Although I don’t always love it, and I certainly wouldn’t mind a shorter workweek, I really do like my job.
As a new parent, the flexibility of my job is fabulous. I work from home a little less than half the time, with a team of people spread across several time zones and countries. There’s an unspoken expectation to let people know if you won’t be available during certain peak hours, but beyond that the start and end times for the day can vary considerably. This has always been a perk, but now it feels indispensible. After several years of this, I might be unfit for a more traditional work schedule.
My co-workers are great. I don’t see most of them outside of work, but I also don’t think that is necessary for good working relationships. They are simultaneously hardworking and low key. They are helpful. There are no difficult egos. Seriously, the worst thing I can say about anyone is that they might work too hard or have too good a memory for details.
The stress-inducing frequency with which I am contacted by recruiters suggests that I would have a reasonable shot at landing a higher paying job, but the uncertainty of the new team environment encourages loyalty to my current company.
Beyond the flexibility, the people, and the fact that I get paid, I also do really like the industry and the combination of language and technology. It is still very interesting to me after two years of grad school and six years of work in the field. Just think, if I had gone for a PhD, I might be finishing now. No regrets there.
My job is also challenging.
We have to balance research with development deadlines and I’m still learning how to fit in the research when the development part is never done.
In my group, we build a component model that gets packaged up, tested and deployed to paying customers. The tools we use to build, test and experimentally improve that component are in-house. This means that they are fragile, fickle and fussy. They are a working donkey with a bad attitude, while the final bankable software is a well-groomed, well-exercised racing thoroughbred.
As I work with this donkey, I often find myself in the position where I have to decide whether to ask for help and who to ask. I ask myself: Is it responsible to keep chipping away at this time consuming problem alone? Am I likely to be able to figure it out? Who is likely to know the answer? Who is likely to be experiencing the same issue? Should I ask just one person or should I broadcast the question? How stupid will I look for asking this question?
In real life, I don’t worry that much about looking silly, but at work, it’s harder because how one is perceived really does matter. As a visible (female) minority, I think I am more conscious of this than most.
An aside about gender: Only about 15% of us are female. I strongly suspect that this leads to higher visibility, which is both a blessing and a curse. We’re a large, highly distributed team, as I explained earlier. By not being a white or asian man (particularly one named after an apostle or having “X” or “Y” or “Z” in my name), I am more memorable. If I ask a stupid question, people are more likely to remember it and associate it with me. Of course, if I do something well, I think they are also more likely to credit me accurately.
Returning to my point about asking for help with our donkey-like tools, I want to step back in time.
In the 8th grade I was given an award at the end of the year by our social studies teacher, who said something to the effect of “You weren’t afraid to ask questions that benefited the learning of the whole class.” But work is not school, and the decision of who to ask, is much harder when there is no effectively omniscient teacher (we are talking middle school here).
Years later, in grad school at a lunch seminar about workplace organizational behavior, I learned that research shows that people ask questions of co-workers they feel more comfortable with rather than person they think is most likely to know the answer. Social capital means a lot.
I’ve recently had several successful interactions resulting from broadcast emails. They’ve allowed me to get answers more quickly, learn who else is affected by the same issue and even to share knowledge that I used when trying to figure out a solution. The responses make me believe they didn’t make look bad and, perhaps best of all, I didn’t squander precious social capital by demanding the time of any one particular person who might not have the time or knowledge to help. I would rather sacrifice pride in the interest of increasing social capital.
The truth is that most people are in the same boat.
