forms of stress (I could write articles on this subject), and certainly positive stress, but the most common, the stress suffered, the pressure from the ignorant and stupid superior, is useless.
Finding the right balance
How to find happiness at work? The dream job doesn't exist... it's always an unstable balance between obligations / annoying things / pleasure... For example, coming to work every day and keeping decent hours (or not showing up to work in pink underwear) are obligations. The annoying and pleasant things vary depending on the paths, professions and what you like... but if you only have constraints and annoying things in your work, you may be partially productive, but very quickly demotivated. Finding the right balance between all these facets of a job is difficult and also requires a certain vision: what do you want your job to look like? what are the acceptable constraints for you and those that are less so? what compensation for annoying or constraining things?
Always a choice...
No matter what is said (or what we are led to believe), we always have a choice... We always have the choice to try to improve our working conditions, to make it less harmful (this can be material or relational), we can change our attitude or behavior towards work, we can change jobs, fields... nothing is impossible as long as we know what we want.
It's a difficult alchemy, to feel good at work... an environment, people, the work itself. We spend so much time there, it would be stupid to ruin our health or life for it.
Posted on April 14, 2009
travailleursduweb.com
