career

Rethinking Work

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

I was thinking about this recent tumblr post about moves to an even shorter workweek. This got me thinking about the benefits of an even shorter workweek.

I wanted to discuss that one of the problems is how much we define ourselves by work, that is, what we do for pay. In America, it’s become a problem.

Work Defines And Destroys

How much of our lives are consumed by work and by overtime? By preparing for work and recovering from stress and too-long days? By searching in an ever-uncertain economy? Work often dominates our lives.

How many of our conversations are about work? Do you ever introduce yourself by a modified version of your job title? Is the job the first thing we discuss socially?

How much of our news is about the economy and jobs, while at the same time abstractly missing how shitty work is for so many people?

Work dominates our lives, and we don’t seem all the better for it. It seems to be literally killing us.

Work Limits Focus

Work also limits our focus on what matters. When we boil things down to hours work, money paid, company profits we miss that there are many other things that matter or matter more. Life is more than DJIA returns but we don’t make any effort to measure it as we think in terms of *work*

It doesn’t take much effort to find out that, in America, a lot of stuff is messed up. Obesety rates, health issues, etc. But how much effort goes into asking how dollars flow around abstractly (and rarely flowing to people that NEED it).

Work Can Corrupt People

Now let me confess what I am about to say is stuff I am guilty of. We can make work into a vortex that sucks everything up. How are we eating so we work better. How are we learning so we can work better. Can our hobbies pay off? We think about work so often we miss that some stuff just doesn’t involve work.

Me, I’m guilty of this in my own way due to my big thing about geeky careers. Now, I don’t think the idea of hobbies-used-for-careers is BAD, but I’m realizing I need more emphasis on fun, social bonding, etc. I don’t want to be part of the problem.

Work Distracts From Other Issues

Work distracts us from other issues. We’re burnt out from the day, trying to get a training session in, and are doing a job search on the side to get a less crappy job. This time could be spent socially bonding, in our community, doing stuff that’s not our jobs that benefits others. But we focus on the job.

How many of our political choices relate to that job and not to the larger picture (which might make our jobs easier)? How many of them are worried about having work the next year?

We Need To Rethink Work

We need to rethink Work while also being realistic. Yeah, we work – we all have to work, its part of contributing to society, making stuff happen, and earning our keep. I am PRO-WORK – I’m just not so sure our current idea of jobs is helping.

First, I think we have to reclaim “work” from “job.” There’s a “job” that you do and then there’s “work” you do. A job may pay you, working at a church social is “work” but has other benefits.

A few things:

  • We should ask if we’re defined by our jobs and our work and how. Some people, like a doctor, ARE often defined by their job. Some are broader, like myself who’d write and manage no matter what – my “work” and “job” are different. Some people aren’t their job 80% of their lives and should define themselves differently.
  • We should learn to think about social and political issues outside of money – though often the issues involve who gets it so there’s only so far away we can get. Still maybe it’s important to not ask if the DJIA is the end-all-and-be-all of thing.
  • We should damn well think about money and politics when it’s messing up our lives, as we’ve been discussing things like irrational CEO compensation and the like.
  • We need to learn to not turn everything into a job, consider if something is worth the “work,” and have fun. Think more of the social roles we play over job.
  • We can’t let work distract us from what’s important and the larger picture.

Me, going forward, I’m going to try to think of myself as more than my job and about work. Oh, I still intend to focus on being a geek job guru, but I need to emphasize more thats just a thing *I* do, and to learn to focus on larger issues. I also need to ask when something is “work”, a job, and both.

Any feedback is appreciated.

– Steve

Career Thoughts Late 2017

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I haven’t done a career post in awhile. I’ve been focused on my worldbuidling books and expanding my repetoire, but I’m still the Geek Job Guru, and it’s time I do a bit more of that.

So with 2017 stumbling along, from political chicanery to security issues to media scandals, let’s talk the career landscape so far. It’s . . . weird.

Economy:

  • The stock market is humming along, but in the midst of political chaos, assorted scandals, and growing social and economic issues. In short, I don’t trust it, and expect a soft landing at best, or a steep (but not radical) decline in the next year or two.
  • Political uncertainty with our current administration can balloon out of control very quickly, especially in cases of military action or impeachment. It’s pretty hard to prepare for this, but you’ll want to. For instance, I have a few “economic emergency plans” in place just in case.
  • With all of the above, I think some economic downturn is simply unavoidable. The question is how severe it will be and how long it will last.

Speaking of Economic Emergency Plans:

  • As much as I like making Plan A work, it’s good to think ahead on your plan for an economic downturn both local, national, and global. This is because we might get one. It doesn’t have to be detailed, but it’s good to have a basic one so you don’t have to worry about it.

Where To Work

  • As much as I love the Bay Area, our housing issues are starting to impact recruiting. I consider this place a good area to move, but urge caution and careful research. I think we’ve got another 2 or so years of this so if you move here – keep this in mind.
  • Amazon’s big plan to make a new HQ is probably going to create a rush, but based on what they said, I wouldn’t expect it to be in a truly major area (Boston, Chicago, etc.). It’d be more a secondary or tertiary city. I also don’t consider it a guarantee of stimulating the economy.
  • My usual recruiting pings seem to be coming from all over lately, I haven’t noticed any trends except “all over.”
  • One big warning is that if you do move, treat it as permanent. You never know and I don’t trust current stability – make sure you’re in a place that can take economic downturns.
  • The bloom is very much off the Tech Company rose after the endless waves of scandals. This doesn’t mean these aren’t good places to work or good options, and people are still investing in some strange ideas. I take it more that we’re seeing things come back to oft-painful reality.
  • Side note on tech companies – considering the scandals we’ve seen from harassment to promoting propaganda, consider that there’s probably more to come by the odds. Adjust expectations appropriately.

Staying Mobile

  • I’ve seen a increase in recruiters looking for people willing to move around for temporary assignments. I’m mixed on this idea since it can lead you all over the place, affect your lifestyle and social life, and perhaps even health. But it might be good as filler.

 

Career Options

  • After the issues with Equifax, you can believe security is going to be an issue in jobs. I’d suggest playing that up if you have the experience and keeping an eye out for opportunities. This is a place to build a permanent career – that hasn’t changed, it’s just more urgent.
  • I’ve recently been introduced to a less-seen world of change control and training and business analysis. This is a fascinating area you may want to check out – because it’s omnipresent and it’s evolving. I’ve also noticed Analyst work is big for both starting careers and bringing them to a conclusion.
  • I’m seeing more and more people doing side projects quite openly, like my books or Seventh Sanctum. If you have one and can make it public, go for it.
  • As for what jobs people should do or train for – that’s something I’m honestly not sure of now. All I can say is do your research.

Job Searches

  • There seems to be a lot of talent mismatch out there with people, companies, etc. This is actually a warning as desperate people may hire wrong.  I think it may be getting worse.
  • On top of the above, I’m seeing more specific recruitment attempts – at times incredibly specific in ridiculous ways. These jobs then stay open forever. Applying for them if you don’t fit enough is probably a waste of time.
  • Recruiters are getting a lot more aggressive the last few months based on what I’ve seen. That may be good, but can be annoying, can lead to a bad mismatch. Also a few companies are outsourcing recruiting and these recruiters are kinda clueless.
  • Pay rates seem very stagnant as of late, possibly regressing, at least based on personal experience. You may need to be aggressive – and I suspect this is part of further problems (above). People want to deal with mismatches cheap and fast.

 

The entire economy and job market seems to somehow be moving forward erratically while also being in a holding pattern. So if you have any input, I’d appreciate it.

– Steve

Why Incompetence Is Something We All Choose

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

Some thoughts for all the people out there that follow me for career and creative advice . . .

Improving our skills and abilities, learning new things, is something we all develop.  Most of us do it consciously, sometimes with a great deal of planning.  It may even obsess some of us as our jobs and lives require us to learn at a rapid pace. However there’s a shadow side to what we choose to become competent in – a choice to learn something means there’s a lot else we choose not to learn at that time.

Every choice to educate ourselves means we’re spending time and resources that aren’t used learn a different subject.  Each competency is paid for in not learning something else. For all you are good at, there’s a large amount of things you don’t know and can’t do, and you chose these “incompetencies” willingly or not.

We probably don’t look at learning as “choosing an incompetency” as a form of defense because there’ so much we don’t know and it scares us.  We’re taught to think only of being good (or acceptable) at something, not bad at something.  We’re taught not to admit failure or lack of ability because we seem weak, but to ignore it or pretend we’re good at everything.

But we have to accept the truth – choosing a competency is also choosing incompetencies. If we accept the we choose our ignorance and lack of ability, we can choose wisely.  If we’ve decided we can’t truly know or learn something, then we’re prepared for that gap in our lives.

We can develop that valuable competency of knowing what we don’t know – and why we don’t know it.

We can bring an innocent attitude to learning so those that know something we do not (that we may choose not to educate ourselves on) can teach us.

We can stop worrying about not knowing.  We’re all fools at one point, so let’s be fools consciously.

Exercise: List ten things you know nothing about that affect your life.  Why didn’t you learn them? What did you learn in their place?

– Steve