I have a close friend who described to me, at length, the annoying habits of the person who sits closest to him at work. He went on in such detail that I felt like I was there...
The first and most notable annoying habit is the "violent nasal exhalation". Basically, we all have an opening that connects our nasal cavity to our mouth. Apparently, the annoying guy closes that off, builds up pressure in his mouth, then opens the nasal passage. The result is similar to the sound he would make if he was blowing his nose, but immediately preceded by a kind of "thunk" from the explosive opening of the mouth-to-nose cavity.
I've never heard a whale expel air through its blowhole, but I can only imagine it's very similar to what this guy does.
Of course, such a habit could easily be ignored if it occurred infrequently. My friend---who is never prone to exaggeration---says the guy makes the noise at least once every minute. Every minute!
The guy's next habit is less frequent, but louder and much more prominent: the "mouth vacuum". This involves opening the corner of his mouth and forcefully sucking in air. I've heard people (and probably done it myself) do this when their mouth is full of saliva. Of course, the silent alternative is just to close your mouth and swallow.
That he does it out of the corner of his mouth is important: the side he does this with is the same side on which my friend sits. It's as though the sound is directed squarely at him. It's quite loud too: loud enough that it can be heard in the whole office. But of course, my friend is at ground zero, where it's loudest and impossible to ignore. Frequency is lower than the nose thing, but still at least every five minutes.
Hacking and spitting. One to four times an hour, he'll hack up what ever drainage or phlegm he has in his sinuses, and spit it into his garbage can. As an added bonus, sometimes he'll skip the garbage can and use the sink in the office's kitchenette. My friend said that the other day, he heard the annoying guy hack and spit into the sink. That in and of itself was unremarkable, nothing new. But then my friend went over to the sink to rinse out a mug... and there it was, in all its phlegmy glory: a giant, yellowish ball of mucous, sitting innocently in the sink, half-way between the drain and the edge. He hadn't even bothered to rinse it down the drain! A public office sink turned spittoon.
He occasionally gets into throat-clearing fits, which becomes the culmination of all his foul habits. He'll sit there and continuously clear his throat for a solid minute or two, punctuating his clearings with violent nasal exhalations. Often a mouth vacuum or two is thrown in for good measure, and the spectacle's grand finale is hacking a big loogie into his garbage can. Fortunately, this only happens, on average, a couple times per day.
On days when my friend is really lucky (sarcasm), the guy will accompany every violent nasal exhalation with a throat-clearing. Like a lone barking dog, the sounds are too frequent to ignore, but not frequent enough to fade into the background.
My friend's office is small and generally quiet---whisper quiet, in fact, with an open seating plan (i.e. no cubes or anything dividing up one person's workspace from the next). This means that even the slightest of sounds can be heard.
The annoying guy uses this library-like silence to achieve his full annoyance potential: lip-smacking. Generally, such behavior is reserved for animals and sloppy-eating cartoon characters. But during, and for several minutes following any eating, the annoying guy manages to continuously slurp and smack his lips. If he only ate once or twice a day, perhaps these noises could be ignored. But most days, he eats at least six times: breakfast, lunch, two to four yogurt snacks, two to four nut snacks. And then there's the cookies: between all the other meals and snacks, he'll toss a whole cookie in his mouth, and just suck on it, presumably until it disintegrates. The sucking is of course open-mouthed, and practically at broadcast volume for my friend.
Also rising above the silence are random whisperings are finger snaps. Throughout the day, the annoying guy randomly whispers and snickers to himself. My friend doesn't know what causes the guy to talk to himself; presumably, he's thinking through something. But the giggling comes about when he's reading online forums and/or email. Once, the guy was so moved to laughter, that in an attempt to muffle the outburst, he actually produced the most awkward, hyena-like noise my friend has ever heard a human make. And if the random whisperings weren't distracting enough, they are often peppered by finger snaps. Yes, the guy snaps his fingers off and on throughout the day. It's not a constant snapping, just two or three snaps---as though he is trying to get someone's attention.
The solution to my friend's problems? McMaster-Carr part number 6207T53: taper end foam earplugs with a noise reduction rating (NRR) of 33 dB.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Passion in Jobs
Roughly a year ago, I started an essay called Passion vs. Engagement. The piece is unfinished, but so are my thoughts on the matter; I'm still thinking about this stuff, and how I want to present it... at least, how to present it in a formal, professional tone. But this blog is neither formal nor professional; it is a playground for thinking out-loud.
Anyway.
As my line of work is software development (aka "programming" aka "coding"), I find myself reading Joel Spolsky's blog from time to time. Though I have no desire to move to New York, the work environment for his programmers is envious: individual offices, comfortable/ergonomic work spaces, modern tools and equipment, etc. He's also hinted to the fact that pay at his company is very competitive (although, personally, I'd take a cut in pay to actually have a quiet, distraction-free environment).
However, he eludes to passion for programming as effectively being a hiring criterion. I don't think Joel is any different from virtually every recruiter, HR staffer, or hiring manager (in any field) when he says he wants passionate employees. Who doesn't?
But my question is, what exactly is passion? Joel gives some hints to what he means by passion: evidence of programming-related pursuits outside of work. Although I genuinely love programming, I have to admit: after 11 hours of it, each and every day, I have no desire to write any code outside of work. I have too many other hobbies that are already on the brink of attention starvation. Does that mean I'm not passionate?
I can think of a few examples where I've witnessed true passion:
But for me, I simply have too many interests to devote myself entirely to one.
I think (or at least I'd like to think) that most people are more like me---we willingly fall into the "work-to-live" camp (as opposed to the "live-to-work" one). That is, I'd wager that the majority of people, even the ones who love their jobs, want to have time to do other things besides work.
In other words, if my guess is correct, most people aren't passionate about their work.
And maybe that's just it: the majority of employers aren't looking for "most people"; they want the best (who are, by definition, a minority). But the main idea behind my essay (and this blog post) is that I believe there exists a happy medium between passionate and mediocre. I call it being engaged; it's Passionate, Jr., but still mutually beneficial to employer and employee. Engagement has most of the attributes of passion, but stops short of being a singular life focus.
Anyway.
As my line of work is software development (aka "programming" aka "coding"), I find myself reading Joel Spolsky's blog from time to time. Though I have no desire to move to New York, the work environment for his programmers is envious: individual offices, comfortable/ergonomic work spaces, modern tools and equipment, etc. He's also hinted to the fact that pay at his company is very competitive (although, personally, I'd take a cut in pay to actually have a quiet, distraction-free environment).
However, he eludes to passion for programming as effectively being a hiring criterion. I don't think Joel is any different from virtually every recruiter, HR staffer, or hiring manager (in any field) when he says he wants passionate employees. Who doesn't?
But my question is, what exactly is passion? Joel gives some hints to what he means by passion: evidence of programming-related pursuits outside of work. Although I genuinely love programming, I have to admit: after 11 hours of it, each and every day, I have no desire to write any code outside of work. I have too many other hobbies that are already on the brink of attention starvation. Does that mean I'm not passionate?
I can think of a few examples where I've witnessed true passion:
- My friend and boss where I'm currently employed. Relentless 11--12 hour days, with practically no break in focus. While I'm in the same boat, after three years, I already know this isn't something I can sustain for the long haul. But my boss has been working like this for well over a decade; my friend is approaching a decade of the same. It's neither an exaggeration nor an unfair statement to say that both would work even more hours if it weren't for the wife and kids.
- My wife used to work for a non-profit organization. Due to matters very close to her heart, this was a cause for which she was definitely passionate. When she worked for this company, she worked as many or more hours than I do; and they were erratic hours at that (nights, weekends, etc). Being a non-profit, her pay was substantially below her effort.
- There are at least a couple open-source developers whose lives I've researched a bit. These people develop software for their employer by day, and write just as much open-source code by night.
But for me, I simply have too many interests to devote myself entirely to one.
I think (or at least I'd like to think) that most people are more like me---we willingly fall into the "work-to-live" camp (as opposed to the "live-to-work" one). That is, I'd wager that the majority of people, even the ones who love their jobs, want to have time to do other things besides work.
In other words, if my guess is correct, most people aren't passionate about their work.
And maybe that's just it: the majority of employers aren't looking for "most people"; they want the best (who are, by definition, a minority). But the main idea behind my essay (and this blog post) is that I believe there exists a happy medium between passionate and mediocre. I call it being engaged; it's Passionate, Jr., but still mutually beneficial to employer and employee. Engagement has most of the attributes of passion, but stops short of being a singular life focus.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Job Performance
For at least a year now, the notion of job performance has been sloshing around in my head. My first exploration of this topic was my still unfinished essay on passion versus engagement. I just read "The Interview Question You Should Always Ask", which suggests that if someone's extracurricular interests are in the same domain as their work subject, they are likely to be a star performer on the job. And today I had a discussion with my friend and colleague about firing people for poor performance.
I often use writing as a way to explore ideas for myself; this blog is as much for personal therapeutic purposes as anything else. So now is as good a time as any to throw out some stuff on the topic of work aptitude.
One of the biggest questions I've been pondering for a while is, what is a reasonable amount of commitment to give your employer? The extremes are obvious: be the bum that gives up, quits, and/or allows himself to get fired at the first hint of difficulty; or, martyrs himself to unending, heart attack-inducing, sleepless dedication to solving any problems in his periphery.
I believe that where you land on that "dedication continuum" is related to, if not a predictor, of your job performance. It's just a fancy way of saying that your effort will generally be reflected in your review, assuming you're in a position that's reasonably well-suited to your skills. (In other words, if you're trying to be a doctor with no medical training, or working an assembly line with a PhD in astrophysics, this generalization doesn't apply to you.)
There's another continuum to be considered as well, and that is, how hard is it to actually put for the effort? When you see someone who is truly at the top of their game, you might think, "they make it look so easy!" But they really are putting forth a lot of effort, it just comes naturally to them. That's one side of the spectrum; the other is someone, generally not famous, but still successful, that is visibly working like mad to achieve and maintain the success. Think about someone putting their health at risk because they are working so hard to achieve whatever it is they want.
The point is this, there are two variables: (1) the amount of effort you're willing to put into the job, and (2) your will to put forth that effort. Obviously one affects the other: if you have no will, you are unlikely to put forth any effort.
I think what the "Interview Question You Should Always Ask" article linked above is getting at is this: people who truly love their work will naturally have the will to put forth the effort required to be profitable for a potential employer. This conclusion is fairly obvious, sure, but the article is just exploring one method of ascertaining a job candidate's interest level in the work's subject matter.
My "passion versus engagement" essay's take on this speaks to the establishment of the will that drives effort. Passion means that will comes naturally; people who are passionate about their work are the ones that make it look easy. People who are neither passionate nor engaged about their work make it look hard---they are the ones too stubborn to give up, but still put themselves through hell make the grade. Engaged people are somewhere in between: they'll occasionally go the extra mile, but don't expect them to do it every day; they make the routine stuff look not-too-hard; they are above average but below super-stars.
So my question is this: what if your passions don't pay? You're at a disadvantage no matter what job you apply for---if you're competing for a job with a passionate person, you're not going to get it. Until you figure out a way to profit from your passion(s), you have to resign yourself to being engaged. So the next question is, how do you find an environment that fosters engagement? How do you maintain integrity, and still land the job when you say, "This work isn't my passion, but I'm willing to put in a reasonable amount of effort?" Won't that flag you as a putz?
I often use writing as a way to explore ideas for myself; this blog is as much for personal therapeutic purposes as anything else. So now is as good a time as any to throw out some stuff on the topic of work aptitude.
One of the biggest questions I've been pondering for a while is, what is a reasonable amount of commitment to give your employer? The extremes are obvious: be the bum that gives up, quits, and/or allows himself to get fired at the first hint of difficulty; or, martyrs himself to unending, heart attack-inducing, sleepless dedication to solving any problems in his periphery.
I believe that where you land on that "dedication continuum" is related to, if not a predictor, of your job performance. It's just a fancy way of saying that your effort will generally be reflected in your review, assuming you're in a position that's reasonably well-suited to your skills. (In other words, if you're trying to be a doctor with no medical training, or working an assembly line with a PhD in astrophysics, this generalization doesn't apply to you.)
There's another continuum to be considered as well, and that is, how hard is it to actually put for the effort? When you see someone who is truly at the top of their game, you might think, "they make it look so easy!" But they really are putting forth a lot of effort, it just comes naturally to them. That's one side of the spectrum; the other is someone, generally not famous, but still successful, that is visibly working like mad to achieve and maintain the success. Think about someone putting their health at risk because they are working so hard to achieve whatever it is they want.
The point is this, there are two variables: (1) the amount of effort you're willing to put into the job, and (2) your will to put forth that effort. Obviously one affects the other: if you have no will, you are unlikely to put forth any effort.
I think what the "Interview Question You Should Always Ask" article linked above is getting at is this: people who truly love their work will naturally have the will to put forth the effort required to be profitable for a potential employer. This conclusion is fairly obvious, sure, but the article is just exploring one method of ascertaining a job candidate's interest level in the work's subject matter.
My "passion versus engagement" essay's take on this speaks to the establishment of the will that drives effort. Passion means that will comes naturally; people who are passionate about their work are the ones that make it look easy. People who are neither passionate nor engaged about their work make it look hard---they are the ones too stubborn to give up, but still put themselves through hell make the grade. Engaged people are somewhere in between: they'll occasionally go the extra mile, but don't expect them to do it every day; they make the routine stuff look not-too-hard; they are above average but below super-stars.
So my question is this: what if your passions don't pay? You're at a disadvantage no matter what job you apply for---if you're competing for a job with a passionate person, you're not going to get it. Until you figure out a way to profit from your passion(s), you have to resign yourself to being engaged. So the next question is, how do you find an environment that fosters engagement? How do you maintain integrity, and still land the job when you say, "This work isn't my passion, but I'm willing to put in a reasonable amount of effort?" Won't that flag you as a putz?
Friday, February 6, 2009
What Really Motivates You To Work?
I was just thinking about the early days at my first job out of college. I worked for a huge, global manufacturing company. Naturally, they had enough new hires at any given time to have a whole orientation program for new employees. On day one or two, I was in a large conference room with 20 or 30 other greenhorns. We were doing the stereotypical "ice breaking" group exercises.
One question that came up was, "What motivates you to work?" We were actually seated in pairs, and the assignment was to "interview" your neighbor, and in turn be interviewed by him. After the interviews were done, we went around the room, presenting our neighbor's answer to the question.
Most people, as you might guess, gave fairly predictable responses, along the lines of "I enjoy being challenged, having the opportunity to do good work, making the company profitable, and learning new things." I'm sure a lot of people feel that way; if they truly do, I'm sure most would agree it's a healthy attitude, and certainly benefits the employer. But the cynical side of me says that at least some of those responses were canned, and just paying lip-service to the situation.
What really motivates the deviants would have been interesting. I was one of the deviants who wasn't afraid to tell the truth. My reason: fear. I even remember my neighbor presenting it to the class---he was visibly uncomfortable presenting such a non-conformist view.
But it was honest: I came to work every day because I didn't want to get fired, because I wanted a paycheck.
About a year or so into the job, I probably would have given the same answer, albeit with less cynicism. I truly enjoyed the job for the most part, and what was happening to me was more or less in line with everyone else's motivators: I was challenged, I was doing a lot of good work, I could see exactly how my work was saving the company money (implicitly making it more profitable), and I was learning a lot. Not to mention, I made a lot of good friends. Still, my initial motivator---not wanting to get fired---was valid. Even at the peak of that job experience, I can honestly say, I was still fundamentally doing it for the paycheck, not for the love of it. And looking back, I don't know how I really could have true, honest passion for the work, when it really all revolved around some soulless corporation that, at the end of the day, only saw me as a "resource", a cost.
It makes me wonder: what percentage of the world really, truly does their job for the love of it? What percentage of the working populace is honestly passionate about their work? I would wager that the figure is relatively low. My guess is that the overwhelming majority of the working populace falls into one of two broad categories: simply keeping a job because they have no other choice; or, having a job that they keep to pay the bills, but like it only just enough to not ruminate on the fact that it's not their true passion.
It also makes me wonder: imagine you had the god-like power of instantly putting every working person into a position exactly aligned with their passion(s) and pay them exactly what they want. Would the work that needs to get done---to keep society functioning and to retain some semblance of civility---actually get done? Or would we have too many people doing less important work, and too few people doing necessary jobs?
The question implies that we all know what is most important and what is not. Of course that's a philosophic question; certainly beyond the scope of this post. Still, I can't help but wonder what society would be like if everyone could do exactly what they wanted and live at whatever comfort level they deem necessary.
I'll sign off now, to let the reader reflect on some of the ideas: what really motivates you to work? Ignoring money issues, if you could do any job in the world, what would it be? And consider the thought experiment: what would society look like if everybody did exactly what they want?
One question that came up was, "What motivates you to work?" We were actually seated in pairs, and the assignment was to "interview" your neighbor, and in turn be interviewed by him. After the interviews were done, we went around the room, presenting our neighbor's answer to the question.
Most people, as you might guess, gave fairly predictable responses, along the lines of "I enjoy being challenged, having the opportunity to do good work, making the company profitable, and learning new things." I'm sure a lot of people feel that way; if they truly do, I'm sure most would agree it's a healthy attitude, and certainly benefits the employer. But the cynical side of me says that at least some of those responses were canned, and just paying lip-service to the situation.
What really motivates the deviants would have been interesting. I was one of the deviants who wasn't afraid to tell the truth. My reason: fear. I even remember my neighbor presenting it to the class---he was visibly uncomfortable presenting such a non-conformist view.
But it was honest: I came to work every day because I didn't want to get fired, because I wanted a paycheck.
About a year or so into the job, I probably would have given the same answer, albeit with less cynicism. I truly enjoyed the job for the most part, and what was happening to me was more or less in line with everyone else's motivators: I was challenged, I was doing a lot of good work, I could see exactly how my work was saving the company money (implicitly making it more profitable), and I was learning a lot. Not to mention, I made a lot of good friends. Still, my initial motivator---not wanting to get fired---was valid. Even at the peak of that job experience, I can honestly say, I was still fundamentally doing it for the paycheck, not for the love of it. And looking back, I don't know how I really could have true, honest passion for the work, when it really all revolved around some soulless corporation that, at the end of the day, only saw me as a "resource", a cost.
It makes me wonder: what percentage of the world really, truly does their job for the love of it? What percentage of the working populace is honestly passionate about their work? I would wager that the figure is relatively low. My guess is that the overwhelming majority of the working populace falls into one of two broad categories: simply keeping a job because they have no other choice; or, having a job that they keep to pay the bills, but like it only just enough to not ruminate on the fact that it's not their true passion.
It also makes me wonder: imagine you had the god-like power of instantly putting every working person into a position exactly aligned with their passion(s) and pay them exactly what they want. Would the work that needs to get done---to keep society functioning and to retain some semblance of civility---actually get done? Or would we have too many people doing less important work, and too few people doing necessary jobs?
The question implies that we all know what is most important and what is not. Of course that's a philosophic question; certainly beyond the scope of this post. Still, I can't help but wonder what society would be like if everyone could do exactly what they wanted and live at whatever comfort level they deem necessary.
I'll sign off now, to let the reader reflect on some of the ideas: what really motivates you to work? Ignoring money issues, if you could do any job in the world, what would it be? And consider the thought experiment: what would society look like if everybody did exactly what they want?
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