Tides, Lambs, and Technology
Our lives are an interchange of ebbs and flows, and humans do not differ much from bodies of water in that. A tide comes in, and we go with the flow… until the wave splashes into a shore, breaking into incoherent pieces.
I felt just as shattered back in 2014, when my ~15-year long career in software technology had to be put on hold. My should’ve-been-done’s and should’ve-not-been done’s can be assessed with much more clarity now, fast forward to 2018. There’s plenty of job burnout stories out there, each of them unique; yet all of those stories have something in common. The prevalent narrative holds it that technology jobs are stressful by their very nature; and people in charge can do little about it. The would-be burnouts — in general opinion — are supposed to be in their meek behavior, just as sacrificial lambs, awaiting their doomsday.
… and I was stubborn in refusing to be such a lamb, especially since the company I worked for cited “people first” as one of their values. It’s just that in the end their version of “people first” turned out to be not compatible with mine. The structure and practices of this company haven’t been tuned to a health-saving mode (check my look-back-in-bitterness story from 2014 for details). At the time of writing, I wasn’t yet aware that I indeed walked away from this tenure with a grave illness. I used to think I’d take my time to recharge, refuel and do R&D for my Big Picture writing project, which I did, and the project is currently waiting for the right time to go public. However, this forced sabbatical of mine wasn’t only about recharging, refueling, and writing/researching. I had to fight hard just to go by with my daily living, over those years, and it’s safe to say that the worst is behind me now. Besides, learning to cook came as an unexpected by-product of having to take good care of myself ! My body demanded that I feed myself properly, and the mainstream nutrition advice has proved itself mostly wrong for me, so I had to apply my own discernment… coming up with my own philosophy and practices for cooking !
… and it’s the art of cooking that connected me with Quandoo, as well as a passion for humanity. I’ve seen it all, and my manifold life & work experience calls me back to action. Back to the should’ve-done’s and should-not-have been done’s. One of the life lessons that I’ve learned is that we have to wait for the right time to have our visions manifested. Back in 2014 I wasn’t in a strong position, advocating thoughtful care for people at a technology company, so I probably should have given up my attempts to cast pearls before… certain creatures, other than lambs. But since then the ethos of humanity in technology has been gaining momentum; and this tide can not be halted, not anymore. Some technology executives who burn not only themselves out, but people they work with as well, are currently regarded not as heroes but as… sacrificial lambs. As they grilled Mark Zuckerberg in Congress earlier this year, it occurred to me that if a tech executive is questioned for failing their users, then why the tech moguls of all calibers emerge unscathed from their failure to establish sustainable working environments and practices in their companies? They speak of people shortage in tech a lot, and — aside from the educational facet of the problem — what if it’s more about sustaining and organizing, than feeding more people into the mess-at-work treadmill?
Burnout is real though, and passion can only take you so far.
- a quote by Joesh Boehm, someone who worked at SpaceX.
I just scratched the surface. Stay tuned for more.
