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Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

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Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#21

Post by jamesbritt »

axod wrote: post #19
donniefitz2 wrote: post #7

Seriously, calm down. What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. Sometimes it sucks, it's un-interesting, it's laborious, sometimes maddeningly menial. You're not always going to be learning at a fast pace. You could just quit and go somewhere else, get assigned a crappy project and find that the grass isn't any greener. Or you can suck it up and take t…

Also be sure to watch the movie "Office space".

"Seems you've been missing a lot of work."

"Well, I wouldn't say I was missing it ..."

That movie help motivate me to quit a boring cube job.

Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#22

Post by adldesigner »

gaius wrote: post #18
donniefitz2 wrote: post #7

Seriously, calm down. What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. Sometimes it sucks, it's un-interesting, it's laborious, sometimes maddeningly menial. You're not always going to be learning at a fast pace. You could just quit and go somewhere else, get assigned a crappy project and find that the grass isn't any greener. Or you can suck it up and take t…

Millenials, eh? ;-)

Lol. Funny cross-reference!

Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#23

Post by jodrellblank »

donniefitz2 wrote: post #7

Seriously, calm down. What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. Sometimes it sucks, it's un-interesting, it's laborious, sometimes maddeningly menial. You're not always going to be learning at a fast pace. You could just quit and go somewhere else, get assigned a crappy project and find that the grass isn't any greener. Or you can suck it up and take t…

"What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. "

That's ridiculously self referential. It's not fun because it's something which is defined to exclude fun?

It's not "work", it's "creating value" and there's no rule about creating value requiring laborious, menial, maddening, un-interesting work. Particularly not IT/knowledge/computer-based work.

I don't assume it should be fun, I demand it should be fun. (Well, I don't, but someone else should on my behalf ;)

(Also, I know there must be troughs, it can't be peaks all the time. I'm just in the middle of some frustrating, dull, un-interesting work too)

Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#24

Post by azanar »

donniefitz2 wrote: post #7

Seriously, calm down. What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. Sometimes it sucks, it's un-interesting, it's laborious, sometimes maddeningly menial. You're not always going to be learning at a fast pace. You could just quit and go somewhere else, get assigned a crappy project and find that the grass isn't any greener. Or you can suck it up and take t…

I agree that the original poster needs to calm down, but I get the impression you should calm down, too. I've been avoiding getting involved in the generational battle that seems to have been sparked here over the past week, since I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. But this comment struck an unhappy chord with me; it just seems a bit too indignant.

I think the problem I have is that the assumption it is based on is wrong. I can only speak as a representative of the millenials, but the motivational power you have identified is incorrect. I am not working off of the assumption that everything I do ought to be fun. Given the discussion I've observed here so far, this seems like a gross exaggeration of what has been said.

The primary motivation for me is to be productive and build things people find useful. It seems that this is the same primary motivation of the original poster, too. If things are uninteresting, if they are laborious, if they are maddeningly menial, but they need to get done, then I have no problem getting them done. If, above all of that, they are pointless or otherwise seem like a counter-productive waste of time, then I will get demotivated, and my productivity will slow. As a result of my productivity slowing down, I will become unhappy and start asking questions similar to that of the original poster. I like getting things done, and when I feel like I’m running in place, it begins to make me ask why I’m not just standing still. Your position on this seems to be that I should shut the hell up and just keep running, if I know what is good for me. Can you be so kind as to explain why it is good for me, or those who have ordered me to keep running?

Obviously, if fed with an endless stream of menial work, my motivation will suffer as well, but I suspect that is not where the original poster is at right now. If it was, would you still be yelling at him to suck it up and get back to work? At what point do you decide that there really _is_ a field somewhere else with greener grass? I hope you are not so cynical as to say the grass everywhere is indistinguishably parched.

Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#28

Post by niels_olson »

I had some really smart kids working for me over the summers at Canoe U. Marshall scholars, Rhodes scholars smart. I saved up miserable work for them all year and, come June, I'd give them one project each. I told they didn't have to come in, nothing. Just log their hours and send them to me every week. I'd make an estimate of how long each project should take, with a guess at what a standard dev might be. Invariably they went insane with boredom and frustration and asked for more projects.

I'm not saying my management style was exceptional, but their insight into the nature of work was: if the project bores the crap out of you, ask for two or three more. By working on the more interesting projects, you can save up willpower to tackle the dull-as-rocks first project. You might actually get through the first one faster.

Re: Ask HN: I am delivering mediocre work and feel awful about it. Should I commit seppuku?

#29

Post by nostrademons »

azanar wrote: post #24
donniefitz2 wrote: post #7

Seriously, calm down. What's up with the assumption these days that everything done in our work is supposed to be fun? It's work. Sometimes it sucks, it's un-interesting, it's laborious, sometimes maddeningly menial. You're not always going to be learning at a fast pace. You could just quit and go somewhere else, get assigned a crappy project and find that the grass isn't any greener. Or you can suck it up and take t…

I agree that the original poster needs to calm down, but I get the impression you should calm down, too. I've been avoiding getting involved in the generational battle that seems to have been sparked here over the past week, since I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. But this comment struck an unhappy chord with me; it just seems a bit too indignant. I think the problem I have is that the assumption it is based on…

I'm a Millenial and didn't find the original comment all that indignant or upset. It was another side-comment that tossed in the "Millenials, eh? ;-)" and I just figured that was a humorous attempt to tie this to another discussion.
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