From Buzz to Fizzle…
In the weeks prior to my vacation, I worked on average 55 hours per week. In the week before I left, I worked 72 hours. I don’t mind working, but I must believe in the cause and I must feel like I can be successful.
But this silly project fails on both counts. The root cause is really that our management allowed our business partners to engage us without being responsible for providing us requirements. Think of it as if you were given a picture of a location, but no map. There’s a lot of wandering that can go on in a case like that. And so it is, we wander, and we have no contract with our business partner.
And yet despite having no requirements and no project plan, we do have a due date. And despite obvious scope increases (we think, anyway) the due date doesn’t change. I’ve already eclipsed 40 hours this week. And these are hard, stressful, filled-with-panic-and-chaos hours. We have been doing this for months.
So as our due date looms and many of us have given it all we’ve had, our management is trying to go to the whip, but in the strangest way. Today, we received an email which incents us with money to close out defects. There are stipulations about the idea of close-out, but suffice it to say that the money is not bad.
But I’m sickened and offended by this. I do quality work and I have worked the long hours. I can interpret this new incentive program to mean that we aren’t working hard enough or conscientiously enough. After all, they have to resort to money now since our professionalism isn’t enough. I have never heard of such a thing and am embarrassed that my company would condone such a program.
So I have already let my management know that I will not be accepting any money that comes as a result of this program. I suggested that we should have invested the time and money into improving our process. All this will get me is the reputation of a non-team player. But alas, my check-in rate ranks second on our team, so I know I’m carrying my weight. That may not be the definition of team player, but I’m contributing heavily.
So the result of this program will have the opposite affect on me. I will not be working any additional hours as we are being encouraged to do. If you can’t thank me in any way but a last minute lame incentive program, then I don’t need your thanks period.
For now, work is my day job that pays the bills. My off time will have to provide the interesting projects where I can manage myself. Now if I can just make it pay so that I can remove the day job from my life.
Needless to say, it took two and a half weeks for my vacation buzz to dissipate completely. Is it too soon to book tickets for Kauai again?