Saturday, September 23, 2006

Job: name of thy evil

Well, I know job is not a bad thing as such but then why do I don't find anyone who is really happy with his/her job. In my friend circle, even those who joined with their favourite work and outstanding salaries, have got bored of there jobs and looking for new challenging opportunities.
Others, are thoroughly frustrated that the job is not what they like to do or their boss or amount of work or something else. Why is it so difficult to be satisfied in a job? There are some people for whom work is the only good thing about their job, their salary is low, company culture is bad, etc. etc.
Some may blame dissatisfaction to human nature of always asking more, but is that really the reason? It may be the small part but not certainly the main reason. The way jobs are designed in most organizations make them boring. By very nature, most jobs are boring. I know I am making very strong statement but that's what I feel when I see around. Only people who seem to be happy are those who are extraordinary enough that they can progress fast enough so that they are on new challenges before they get bored with the old things. By very design is job is for a particular set of activities and when a person as identified and established for that job keep doing the same or expected to do the same, that being his recognised competency.
Though one might say this is how it is there from ages of human existence, I feel it is not so. Simply because though one has expertise in only one area how to handle that area has entirely left to the person, and like for everything decisions were in his hand. This act of taking decisions in all kinds of situations is often what gives satisfaction of facing challenges. Though there is nice theory of empowerment in Industry (at least in manufacturing industry) it is often seen that the constraints put on employees in terms of directives and process guidelines are such that the empowerment has absolutely no meaning. Most people hate doing same things over and over again and jobs seems to stress on that aspect very strongly.
We need jobs which consider human oriented approach. We need to wake up and do something about it. The arguments here are not yet complete but will come up with more thoughts at some later time.

Friday, September 08, 2006

No matter how good are you; you don’t get what you deserve unless you ask for it and people who keep asking even when they don’t deserve always get more than those who deserve – this is my observation from many years and I am sure you also must have experienced this at least at some point of time. Why is the world so? And what is more disturbing is that even most just people you find seem to make this mistake. Of course, I am not talking here about people who are good but don’t work towards their goal; they don’t deserve but what about those who are good, who work hard towards their goals, do all the work with utmost sincerity but just don’t bother to ask for what they deserve?
I know what you are going to say, either you are going to say “It’s their mistake if they don’t ask,” or you are going to say “Life is unfair”. But these arguments don’t work; asking is exactly what most such people don’t like and putting everything on destiny is probably worst thing to do. Does anyone has any solution?