The title might make the reader to think this is one of many posts that appear in this time of the year in blogs all around the blogosphere. Excuse me, but this is not the case… I’m not saying good-bye, trading the workplace with some tropical paradise to spend a well deserved vacation. I will, eventually!…
This post is about how I saw my vacation delayed yet another week. Yep! The costumer asked to get the delivery before the end of the month… So, first deliver the product, then and only then, vacations…
Now, more than ever, I think that I started sprinting the marathon a few months ago, and it’s still going…
@ somewhere
When you enjoy what you do for a living, your job can be the main motive for getting out of bed in the morning. Not considering other factors, such as family, this is fine and can be the right way to get the personal gratification everyone needs.
As we should all know, in a work environment, dealing with tight schedules is difficult. An even greater problem arises when work becomes an obsession (persons with such an obsession are known as ‘workaholics’). The compulsion can drive a person to start working at home in order to try and finish the assigned tasks, or to stay late in the office.
Such an environment doesn’t help the worker that can let himself into depression. Depression can arise due to the permanent delay of gratification associated with the termination of a task. This state is known as burnout. Here’s some articles on the subject [1] [2] [3] [4].
I’m home! …alone, as the title suggests!
The weather is kind of crappy, with lots of dark clouds in the sky. So, although my wife and daughter decided to visit her mother/grand-mother, I decided to stay home and work on somethings that are pendent from last friday.
Yeah! I brought work home, once again… It’s reaching a point were it’s not even comfortable anymore. To much work to do, and not enough time to do it.
Last weak I tried to stick to office hours. That ‘effort’ lead to only a couple of hours more than a regular work week, but because of that work followed me home! A couple of simple reports, but I’m becoming really tired of bringing work home.
I must assume that usually my work comes home with me.
Of course I know this isn’t a thing to do often (or is it never?), and that good schedule estimation foresees delays to compensate… for delays! But still, I enjoy spending a late night remotely debugging someone else’s code, or compiling a library from scratch.
Tonight is one of those nights, much because the deadline is so close I already sense the smell of delivery in the air! So, here am I, compiling, debugging, until one falls asleep…
Please notice, this post is not a complaint, just a statement of acceptance.
I’m a weekend blogger. After analyzing the more recent posts, and the dates in which they where added, everything indicates that this a place is managed by a weekend blogger.
Why do I only add new stuff to the blog in the weekend? This question has a simple answer… During the week, the workload amounts to more that 10-11 hours per day, which leaves very little time for anything else.
This doesn’t mean that the blog is completely abandoned during this period. New posts are drafted, design is improved, comments are approved, but the publishing of a new post is an event that needs more attention (and so, more time).
The lack of time also has impact on the amount of research done for each post. According to some blogging tips, the research is important and for me that implies photography time. Today is raining, but usually during the weekend my SLR become my faithful companion.
As my workload doesn’t seem to be lowering anytime soon, my posts will continue to be added during the weekend…
A job from nine to five… thats a kind of job I’ll never be able to have. Not because I couldn’t apply a job like that, but simply because those kinds of jobs are not for me. Routine is a thing that can be enjoyed for a little while, but over an extended period becomes boring.
I need to change tasks from time to time, and if changing tasks is not a possibility… the need to, at least change working schedule, is seen as a must have. At work, where the ongoing task is estimated to continue for at least two and a half months, my work is weekly divided and (almost randomly) distributed.
Of course, there some constraints to this schedule, such as the need to pick up my daughter at school. But, the feeling of being one of the privileged with a non-nine-to-five job is very good. Of course, that freedom comes at a price… but that will be the subject of another post(s).
The lack of sunshine makes people seem more gloomy. Today our city woke under a thick dark cloud!
Expectation can be defined in several ways. According to the wikipedia, expectation is “a belief that is centred on the future”; or following the dictionary.com, expectation is “the act or state of looking forward or anticipating” or “an expectant mental attitude”. Personal expectations refer to the way each personality looks forward into the future. It can be in terms of health, family or career.
This post is about managing expectation in terms of a professional career. When someone plans for the short or long-term future, he is creating some kind of expectations. The kind of expectations is closely connected with the current job. Whether your are being asked to or asking someone to do something, influences the way you create expectation on the final product.
To avoid ambiguity about expected results, each work plan detail and expected outcome should be thoroughly discussed and agreed upon. Even when an agreement is reached, the expectation levels must be monitored to avoid disappointment.
In a society (as happens to be the case when inside a company), the attention to the level of expectation in the people around you is very important. Expectation management is necessary to create a stable equilibrium between expectation and results, and is essentially a periodic monitoring process.
Almost everyone has expectations, personal expectations. It is natural that each person should rise or lower their expectation according their state-of-mind (I know I do!). The way to create a stable level of expectation is to offer an adequate level of compensation in demand of the corresponding workload.
At the moment, my state of mind is making me feel that I’m not receiving as must as I’m being asked for. Let’s hope this changes quickly.
