May 16, 2011 at 9:26 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Working Long or Working Hard?
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May 17, 2011 at 1:01 am
Interesting read and it does raise questions that I do need to figure out for myself. I'll take myself some time later to reflect on what I am doing and what I want to do and should do. These are however different things, as it's exhausting to do what I want to do, 8h at work hard and some more hard hours home on a project that might pay off.
However, I think there is one more thing to consider that I find important. For a couple of years ago I read in an article that learning actually hurts a bit. Now think about that a little. Every time you have to learn something new, find a solution for something perhaps, some of these times you pause, don't you? Is it because it takes a little bit more than an effort to learn something new that you do not know already or is it perhaps something more as well. Food for thought.
May 17, 2011 at 3:20 am
I actually enjoy working hard but have a life outside of work so am keen to work hard and not work long.
Sometimes everything goes pear shaped and I have to work both long and hard so the two are not mutually exclusive.
In all honestly there are times when I don't work hard enough and end up working longer to ease my guilt at being ineffective.
What frustrates me is that almost every business I've worked at has rewarded people who are visible for long hours rather than those who have worked hard and are proven productive and in these cases the two things are frequently mutually exclusive - senior management often like bottoms on seats which is a cultural problem.
May 17, 2011 at 5:32 am
Unfortunately many bosses like Long Work..... I can hear them now... so and so was here until 3.00am. Not recognizing that so and so surfed the net half that time.
May 17, 2011 at 5:46 am
Why are those the only 2 options?
Why can't we have fun getting done what needs to be done and go home after that? No need for long NOR hard.
May 17, 2011 at 5:51 am
For me its working hard.. not long.. but more importantly working smart!!
May 17, 2011 at 5:54 am
What a thought provoking topic! This explains a difference between my network admin coworker and myself that has been bothering me. I'm a hard work person. I enjoy challenges both on the job and at home, just as long as the result should be the betterment of something or some process. I'll take on vexing problems and hammer at them until it is fixed. But I do not like working long. I do all I can to avoid working more than 40 hours a week. My coworker is a long-work type of person. He gets frustrated at hard work, although he will spend hours (at home, after work too) migrating servers and tinkering.
I pick up a lot of jobs from him that he gets frustrated with and gives up on. I in turn get frustrated with him for not pulling his wieght. However this post is making me see these differences in a new light! I am glad he willingly works on our server migrations and other projects that need long boring hours from home while files copy or installations take place. He has embraced our server virtualizations, which is a time consuming, after hours job.
Holly
May 17, 2011 at 5:58 am
I'm adverse to hard physical labor. I learned at a young age (by doing it) that I'd rather have a job that required difficult mental labor than physical labor such as digging ditches. I studied computers in school because they were a mental challenge I enjoyed, I started my initial career in Law Enforcement because I enjoyed the Excitement, now that I'm 50+ I've mellowed and enjoy the challenges of Software and Database design and maintenance on a small team where I get to do a lot of different stuff but now do put in a lot of 10+ hour days. So for me, I think the work I do now is both Difficult (hard) and Long but Enjoying what you do makes all the difference in the world. I've left better paying (and frankly easier jobs) because I didn't enjoy the work, I know I'm not cut out for senior management (team lead is the top of my talents) and wouldn't be happy working in senior management.
So my point (at least from my perspective) is that enjoying what you do is way more important than the level of difficulty or the amount of time required. Enjoying what your doing makes the tasks seem easier and the time fly by.
James.
May 17, 2011 at 6:12 am
Thanks for the article, it provides a little more insight into that age old problem.
I dunno, I come to work every day thinking "I can't wait to get home and spend the rest of the day with my family". This usually means not working long. I also am not a risk taker but that doesn't mean not working hard. I like to think I make the most of my time by working efficiently and effectively (cliche much?). Do what I can do as best as I can do it and finish the rest up tomorrow. This isn't to say I haven't had my fair share of 9,10,or 12 hour days when duty calls, I just try not to make it a habit.
I love what I do, I just love my family way more.
Good article and good discussion too.
May 17, 2011 at 6:14 am
hlewis (5/17/2011)
What a thought provoking topic! This explains a difference between my network admin coworker and myself that has been bothering me. I'm a hard work person. I enjoy challenges both on the job and at home, just as long as the result should be the betterment of something or some process. I'll take on vexing problems and hammer at them until it is fixed. But I do not like working long. I do all I can to avoid working more than 40 hours a week. My coworker is a long-work type of person. He gets frustrated at hard work, although he will spend hours (at home, after work too) migrating servers and tinkering.I pick up a lot of jobs from him that he gets frustrated with and gives up on. I in turn get frustrated with him for not pulling his wieght. However this post is making me see these differences in a new light! I am glad he willingly works on our server migrations and other projects that need long boring hours from home while files copy or installations take place. He has embraced our server virtualizations, which is a time consuming, after hours job.
Holly
I agree with you. Once we start enjoying what we do, it wouldn't matter if we are working hard or long.:-)
M&M
May 17, 2011 at 6:33 am
Anita Rego (5/17/2011)
For me its working hard.. not long.. but more importantly working smart!!
There's the right answer! Why value people that work for the sake of working? I can't count the number of times I've had to argue for a bit of reflection on smart ways to do something, versus slogging through a brute force solution. The argument being that we don't know how long it will take to find/implement the elegant solution.
I think it's the risk aversion thing again. The brute force solution gets selected because it's perceived as low risk. We know it will take a long time, but will work.
I think you need to take into account a "portfolio" of smart solutions, and view the total risk. For example, say we selected 10 smart solutions, 8 of which resulted in less effort, a more robust solution, and less maintenance. If the other two were not as great, you probably still ended up with a better overall situation for the invested effort than 10 brute force solutions.
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May 17, 2011 at 6:51 am
I think the point about being risk-averse is absolutely true--and gets the cart before the horse.
Think about it. Would *you* want somebody who enjoyed high-stakes risk taking being a DBA? Really? (laughing)
Isn't the point of being a DBA keeping the data safe, the servers available, and the performance reasonable? All these things benefit heavily from a conservative, risk-averse approach.
Now if you're talking about espionage or war-fighting, there you can't be quite as risk-averse, because that doesn't get the job done.
But when your job involves *guarding*, well if you were picking the person, which would you choose? Someone who minimizes risk or someone who enjoys it?
May 17, 2011 at 6:58 am
There is more than one definition of "working hard". Early in my career I had to help keypunch cards. It wasn't hard work in that it wasn't difficult work. But, I worked hard to get it done in time and correctly. Is it really true that someone who is learning and trying new things is working harder than someone who is not? I doubt it.
As far as working long; some people take longer to do tasks than others. It's the way their brain works. I am not very good at setting up hardware. It takes me twice as long than someone who is good at it. But, I am very good at software development. I can program something in a day that takes someone else a week. It's just the way my brain works.
If I have to help out by setting up hardware, I work just as hard as one who does it in half the time. Others may see it as not working hard enough but, to me, I'm working very hard.
It's not about the difficulty or complexity of the work. It's about the honest effort one puts forth.
May 17, 2011 at 7:25 am
OCTom (5/17/2011)
It's not about the difficulty or complexity of the work. It's about the honest effort one puts forth.
True, though the difficulty is relative. Plumbing mystifies me and it's "hard", sometimes physically, but mostly mentally. So I contract it out.
There are DBA problems that are hard, setting up auditing, security, a few other things, and many people take the easy way out (sa, anyone) because they don't want to work hard.
I do agree that the effort is what's important here, working hard when it's required instead of just putting in more time and taking the easy way out.
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May 17, 2011 at 7:26 am
Working smart is undoubtedly the best answer...but that is often not possible.Majority dba tasks are routine, and bound by time (off hours many times) - no amount of working 'hard' or smart is going to help us get around them. The combination i would like to see is assignment of smart work to smart people, mundane/routine work to less experienced, and an understanding management when it comes to long hours (offer comp time and be realistic about workload). But those things are still very rare to come by.
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