brick walls
Right now, I’ve got a problem with group frustration.
I’m punching above my paygrade at work - and it’s frustrating. As a personal ethic, I believe you should punch however hard you can punch. Not people; people-cases you should modulate (do I need to bulldoze this person? Do they need to know all this information? Am I patronising them? Am I over-valuing them?). But work is work. Do the best job you can.
But at a certain point a few weeks ago I just hit a plateau where I just don't give as much of a shit anymore. Not no shits: I value being valued. I value doing my work. I'm actually valued by my peers and my superiors. I've gained some quantity of respect from them.
Still, the adage of never work for free? Holds. I am, obviously, not working for free. But they won't promote me this year because of corporate restructuring, and they couldn't raise me last year because of corporate bullshit. So now I'm a first-and-a-half year hire prancing roughshod over company-wide policy, shooting from the hip because every time I ask would any senior like to point this gun? the answer is eh, do what you judge best because we don't care enough to not trust you.
That's perhaps an oversimplification. But here's the difference between a leader I'll follow into the trenches (a Rufus Shinra, maybe, or a Kusanagi Motoko) and a leader I'll watch trip into a ditch: the former makes you feel part of an optimistic system.
I don't think an optimistic system necessarily needs to be a happy system. Maybe progressive is a better word? Or a vision? Whatever the word. I want a charismatic and technical leader. I need a charismatic and technical leader. Sell me your world and I'll build it for you, because I'm a good foreman but gods above am I a bad architect.
And right now it feels like I'm architecting my own path. Just bushwhacking through a system of incompetency on the right and vision that fell through on the left. Ambitious and vaguely rubbish. I'm thinking for my leaders, in some ways, and I don't want to do that. I want to want to be part of a system, and that's hard when I feel like I'm constructing bits of it out of bullshit I pull out of my ass.
Point is, there's group frustration. My seniors want shit done, but don't have the capacity or creativity to see it through. I want to get shit done for my seniors, but don't have the entirety of technical experience or, let's face it, clout to push their agenda through for them. They're frustrated at the system. I'm frustrated with their frustration at the system. We all hold hands during coffee breaks and understand the hard work we're doing, but I feel like an idiot monkey bashing nearly-Hamlet out on a typewriter.
I came home today fucked up and tired, and I thought to myself - let's play a game. I logged onto Overwatch, which is the dumbest idea I've had since... I'm not sure. I can't think of something I've done that's so dumb. Because after 9-5 of group frustration, I jumped right into the most group-frustration-y game possible. Six strangers shooting shit and failing. Nearly succeeding, too, which is worse. It'd have been better, maybe, if I'd just died 20 times in a row and done nothing. But I was mediocre. 60% okay. And each time at the end I'd zone out, or fuck up, or our team would fall to pieces, and it sucks.
I don't know where I'm going with this one. I think the gist is, I/you/people have to have a sense of balance. Frustration has to be balanced: either with success, or compensation, or satisfaction. And satisfaction in a job well done, when the job is - if not pointless as a learning exercise - fruitless as an executive one? Is nothing.
/sighs This is a ramble. Pied pipers don't exactly fall from the sky. Maybe I just need to learn how to play the fucking flute.
In other news, I've given up on this city in a lot of ways. I think instead of meeting people, I need to get the fuck out of here in a year or two: and in the meantime? Just... self-improve. Learn some Latin, pick up an instrument, get fit at the gym, relearn my cursive, read a bunch of good books, just hone hone hone until I can take comfort in time well spent, even if there's missing good company.
I’m punching above my paygrade at work - and it’s frustrating. As a personal ethic, I believe you should punch however hard you can punch. Not people; people-cases you should modulate (do I need to bulldoze this person? Do they need to know all this information? Am I patronising them? Am I over-valuing them?). But work is work. Do the best job you can.
But at a certain point a few weeks ago I just hit a plateau where I just don't give as much of a shit anymore. Not no shits: I value being valued. I value doing my work. I'm actually valued by my peers and my superiors. I've gained some quantity of respect from them.
Still, the adage of never work for free? Holds. I am, obviously, not working for free. But they won't promote me this year because of corporate restructuring, and they couldn't raise me last year because of corporate bullshit. So now I'm a first-and-a-half year hire prancing roughshod over company-wide policy, shooting from the hip because every time I ask would any senior like to point this gun? the answer is eh, do what you judge best because we don't care enough to not trust you.
That's perhaps an oversimplification. But here's the difference between a leader I'll follow into the trenches (a Rufus Shinra, maybe, or a Kusanagi Motoko) and a leader I'll watch trip into a ditch: the former makes you feel part of an optimistic system.
I don't think an optimistic system necessarily needs to be a happy system. Maybe progressive is a better word? Or a vision? Whatever the word. I want a charismatic and technical leader. I need a charismatic and technical leader. Sell me your world and I'll build it for you, because I'm a good foreman but gods above am I a bad architect.
And right now it feels like I'm architecting my own path. Just bushwhacking through a system of incompetency on the right and vision that fell through on the left. Ambitious and vaguely rubbish. I'm thinking for my leaders, in some ways, and I don't want to do that. I want to want to be part of a system, and that's hard when I feel like I'm constructing bits of it out of bullshit I pull out of my ass.
Point is, there's group frustration. My seniors want shit done, but don't have the capacity or creativity to see it through. I want to get shit done for my seniors, but don't have the entirety of technical experience or, let's face it, clout to push their agenda through for them. They're frustrated at the system. I'm frustrated with their frustration at the system. We all hold hands during coffee breaks and understand the hard work we're doing, but I feel like an idiot monkey bashing nearly-Hamlet out on a typewriter.
I came home today fucked up and tired, and I thought to myself - let's play a game. I logged onto Overwatch, which is the dumbest idea I've had since... I'm not sure. I can't think of something I've done that's so dumb. Because after 9-5 of group frustration, I jumped right into the most group-frustration-y game possible. Six strangers shooting shit and failing. Nearly succeeding, too, which is worse. It'd have been better, maybe, if I'd just died 20 times in a row and done nothing. But I was mediocre. 60% okay. And each time at the end I'd zone out, or fuck up, or our team would fall to pieces, and it sucks.
I don't know where I'm going with this one. I think the gist is, I/you/people have to have a sense of balance. Frustration has to be balanced: either with success, or compensation, or satisfaction. And satisfaction in a job well done, when the job is - if not pointless as a learning exercise - fruitless as an executive one? Is nothing.
/sighs This is a ramble. Pied pipers don't exactly fall from the sky. Maybe I just need to learn how to play the fucking flute.
In other news, I've given up on this city in a lot of ways. I think instead of meeting people, I need to get the fuck out of here in a year or two: and in the meantime? Just... self-improve. Learn some Latin, pick up an instrument, get fit at the gym, relearn my cursive, read a bunch of good books, just hone hone hone until I can take comfort in time well spent, even if there's missing good company.