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On Satisfaction at Work

May 15, 2006

It feels great to be promoted — no doubt about it. A higher salary, respect from your peers, getting to be called ‘Boss’, and a lot more. However, there’s one thing I don’t like about getting promoted, and no, it isn’t the money.

As one goes up the corporate ladder (as far as being a software developer is concerned), bigger responsibilities abound. You get to become a group leader, then a project leader, then a supervisor — the number of people below your rank becomes larger. You get to control how a project goes about at a larger scale. This isn’t really a problem for me, as these would pose greater challenges, and I love to be in situations where my abilities get to be challenged. Yet, in the challenges that abound, your managers expect you to give up one thing or another, and this is where the problem starts for me.

Being a junior engineering supervisor requires me to supervise technical aspects of the project — how things are ‘built’, in laymen’s terms. It also requires me to monitor my subordinates and make sure that everything goes ‘as planned’. However, it also requires me to take a lesser role on being a ‘developer’. My superiors expect that I handle a lesser module and concentrate on making sure that others do their job.

This is where the problem starts. I went to this field because I love solving problems — technical problems. I also love tinkering with details — how values are calculated, how to produce an output in the most efficient way possible. I also love doing these BY MYSELF. It’s not that I don’t trust other people’s work, but it’s what I love doing. Letting other people do what I love doing makes me feel a bit bored.

I have one criteria on telling when I should consider a career move — I know I’m happy with my work when I think of it as just play. Once the ‘play’ factor of work goes away, and boredom sets in, that’s when I know I’m not happy anymore, and that’s when I ought to look into other places.

A close co-employee just spent his last day of work for our company last friday, and I remember telling him, ‘It’s not a matter of whether you will resign or not — it’s just a question of when and why’.

Could that question of ‘when’ and ‘why’ be answered sometime in the near future for me?

Posted by ronnie at 10:51 pm | permalink | Add comment

Up-and-Down Weekend

Things really went up-and-down these past few days. It’s birthday weekend for me, as I spent each day on a different note than the previous one.

I took the day off Friday, my 30th birthday. I woke up, noticing that my wife wasn’t beside me. Maybe she had to do something downstairs (where our toilet is), so I just got up and took a pee (yes, we still have one of those ‘arinolas’, whenever nature calls and it can’t wait till we get to the toilet). Then in the middle of relieving myself, my wife entered the room, singing ‘Happy Birthday’, carrying a cake with 3 candles stuck on it. Needless to say, I can’t react to it! I’m torn between doing my thing and paying attention to my wife singing. We ended up laughing out loud that my son woke up. Here’s something I cannot forget: He got up, smiled and waved at me (as if to say ‘Happy birthday Daddy!’), and then fell on the bed and went asleep in an instant.

I thought things were over then. Boy, was I in for a surprise! I went downstairs to see a poster with ‘Happy Birthday Dadi’ written on it! Outside, I just had this impish grin realizing that everything was planned for the previous days: my wife not working overtime and going home ahead of me, and everyone not letting me touch the refrigerator (and see the cake hidden there). Inside I’m overwhelmed and grateful that God gave me a family to really be proud of.

Unfortunately the high part stayed at that. We waited the whole day for my family allowance to be deposited to my office payroll account. It’s already 7pm and my ATM still reports less than a hundred pesos. I was upset the whole day because my plans for my birthday went all for naught. Adding insult to injury, our phone line went dead since thursday morning, caused by a stupid truck driver hitting the wires crossing the street to our house. I can’t call my friends, nobody could call us at home, no internet. I slept with a heavy heart — this is the saddest birthday I had in my life. My wife even cried — knowing how sad I felt as we went to bed. I consoled myself thinking that this is the first time after I got married that my wife took the day off on my special day.

The next morning, things got better. My wife promised that if she gets her salary on that day, we’d have a dinner party later. She sent me a text message when she got to work that she indeed got her salary, and told me to prepare for later. A little before lunchtime, a serviceman from the phone company came to our house and fixed the broken phone line, and I’m off to surfing the internet afterwards. It turns out that I also had my salary, as well as the family allowance we’ve been waiting for. Talk about the sudden change from having no money yesterday to having a lot that day, and from not being able to push through with my plans the previous day to being able to do them — and more — on that day! We invited both our parents and some close friends to a simple dinner. Everyone was happy — especially me! Finally I got to spend my birthday!

The following day was Mothers’ Day. I took my family to church (with my son showboating the whole time the mass was being held — distracting yet making everyone around him smile). We went to the mall afterwards and had dinner at Dencio’s. The day wasn’t as exciting as yesterday, but still, family time is always a very happy time for me.

Come to think of it, I’ve been living for 3 decades already! Incidentally, at the same age, my father became my ‘Papa’ (so, doing a little bit of math, yes he’s 60 years old right now, twice that of my age). Hey — I’ve one-upped him! I had my firstborn when I was turning 29!

Posted by ronnie at 10:50 pm | permalink | Add comment