Man vs Environment

Intro

There is a short story by A.Chekhov, "Ionych", in which one of his favorite themes - the man vs. the environment - reaches it's apogee.

[SPOILER!] A young doctor comes to a small (russian) town, where nobody cares about art or spiritual virtues but only about money and low forms of pleasure. First, he wants to escape. Then, he loses his ideals and becomes fat and greedy. Nobody calls him by his name anymore, he becomes one with an ugly nickname "Ionych" - the vulgar form of his second (patronymic) name.

Problem

It's coherent with my current day job:
* The software product on which I'm working is awful. Everybody in company knows it.
* People are demotivated totally. Some are bored, while others are toxic and poisonous.
* Wage is inadequate and irregular. Everybody knows it.

I considered leaving about a 100 times, but I need to stay and overcome for about 6 months more:
* I need to improve my skill (in hours after work) to gain confidence to get a decent one
* I need to improve finances, so that I can manage a month-or-so in between two jobs
* I need to improve my employment history
* I need to gather more psychological strength and stability

I can't change circumstances, but I can change my perception.

Psychological melting of the problem into a task

* "Your focus determines your reality." -- the Franchise

* You lose your heart, you lose your reason. You lose your reason, you lose your balance. You lose your balance and then the dark side strikes.

* The Jedi Way is more that of a ninja than of a boxer - exchanging punches with circumstances is just a stupid waste of time.

* We are the Jedi. We hover above the grip of routine, for we know that routine exists only in clouded mind.

* There is nothing usual. There are no bad jobs. There are no bad people. These are merely labels of unfocused mind.

* Any environment affects you only if you let it. That's an exercise in Focus for me - that is why Force directed me here. To learn Focus.

Solution

I'm a programmer and programming is all about breaking big problems into manageable pieces: wage, people, job tasks.

* Wage. That's not the biggest piece of a problem. But, nevertheless I have a cunning plan to deal with it safely.

* People. Programmers are not obliged to talk, yet I'm an extrovert. And I want to communicate with colleagues.

I have to identify those people that are of another breed. I know them. Not those who are just bored of job or see it as a day job, but those who are aggressive in the thesis that all jobs are shit, all clients are shit, all bosses are shit, our craft is shit. That I can not tolerate. That I will not tolerate.

They have something rotten in them and it's like a late stage of a disease when you have to make titanic labor to save a patient even if he wants to be cured. But I can not help those who seek no help. When I try to inspire them, they attack my true dreams and my love for software craft with poison. May the Force guide them to peace.

* Job tasks. In programming, everything is easy when you know your "system". And that is a tough moment.

There are those who would like you to be a silent and productive tool without having a mastery over your field of work. There is a tendency to foster "specialists", not Masters. Short-sighted managers tend to think that you have to use a person as much as you can and then throw 'em out without giving a thought about professional education. This trend plays good when you need to substitute one human gear with another. It is in symbiosis with short-time employments. With lack of loyalty, trust and purpose.

But there is another stream in professional life: to let workers perfect themselves. And I strongly believe in it. Mastery, purpose and autonomy are identified as primary motivators for developers.

So, within one job I can follow the easy way - dare not to study the product thoroughly and be a quite tool. Or I can follow the right way - assert my right to mastery. My right is true, for I am the one who is responsible for my performance and it's optimization. Then, I become a worker.

This difference for me is very concrete: I've managed to cut out some time before to draw schemes - a map of our product. But I never was sure I have a right to cut out this time from immediate tasks, even though this schemes are the only thing that helps me handle them in time aside from joy. Now I am and I will spend as much of the paid time on learning product as I will consider reasonable and neat. Without it, I would never solve such complex problems others dare not think of. That is my quest towards mastery.

Fin

Thanks. Wish I was more eloquent & brief. Hope someone gets through all these hell-of-a-lot-of-letters. )

May the Force be with you, always.