Sunday, June 13, 2010

I have to post this video by RSA because I think it encapsulates what I have been pining for. The video is about motivation, and
how elusive it actually is.



I get paid okay, but what really gets my goat is the fact that there really isn't anyone in my organization that really cares much about getting things done with any efficiency or logic. I think that after about a year that started getting to me. You can call it a honeymoon period but really it's the point where I had mastered things enough to hit a plateau. The point where you have a really good idea of how things should be handled and you handle everything with very few hiccups. After that point what goes wrong? Well, you still make mistakes, but what really goes wrong is other people or the system itself. You're boss starts saying he said something he didn't or that he emailed you something he didn't. Or maybe all of a sudden you didn't say something you did blah blah blah.

After about a year, you're pretty much exclusively eating the little bits of political garbage, and the actual satisfaction of learning things which are actually useful has dwindled to next to nothing.

At this point, you're motivation is gone. You can't just extend yourself and learn anything more, you have to sit at the tap and wait for your boss to serve it to you by the spoonful. You hit a wall where your boss becomes territorial about the tasks and wants to keep him for himself. He might acknowledge that he has little time to do it (because he's managing people too right?) but he sticks to doing it because those tasks are the visible ones that get all the praise.

I also find there's a certain point where your boss feels as if you don't need any sort of reassurance that you're doing a good job. Well, he's wrong. I'd love another 10,000$ in income, but it would make a bigger difference if I was actually congratulated when I did something right every now and then. Unfortunately my boss is stuck on just trying to eek out the insignificant problems at the end of the project when it's too late. So don't expect me to come around and tell you I'm finished.

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