Who Loves What They Do??

I DO!!! I DO!!!

Act 131:

“It’s never too late… To Love To Work

Sometimes it’s inspiring. Sometimes it’s monotonous. Usually it depends on our attitude. Look for the positives. Ever job has its own nobility. Give your work the respect it deserves. And you’ll gain respect in return. ” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “Work keeps away those three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.” ~ Voltaire

I know I’ve said it many times. I love my job. I know it’s been kicking my ass the last few months and it has been really stressful, but I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve often said that if I won the lottery, I’d still go to work every day (well maybe not every day), but I’d still go in. I don’t really wanna talk about what I do, but I can tell you some of the reasons I love it.

· My Boss – He’s the #1 reason I love my job. He is the perfect boss for me. We have a really good relationship and are friends outside of work, but at the same time he never really crosses the inappropriate line or lets that affect our work. He knows that it’s ok to treat me like a colleague sometimes when we are working tough technical issues and brainstorming needs to happen. He knows when to put that “boss” hat back on and give me top cover when I need it. He allows me just enough rope to make tough recommendations, but is still there if I need help. He may not be the perfect boss for everyone, but he’s the perfect boss for me.

· My company – The company I work for is a not-for-profit type of company. We are advisors. We are not money, schedule, or profit driven, which is great. The company is all about technical excellence and that is one of our core competencies. I like this, because I really get a chance to focus on the technical details, without having to curtail or lose objectivity because of deadlines or profit margins

· The Work – Because we are advisors, I don’t have “real” deadlines or marketing/sales goals. I’m not pushing to get software builds completed by certain deadlines nor am I trying to meet certain quotas. My job is to develop, review, and verify requirements. I’m involved with the requirements from development to testing. Ensuring that the capability we meant to capture on paper gets captured correctly, built correctly, and works correctly. This is great, because the pressure really isn’t on me. The only problem is I have no power. If the contractor builds something incorrectly and the requirements were subjective, then in order to change what the contractor built, I have to change the requirement. Our requirements board process is super long and super slow, so it’s best to try to get it right the first time. Guess how many times that works? I’m a systems engineer trying to make sure several different parts work together to get one single capability, so sometimes I’m the only person in the room who has knowledge of how each part affects the other parts. Most of the time, I’m the only one who cares and if the end result isn’t success… I’m usually the first that gets blamed. So, I get all of the blame if it doesn’t work, but when it does… I usually don’t get any credit either. However, this is the price I have to pay for having no deadlines or real pressure. I can do what I do best… analyze and nit pick every detail.

· My CoWorkers – for the most part my coworkers (except for a small few) are really great to work with. They care about doing what’s right for the system. What’s right for the program. Instead of a bottom line…that even goes w/ most of the engineers I work w/ on the contractor side…(it’s their bosses who are the ones that give contractors their “slimy” nicknames.)

· I’m practically an expert – I’ve been doing the same type of work and working on the same project for the last 10 years. I am a subject matter expert. There are very few people who know as much as I do about the system I work on and in my subject matter. This makes me the “expert”. I love this, because it’s job security and it means like I feel like I’m contributing. It’s a great feeling… knowing that you are not only good at what you do, but that other people think you are good at what you do too.

Those are some of the reasons why I love my job. I have a great work environment. I like the work and I’m good at it. It doesn’t hurt that I get paid pretty nicely to do something I love. I know that I could be making more money, if I went to another company or did something else. However, I don’t think I would be as happy as I am. I know if I did change companies, I’d probably have to deal with the profit margins and have deadlines or quotas. I don’t need that extra stress. I love what I do and I’m good at it. What else do I need?