About work

I’m not perfect, and even if I was you’d find something wrong with me.

Because it’s the human condition to eventually designate something as the intolerable problem. That’s the ‘job complaint syndrome’, also; no matter what job you have you eventually settle on something as the biggest aggravation, and that’s your complaint. You find the squeaky wheel in whatever your situation. So there’s always something to complain about, and the same thing happens in a relationship. It’s just *not* human nature to say that everything’s OK, and leave it at that. That’s uncomfortable.

And it's an odd thing is how trivial some of the work problems can be, especially in hindsight, but they are major triggers at the time nonetheless. Compare these two examples from my experience…

When I worked on banking software if our system went down in a live bank production environment, and I was on call, most of our management would be aware of the problem immmediately through a series of phone calls, and the bank executives would mostly all be aware they had trouble, and their on-call staff would be heading in to work in the middle of the night…all waiting to hear what I found and how I fixed it. On the other hand, as a dishwasher, if one more person had the French onion soup tonight I’m going through the roof! Y’know?

Just depends on where you are.

Another thing about jobs is the Repeat Cycle. How long does it take before you’ve done everything once, and now you’re on repeat? A job like dishwashing, you get the basics in 15-20 minutes, and at the end of the night you get the one-time, end-of-the-night tasks, and that’s it. On a construction job you’ve got all the phases of house construction to go through, and that takes months anyway, and not every house is the same, so you could easily go a year before you really feel like you’ve seen everything once. It could be a few years before it feels repetitive. Then, something like programming on software that costs over $1M *never* got repetitive because of the size and complexity of what we worked on. Always a new twist, whether creating or maintaining code. Probably any job where you have “clients” will never repeat…but that’s good. Those are the jobs you can stay with.

I should acknowledge that while building houses is largely repetitive, there are clients to keep you hopping, and technology and materials evolve constantly so you’re always learning. No offense.

Speaking of Egypt

With Egypt in the news, with Egyptians demonstrating/rioting for a better life through regime change, I wanted to tell this story…

A couple years ago I had a short conversation with a man who had moved to the US from Egypt. Something in the news back then, I don’t remember what, prompted him to explain to me what he came here for; I remember I was thrilled that I was actually going to hear, face-to-face, what the US represents to an émigré.

He said it’s not about all the material goods, the wealth, and not really about the opportunities you have to follow dreams and fulfill yourself, although all that is certainly wonderful. It’s more basic than that, and something we might take for granted: respect. Every life here is respected, by law. The police will not arrest you without cause. If you are wronged by someone, or by a company, you can bring suit in a court of law. You always have recourse. You matter; you count. In Egypt, he said, the police can pick you up off the street in the morning, question you and beat you all day, and then dump you back on the street at the end of the day, all for no reason…and there’s nothing you can do about it. Without explanation! Imagine!? You are powerless, and you have to accept it. Day after day, year after soul-crushing year, it’s your way of life.

But not here. Here, you have value, you have your self-respect. Your dignity is assured, and that’s a powerful draw for the rest of the world. Some of the things we complain about within the context of our lives can look awfully petty and whiney to people from other countries. That’s just human nature: no matter what you’re doing or where, you will become aware of the aggravations that come with the situation. But it was nice to hear this man’s larger perspective on things, to

a) be reminded of just how good we have it, and

b) view the current struggles in Egypt with greater understanding.