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Institutions were created in which each aactivity could be carried out independently. Factories were designed for work, not play, learning, or inspiration. Theaters and arenas were designed for play, not work, learning, or inspiration. Schools were designed for learning, not work, play, or inspiration. Museums and churches were designed to provide inspiration, not for work, play, or learning.
However, the transformation to systemic thinking has brought with it a growing awareness of the fact that the effectiveness with which any of these activities can be carried out depends on the extent to which they are integrated. Therefore, it has become apparent that a transformational leader must be able to integrate the various aspects of life in order to effectively pursue development. The transformational leader is one who can create an organization that reunifies life, who integrates work, play, learning, and inspiration.”
– Russell Ackoff, http://tinyurl.com/399oxw
Why you dont need to work (financial)?
Money is the last thing I ever wanted.
1. What factors make a job terrible for a given person and
2. What characteristics suit a person for a given job even if they know nothing about it?
Our current method of hiring is just awful for most people who arn't the lucky few, the cream skimmed off the top by companies like Google. For the average person there are simply no good tools to analyze a job before you're in it. The current matching algorithm of degree plus work experience equals fields that might hire you has produced hundreds of thousands of pissed off and dissatisfied workers. There simply MUST be a better way.
I find video games to be somewhat inspirational though. The amount of time and effort that people put into playing them shows that the potential is there.
But 1 comment you made (and which I see repeated in many other places) that I found quite annoying:
"Why surrender such a huge chunk of your life just to get some money? For some people, that's the only option, but for those fortunate enough to be smart and educated, there's a better way."
I always laugh when I see things like this. There's this absurd misconception in the Valley that entrepreneurism is a complete utopian meritocracy, and than that all you need to succeed at it is brains and hard work. It's silicon valley's biggest lie, and it's about time that we all started saying so.
Yes, brains and hard work are necessary. But they are *NOT* sufficient. And, frankly, the Valley is really more of a plutocracy than anything else. You cannot succeed at a startup unless you already have money! Period!
"Don't have money? No problem! You can just get funding!" Bull. Getting funding is hard ... and rare! Most startups don't get funding.
And even still, what about before you even start to seek funding? You need to have enough money in the bank to be able to live without a salary for 12-18 months (at least!) if you want to start a startup. What percentage of the US population has that? 10%? Maybe less? Meritocracy my foot!
Let's be frank. There's only 2 types of people who can start startups:
1) those who are already wealthy enough to live without a salary for an extended period of time (i.e., those with family money, or who have already had business success)
2) those who have family (of friends) supporting them while they live without a salary for an extended period of time (e.g., grad students)
What if you're a regular working Joe with a couple of kids and a mortgage? Well, tough luck, buddy. No startup for you. And, oops! Turns out that described a huge swath of the population of this country! (And the world, for that matter.)
How do I know this? (And why do I sound so bitter?) :-) Because I've tried several times over the years to start startups, and believe me. It is nowhere near as easy as everyone makes it sound. And now that I'm a bit older, with more wisdom and experience, (but also with kids) believe me - it takes much more than just being smart and educated.
So please, let's all stop BS'ing everyone. Want to start a startup? You need to be smart and educated AND have a lot of money backing you too.
I'm not suggesting that everyone can or should start a startup. In fact, this post is more about JOINING a startup than STARTING one. You certainly don't need money to join a startup (at least not one which is funded).
Also, I certainly wouldn't claim that startups are some kind of "utopian meritocracy" -- they're not. What is did say is, "Of course smaller companies can be awful too, but they have a greater potential to be good."
My main point is that those who are in a position to join a startup, should seriously consider it. I completely understand that most people don't have the necessary qualifications or are too tied down by other obligations. However, there are also many who aren't, and that's who this was written for.
Furthermore, even for people not in a position to join a tech startup, it's worth thinking about ways to make work life more enjoyable, and there are many ways to accomplish that.
I think the majority of people (especially office workers) are looking for that balance between an ok paying job, work that fulfills them and gives them purpose, one that has a minimal or moderate amount of stress, and working for a company that is actually going somewhere.
As a person that has been "out there" for 6-8 years as a software developer, finding that balance is a difficult journey. There are so many factors involved; location, family and personal issues, past work experience, education background. And not to mention that there are 300+ million people in the US and 6 Billion people world wide that are always looking for something better, competing for the same "good" jobs, I am amazed that people truly find what they are looking for in life.
I am on other side of the fence, I believe the job market is more dire than is visible on the surface. It isn't horrible, but it can always be better. A lot of office professionals aren't knee deep in sewage or trapped in coal mines. But I always feel that the evolution of the modern office environment hasn't adapted to the modern thinking professional. The works haven't changed (40hrs, 9-6). Every one praised MS for giving their developers an office; that hasn't seemed trickle down to most IT firms. Now you don't even get an office, but a desk and a RJ45 jack. For software development; non-IT managers still seem to have disproportionately more weight on product and technical decisions than the people who actually build the stuff. Top down decisions are gospel. Bottom up suggestions are met with disdain and laughter.
I am making blanket generalizations about the medium, large organization. I have only cursory knowledge about the startup, but I bet the environment is a little similar except now you are constantly worrying if your paycheck is going to bounce. The MicroIsv would be ideal, except now you are worried about if there is going to be a check.
Here are my suggestions for the medium-large organizations. Let your IT workers have carte blanche on their work environment. If they want an office, give them an office. If they purple desks, give them purple desks. And don't give me that cost effective non-sense. Let your workers have flexible hours or have the developers make up their own hours. Some standard 9-5, 40 hour work week in the year 2007 just seems a little dated; with all of the productivity enhancements like internet, ubiquitous computing, I don't see why we are sticking to some unwritten law from the 1800s. And for the sake of brevity, my last item; just listen to your employers or at least seriously keep the option for employees to effective the business. I am not talking about 10 minute window after 6:30 pm when you can leave a voice mail. How about employees get to sit in on those secret board meetings or conference calls. In summary; lighten up, people.
Ok, I rambled a bit.
There really are huge differences among different organizations. I've worked at 4 big companies and 2 startups. They aren't all the same. Small companies in particular have much more potential to be "human" (though of course they can be awful humans).
http://utalam.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/is-there...
text side by the side with the Chinese translation. So, people
can also refer back to the English meaning. Coz I know that
translation sometimes miss certain things.
And thank you very letting me translate the post. It's really
inspiring.
Also you have to be honest -- there's disadvantages to startups too. Less stability, forget about the 40 hour weeks, etc.
See you at the "FriendFeed Global International World Headquarters in Mountain View" ;)
sim - tokyo.
In a startup, one should be ready to handle more work, because the company cannot yet afford to hire people for every single task out there. If your colleagues are irresponsible, then it means you'll have to do more, just to keep the company floating. In other words, in the case of a startup, the teamwork factor is of a great significance.
Big companies tend to be more focused on the "need to know" principle; i.e. you are a small gear in a large mechanism; you are given something at the input and you must generate some output that matches the specs. If someone fails elsewhere, it is not your problem (it is outside your "need to know").
Notes:
- I am not saying that in a big company teamwork is not important, or that "need to know" will "protect" you even if everyone else in the company is an asshole.
I work in a small company, and I see that with time my todo-list is getting out of control. Initially I was doing A, B and C; but now it's everything all the way to Z. I am unable to keep up, and it often happens that I am frustrated because of this; technically speaking - every issue in the company is also my personal fault, because I am involved in almost every activity.
The problem grows on a daily basis; I am currently conducting a small survey called "why buffer overflows occur at work", hoping it will help me straighten things out by seeing the bigger picture.
To summarize the above, the other things that must be taken into account are your degree of independence, and your way of interpreting failure (i.e. you think it is your fault, or you can shift the blame on someone else, or you tend to see it as your fault even if it is not, etc)
p.s. look ma, posting it without a post preview! :-)
Thanks a lot, Paul! great reading!
whciha re a complete SCAM
There are many challenges in life impossible to overcome without having money.
It's necessary to earn enough money in order to achieve the goals that are simply impossible to reach without having money.
To make it short: Not everything lies in money but too many things do require money! I guess that's why we're all trying to learn as much as we can about
Internet and Money
Regards from Randy