I've been very unlucky in life. Throughout my life, I've been surrounded by people who engage in something real. And me, as you can easily guess – I'm a representative of two of the most pointless, contrived, and unreal professions one can think of – a programmer and a manager.
My wife is a teacher at a school. Plus, of course, she's a class leader. My sister is a doctor. Naturally, her husband is too. My father is a builder. A real one who builds with his own hands. Even now, at the age of 70.
And me? I’m a programmer. I pretend to help various businesses. Businesses pretend that I really help them. Furthermore, businesses pretend that business is people. By helping businesses, I help people. Well, they are people, of course. But they can be counted on one hand. Well, those I help when costs decrease, profits increase, and staff is cut.
Of course, there are – or maybe, 'there are probably' – real programmers in the world. Not those who are 'true,' but those whose work helps people – ordinary people. But that’s not me, and it's not my profession. Yes, I forgot to mention: I’m an 1C programmer.
Any automation of any business is not real work. Business is generally a rather virtual phenomenon. Some guys were sitting around, working, and suddenly decided that things couldn't continue like this, and they needed to do business, rather than just toil for someone else. They dug up some money or connections, founded a company, and are trying to earn.
Well, yes, there is – or, 'there is probably' – some social mission for businesses. They love to say that – like, we create jobs, make the world better by producing our products, and pay taxes. But all this, firstly, is secondary, and secondly – not unique.
Every business creates jobs, produces products, and pays taxes. Neither the number of jobs, nor the volume of production, nor the amount paid to the government characterizes a business in terms of its 'reality' by my scale. And, in the end, all of this is just a secondary aspect to the main goal – earning money for the owners.
Making money is great. And if you've managed to come up with some kind of social mission – even better, make sure to include it in your advertising brochure. It might come in handy when the owner goes into politics. And as for how beneficial the yogurt we produce is for the world, the advertising already tells that story.
If the business, as an object of automation, isn't real, then automation, as an improvement of that object, can't be real either. All the people working at the enterprise are there with one goal – to help earn as much money as possible. Contractors are brought into the business with the same goal. Everyone is happily making money, helping each other earn more.
No, I’m not a preachy bum, and I understand how our world works. About 99% of the time, I don't even worry about it. Especially since both programmers and managers are paid quite well.
But I often feel terribly awkward being in the company of real people. See above – I find myself in such company every day. And with genuine pleasure, I listen, almost with my mouth open, to their stories about work. But I have, in essence, nothing to share about mine.
Once, I found myself on vacation with my sister and her husband. She’s a therapist, and he’s a surgeon. They were living in a small town, where there were only two surgeons. Long warm evenings were spent talking, and I heard all sorts of stories. For instance, how after a serious accident, they brought in nine people to be sewn up, with one surgeon on duty.
What struck me the most – he spoke about it completely calmly, without the exaggerated emotionality that someone like me, a manager, typically displays, and without trying to embellish the story. Well, yes, nine people. Sure, sewing them up. So he sewed them up.
With childlike naïveté, I asked him how he feels about saving lives. He said that at first, he tried to somehow realize, or rather, force himself to realize, that he was doing something truly useful and valuable. Like, I saved a person's life. But, he said, no special understanding ever came. It was just a job. They brought him in – he sewed them up. And went home when the shift ended.
Talking to my sister was easier — she was very interested in the topic of career advancement, and at that time, I was an IT director, so I had something to share. It was a bit of relief; at least I could be of help to her in some way. I told her about the career steroids that weren't fully formed yet. By the way, she later became the deputy chief physician — we must have something in common in our characters. And her husband is still stitching up people. Then he goes home.
My wife's profession has become a constant source of torment. Every day I hear about her class, about the children growing up before her eyes, about their teenage problems, which seem so important and unsolvable to them. At first, I didn't pay much attention, but when I started to listen, it became interesting.
Each of her stories became like reading a good novel, with unexpected plot twists, deeply developed characters, their quests and transformations, challenges and successes. It's a kind of true life session amid my pseudo-successes, pseudo-failures, and pseudo-difficulties. I literally envy my wife with a white envy. So much so that I sometimes feel like going to work at a school (which, of course, I would never do for financial reasons).
I must also mention my father. He lived his entire life in the village and worked as a builder all his life. There are no corporations, teams, ratings, or reviews in the village. There are only people, and all these people know each other. This clearly leaves a mark on everything that happens there.
For instance, masters of their craft are honored there — those who do their job with their own hands. Builders, mechanics, electricians, even pig killers. If you've made a name for yourself as a master, you won't go hungry in the village. This is precisely why my father once discouraged me from becoming an engineer — he said I would become an alcoholic, as this profession is too in demand in the village due to a complete lack of repair workshops.
In our village, it's hard to find even one house that my father hasn't had a hand in building. Of course, there are structures from his era, but starting from the 1980s, he has been involved almost everywhere. The reason is simple — besides regular construction, he became a stove maker, and in the village, a stove is built in every house, not to mention every bathhouse.
In the village, there were few bricklayers, and my father, speaking in my language, occupied a niche and developed his competitive advantage. However, he continued to build houses as well. Even I once participated as a subcontractor – for 200 rubles, I poked moss between the beams of the assembled box. Don't laugh, it was 1998.
I also took part a couple of times in building the stove, in the role of "bring this, hand that, go away, don’t disturb." The funniest moment in the entire project was lighting the stove for the first time. Smoke starts pouring out from all the cracks, and you have to sit and patiently wait until the smoke "finds" an exit. It's some kind of magic. After a few minutes, the smoke finds the chimney, and for the next few decades, it will escape only through it.
Naturally, almost the entire village knows my father. Almost – because many people from the neighboring city have now settled there for the clean air, the forest across the road, and other rural delights. They live without knowing who built their stove, bathhouse, or perhaps even their entire house. Which is, in general, normal.
This "normal" oddly distinguishes all the real people with real professions that I know. They simply work, do their job, and go about their lives.
In our environment, it's customary to build corporate culture, engage in motivation, measure and increase employee loyalty, teach slogans, and conduct team building. They have nothing like that – everything is somehow simple and natural. I am increasingly convinced that all our corporate culture is nothing more than an attempt to convince people that their work has some meaning beyond earning money for the owner.
The sense, purpose, and mission of our work are concocted by special people, printed on paper, and hung in a prominent place. The quality and persuasiveness of this mission, its ability to inspire, is always at a very low level. Because the task of writing a mission is virtual, not real – to convince us that helping the owner make money is honorable, interesting, and in general, this way we fulfill our personal mission.
It's complete nonsense. There are companies that don't get caught up in such trivialities. They simply make money without fussing over superficial missions and contributions to society and the state. Yes, it's unusual, but at least there's no deception.
After talking with real people and reevaluating my work, I am pleased to say that I have become more relaxed about my job. I haven't attended corporate events for a long time, and I delight in ignoring all the 'employee codes', dress codes, missions, and values. I'm not trying to fight them; it's not right—if the owner decides that everyone should wear pink shirts with Mabel and a unicorn, that's their personal business. The only difference is that I will wear a yellow shirt. Tomorrow, it will be red. The day after tomorrow—who knows, I'll wear whatever my heart desires.
I've also reevaluated my work on improving efficiency. In general, I have been seriously interested in this topic for a long time, but I always put the business first. I thought that we need to increase its efficiency; there’s meaning and mission in that.
Of course, this is necessary if it's my job, if I was hired specifically for this. But typically, this activity is secondary; it comes as an appendage to some 'ordinary' work. Therefore, it is not mandatory and allows for a lot of creative freedom.
So I'm expressing my creativity. Now my main focus is on increasing the personal effectiveness of employees at work. Not primarily so that the business earns more, although that goal is also achieved but as a side benefit. The main goal is to increase the income of employees who want it, of course.
After all, every person coming to work spends the entire day there. The time spent in the office is their expense, and it's constant. The money and skills they earn are their results. We divide the results by the expenses to get efficiency.
Everything else is simple. It's unlikely that we can reduce expenses, i.e., time at work. However, it is very possible to achieve more results. And efficiency increases. Roughly speaking, this is the efficiency of 'sitting it out,' since work is a necessary obligation, if we’re being honest.
Of course, I cannot reach the level of 'authenticity' that doctors, teachers, and builders have. But I can help someone. A living, sad, cheerful, troubled, unkempt, beautiful, capricious, gloomy, yet real – a Human.
Or should I become a school teacher after all? It's too late for medicine, and I can't be a builder – my hands are not exactly skilled.
Source: habr.com
