Category Archives: careers

Stay sane at work - leverage busy-free cycles

We’re all human beings - most of us probably have high and low points in a job. Like me, I get to work in a projectized environment a lot, which means that things get really crazy as deadlines approach. Then things start to cool off, and suddenly it feels like I’m in limbo again.

I think that every job has its own work cycles, and it’s good to observe how these cycles come and go. At the same time, anyone who tells you that it’s the same all year round is bogus. Even worse advice is to take it as it comes - you can get seriously burned out.

As human beings, we’re experts at creating comfort zones for ourselves. We start to gravitate toward comfort zones when we don’t feel a real purpose in our work. This creates an artificial rift against what we say we’re doing.

One example is employees surfing Facebook during work. Given the right working environment, people wouldn’t be glued to their Facebook accounts so much. We tell ourselves that we ought to be doing something more productive, but even that is artificial when we don’t feel that what we’re doing is purposeful.

One solution is to carefully and mindfully plan out what you want to achieve from the job, say - within a year, a quarter, or whatever. Observe the busy-free cycles and take note of those who gravitate toward comfort zone areas. Make a decision how you want to carry yourself in the workplace, and avoid conforming to the status quo just because everyone is.

This makes it easier for you to perform when it matters, and relax when things cool down. It’s also a good way to show that you can perform under pressure, and are mature enough to take advantage of the breaks.

They teach these kinds of things in the project management industry, but it does make a lot of sense no matter what type of job.

More Career Advice: Don’t be popular

I don’t think popularity can be manufactured. There’s always some amount of human randomness that dares to defy the ‘obvious’, and in Murphy’s terms whatever can go wrong will go wrong.

So why bother being popular? It doesn’t get you anywhere. It only gets you along with other people very well. And unless that’s what you want, you really should ask yourself if it’s really worth the sacrifice.

Focus on knowing who you are instead. It’s much much healthier, has longer lasting benefits, and leaves a trail of positive influence.

Specifically, in order to build a successful career, you must focus on building and improving your strengths, NOT your weaknesses. Studies has shown that people fare better being average performers on their weaknesses, while excelling at their strengths.

There are ways to resolve weakness through collaboration, delegation, outsourcing, or creatively arriving at a solution. It’s what some people call adapting. But you can call it whatever you want.

The reason why following popular vote is detrimental to your career is because there are way too many signals and it can be too confusing. It’s more economical to focus on yourself and knowing who you are, and just living your life according to your needs and wants.

I would even encourage you to challenge the status quo and stand up for something you truly believe in, and are willing to take a stand for. It is enormously rewarding and seriously impacts your ability to navigate life for the longer term. It may not be so rewarding short term, but you don’t want to end up regretting something you wish you should have done over and over again.

References:

Career progression for the lost - 3 best options

This might come as a hard hit - the three options for anyone who really wants to do what they love, assuming you can’t find it anywhere around where you are:

  1. go abroad (increased chances)
  2. start your own company
  3. do it alone anyway, but care less about getting paid

Sometimes you’re never going to find the perfect job, the perfect company, that one customer, who will pay you what you want to do best. You don’t have to conform to the expectations of a 9-5 job. It’s not illegal, it’s not evil, and nobody will kill you if you decide to do something else really bad.

You just need to give yourself time to plan things out properly. As for timing, there never is a “best” time to get anything done. You just sort of have to get started by yourself.

I have a friend who’s working as a software researcher whose dream is to start a childcare company. I told her she shouldn’t wait until she gets older. There are opportunities to do it now, and there’s no reason why it is of any loss should she quit.

In fact, I see it the other way around - she could potentially be robbing herself of an opportunity of a lifetime, if she decides to delay longer.

Thanks to Google and our ability to operate a QWERTY keyboard, it’s a lot easier for folks like us to do stuff. That includes getting the information we need, talking to experts in the field, sourcing for businesses, sourcing for customers, getting new ideas…

I would encourage anyone who’s stuck in the rat race, and have a desire to do something different - to start looking at alternatives now. Don’t wait. Find your street smarts and use all the advantages you can afford to leverage on.

We all work differently, but then there’s culture

Culture is the glue that helps people understand a lot of things about each other - in a very short period of time. We are able to make all sorts of quick observations by the way somebody talks, walks, smiles, pays the bills, etc.

That’s all fine - we all need to reduce clutter in how we deal with things. Culture is good to get everyone on the same page, and it’s fun when foreigners come so we can tell them nice stories.

The thing is - culture gets a lot more complicated in business. I think there’s a lot of battle going on about which culture fits best for work. There’s West vs. East, Top vs. Bottom, Boy vs. Girl, Rich vs. Poor, Profit vs. Purpose - all kinds of stuff.

I think the best way to deal with this is to fit in, or leave - and if you’re serving as an employer, you should watch out for these things the minute you start work at the company. The reason is because no one’s looking out for you, and the best person to know if you fit in is yourself.

There’s no point trying to change organizational behavior, UNLESS YOU’RE BEING PAID TO DO IT. The same reasons why people continue to operate under culture even though it doesn’t do good business is because it keeps things manageable. So, don’t bother changing the corporate culture. Change yourself instead, or move out.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with leaving a company, especially if you know darn well what you’re doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing, well … that’s a different story.

In this day and age, no one will ask you why you’ve been jumping companies like breeding rabbits - because everyone knows it’s a tough world out there and companies operate so differently these days with so many factors involved.

The average job seeker has more complex demands than 10 years ago, which is why we jump companies on an average of 2.5 years.

If you’ve been doing just that, THAT’S OK. You don’t have to feel bad. You know what you want in life - you know what skills you can bring onto the table - go for it. Live your life.

My only premise is that you have a powerful story to tell. One that provides meaning and purpose to explain the kind of person you are and the kind of job that matches your very being.

Get a life - care less about jobs other people care about

I’m a Malaysian. I’ve spent over 20 years in this country. One thing bugs me - I haven’t really met anyone in Malaysia who has told me they really love their jobs. The only people who told me that they have are people who tell me the love everything.

Sure, a job is better than no job. But I think if you keep doing that long enough and you’ll start to lose brain cells a lot faster.

I encourage the youth of Malaysia to go for rock concerts, fight for social injustice, make some side-income, play sports, join competitions, get involved in art and design, start new things, and travel to other countries. I feel these things are far worth more your experience than worrying and over-working about a job.

Jobs will always be there. If someone doesn’t hire you, someone else will. It just depends how desperate they are. Plus, there are a lot of desperate people out there. You won’t have to fight very hard because your exposure and experience would have served you better.

The only catch is that you have to play smart.

Smart companies these days know how to sift through people who are concerned about “am I” vs. “can I”. And you don’t want to join a company that’s not smart. So, basically, you shouldn’t care too much about whether you have what it takes. You should be more worried about understanding how stuff works - asking yourself what you really want in life, and what you’re really capable of.

I really feel that you end up saving a lot of time, money and avoid unnecessary pain.

Of course, in order to be confident enough to get the right job, you need to start asking the questions early. What will prepare you for the interview to the right job is not text-book material. It’ll be about experience.

That’s what matters most in life, anyway.

Doing something you’re not: Bad

I currently work in South East Asia, where the people around me are predominantly Asian. There’s a cultural stigma that seems to glorify traditional roles as they go - technicians, engineers, people managers, salespeople, big bosses. It helps to keep things simple and straightforward, but can get in the way of improvements, sometimes.

There aren’t many “custom” job roles, here. If any, they’re not the norm, and it would be difficult to find people with specialized skills - particularly because people don’t want to specialize.

Usability engineering is one such role. The demand for usability engineers in the country where I work is close to none. This is a stark comparison to the West. But my point isn’t about usability. It’s about its departure from “traditional” jobs such as software development or technical support, and that some jobs (and increasingly more jobs) are better suited for some people than others.

Being an INTP, my role as an engineer seems to fit like a glove. I’ve managed to bring benefit to the company by leveraging on my strengths. But I wonder how many people find themselves doing something that doesn’t quite match up.

Penelope Trunk thinks that it’s not about doing what you love, but doing what you are, that’s important. And she’s right - love can be temporary. It’s much better to do things that are a natural fit for you.

It doesn’t help that some jobs pay much more than others, either. Just because CEOs have high salaries doesn’t mean that I should strive to be one. There’s much more to a job than the salary, and I’m a firm believer that it would be increasingly difficult to advance if choices were made based on what jobs we wanted to climb up to, for money’s sake.

I do observe, however, that companies are more willing to explore new job roles these days, and are willing to allow employees to introduce improvements and ease into specializations that will benefit the company in the long run. This means that it’s possible for someone to carve out a niche role - and be rewarded for it.

This can especially happen to people who do a lot of pioneering work. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from taking the initiative to do something different and beneficial for the company - even if it’s potentially out of the job scope.

Specialization is a good thing to have these days.