The "I don’t care" attitude

[Polu]

Hello all.

In thread655-541063 it was stated by a member of these phorums that if you are suffering paranoic management, the "I don't care" attitude serves you best.

I don't like this idea, but sometimes I've found myself under lots and lots of stress trying to do my work in a non reasonable amount of time, or figthing in political wars between firms or even departments in a single firm.

I love computer science, and I use to be pride of my job, but sometimes, I'm asked to accomplish tasks completely out of my control. I mean, a great responsability and a little real power to have the machine working fine.

Sure I know how to deal with this situations, (keeping a log, emailing reports weekly to my manager, and all this stuff) but I don't like it.

Sometimes, I feel too much stress, and my work disturbs my personal life. My girlfriend suffers when I'm angry, and she is not responsible at all.
On the other hand, sometimes I have chosen the "I don't care" attitude, but then I cannot be pride.

So, what attitude serves you best?
Is the "I don't care" attitude ethical?
How can you be pride of your work when it's completely impossible to acomplish your tasks?

Thank you all in advance.

Polu.

 

[edfair]

At some point you start to realize that the sun will be up tomorrow, no matter what others will have you believe. There a lot of people that will place impossible demands on you and you have to figure out how to handle each one on an individual basis.
Mine is to do the best I can under the conditions I'm dealing with. Sometimes customers have to wait, or they don't get what they want right now, or they don't get it at all. And if they can't handle it they become ex-customers with my blessings. Think I've lost 2 or 3 because of the attitude, but I offset that with 2 I kept for 28 years.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[BJCooperIT]

I, personally, cannot adopt the "don't care" attitude. No matter how unfair, unrealistic, or impossible the situation - I still care. It is genetic I guess. My life would be easier by far if I could. My coping method is to prioritize and decide what items on the agenda are "must haves" and which ones can wait. I then stress over the priorities and try to lose no sleep over the others. They will get done in time if management really wants them done.

For example:
If the user can enter the data, the data gets saved in the database, but the reports need to be "prettied up" - I can live with that (as long as I have kept management informed of my progress and been clear on what was feasible in their timeframe).

In all fairness, the thread you mentioned said:

"But I refuse to be stressed by conditions that are not of my making and that I have no control over."

and in that context I find nothing unethical with it (as long as it does not affect the quality of work and a sincere effort is put forth).

select * from Life where Brain is not null

Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000
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[EdwardMartinIII]

There's a lot to be said for ownership: I do well in part by placing much of myself in my work, by doing the best I can do and doing a job that I think no one else could have done as well. Yeah, I know that there are people better at doing the various technical things than I out there, but me's me.

There's a lot to be said for boundaries: I have 100% control over myself and 0% control over other people.

With that in mind, I do the best I can do and -- when I'm feeling excessively resourced, I nudge when I can outside my sphere of influence. But I'm aware enough of my professional boundaries to be able to look my manager in the eye and say "I have no control over that."

If adopting an &quot;I don't care&quot; attitude about an issue doesn't sit well, consider recasting it as &quot;I have no control over <insert specific issue>.&quot;

If you need to, keep little 1&quot; x 1&quot; squares of flash paper in your wallet or purse and when you want to remind yourself of this, scribble the issue on the flash paper and touch it with a match or soldering iron. Poof!

Cheers,


Edward

Like Lovecraft? Know Photoshop? Got time for the Unspeakable?

http://www.petting-zoo.org/Movies_Dreamquest.html

 

[palbano]

Hey I don’t believe it! Something I posted in a water cooler trends/ethics thread actually drew some attention.

BJCooperIT,
Great job of actually reading and understanding the point of my post. Mine are not always (usually) easy to understand. You hit my point exactly. I still take pride in my work but refuse to let management that are unqualified for their positions cause me personal stress. The pride I take is in the work I do, not the failed decisions made by others.

In a thread you started, asking about what makes us feel good in our jobs, I answered that several projects I had been involved in enjoyed a long lifetime of execution with zero defects. That is what I take pride in.

Even under terrible management I still make a professional effort to produce quality software within the timeframe required. I just don’t take on the personal stress of not hitting a date that was arbitrarily arrived at without the commitment of those responsible for actually doing the work. Nor will I feel responsible when the technological path decided upon by management, against the warnings of the technical staff, fails to actually solve the problem at hand. What I normally do is speak up one time when I become concerned with a decision that is being made. Once I receive negative feedback from people that have a history of overriding technical staff suggestions to the determent of the project, I stop beating my head against the wall. Life is too short.

When a company keeps non-technical managers out of IT decision making, things will always turn out better. Not necessarily perfect, but better than if you have some technically challenged person running an IT shop like it was a farm or whatever because that was his former background. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the executive staff to provide leadership within the company, not mine.

I have and will continue to produce quality software and take pride in doing so. I simply refuse to shoulder the burden or stress of the failures produced as a result of management staff that refuse to heed the input of the technical staff that works for them.



-pete
_{I just can't seem to get back my IntelliSense}

 

[palbano]

Oh right, I forgot to mention, if I was on a project where human safety was involved I would [red]scream from the top of my lungs[/red] until they either listened or fired me.


-pete
_{I just can't seem to get back my IntelliSense}

 

[CajunCenturion]

I agree complete with BJCooperIT in that I cannot adopt the &quot;I Don't Care&quot; position.

I do care about what I do, I take pride in what I do, and am not ashamed to acknowledge what I did.

In a similar vein as others, there maybe competing objectives such as delivery times, profitability, and software quality. I do care about all of those, but only one can be the top priority, so I may care less about delivery time than I care about profitability. That does not mean that I don't care about delivery time, it means that I care more about profitability than I do about delivery time. It's a matter of priorities. But I always will have no problem signing my work.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[palbano]

CajunCenturion,

Just curious… so your saying that you do allow yourself to be stressed by issues that are beyond your control?


-pete
_{I just can't seem to get back my IntelliSense}

 

[CajunCenturion]

No, I don't believe I said anything about stress at all. But if you're asking if I ignore requirements that are outside of my control, I do not. It would be naiive to think that just because an objective is outside of my control, that failure to meet that objective will not have a profound affect on me or my career. It would be foolish to ignore such repercussions.

If that is what you mean by &quot;stressed by issues that are beyond your control&quot;, then I would accept that I consider those issues, but I'm not stressed by them.

It's not a perfect world, and we have to make trade-offs. The key is communication, early and often, to insure that my manager and customer are aware of the trade-offs that may be required depending on how the requirements are prioritized. I am also aware that my manager may not be the one setting the priorities either. But once the contraints are set, or the priorities defined, I inform my manager and the customer what can be done given those contraints and insure that I do the best I can under those contraints. What does stress me, is making sure that I deliver what I committed do.

I do not stress about imposed constraints which prevent me from doing the job the way I want to do it, but I do stress about my ability to fulfill that which I commit to.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

It would be naiive to think that just because an objective is outside of my control, that failure to meet that objective will not have a profound affect on me or my career. It would be foolish to ignore such repercussions.

I'm not sure I follow this, but I might not have sufficiently explained what I meant.

There are truckloads of things that affect me in my tasks, my job, and my current career. I have total control over a few (say, 10%), absolutely no control over a few (say, another 10%), and some degree of influence over the remaining 80%. The 10% I have no control over, I document and encapsulate. The remaining 90% I handle as best the environment suits solving the problem.

Recalcitrant managers belong in the 90% category. Machinery that breaks down frequently belongs in the 90% category. Someone who won't sign a form usually belongs in the 90% category.

The 10% category is reserved for such things as &quot;the creek flash-flooded over the weekend and we lost all the data collected since Thursday's backup.&quot; (really happened) There are probably other things, too.

I have met people who try to slip out of responsibility and I have met people who try to own what they can and take responsibility for what they can. In general, I respect the latter more than the former. But I also have a lot of respect for someone who isn't afraid to tell their manager &quot;I have no control over that.&quot; They might append &quot; -- no one has control over that -- it is a physical property of the material&quot; or &quot; -- you can make that call because you have the phone number for the office in Tel Aviv&quot;.

I have -- alas -- seen managers who expect their people to do something and yet don't realize that they've hobbled their own people. Most of the times, these same people jump around and set meetings and act official so that their manager believes something is being done, but it's just a Potempkin village, pure window dressing. In my own personal book, this slides dangerously close to lying and I will not lie to an employer.

So, it might be that when I draw my encapsulation lines around that which I cannot control, I'm drawing pretty tight lines. My professional ethics demand that nothing goes into that category unless I really, truly, scout's honor can't do anything about it.

That said, anyone holding those sorts of things against my career are just jerks. Like Pete wrote: &quot;Life's too short&quot;.

Cheers,


Edward

 

[palbano]

CajunCenturion
If that is what you mean by &quot;stressed by issues that are beyond your control&quot;, then I would accept that I consider those issues, but I'm not stressed by them.

That’s it exactly ;-) &quot;I don't care&quot; just enough not to be stressed.


-pete
_{I just can't seem to get back my IntelliSense}

 

[CajunCenturion]

Well palbano, we may just differing on a matter of semantics, but I'm not comfortable with the &quot;I don't care&quot; phrase. To me, that implies that it's a black and white issue, and you either care or not. I don't think it's that clear cut. I think there are gray areas.


Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[palbano]

CajunCenturion
>> but I'm not comfortable with the &quot;I don't care&quot; phrase

That is to be expected which is why i i immediately followed with my explanation which i quoted below in blue.

>> we may just differing on a matter of semantics

Maybe, however you do tend to like to argue with just about anything

I re-read my original post and i stand by it, it seems quite clear to me.

Now does this mean that I don’t perform my work to the best of my abilities? No, I have to live with myself. But I refuse to be stressed by conditions that are not of my making and that I have no control over.

If management asks me for recommendations or dates I will break my back to see that things run smoothly and dates are hit. When they make decisions that are obviously flawed or proclaim arbitrary dates for tasks, I refuse to bear any stress related to the operations resulting from those decisions.

As you can see i specifically state that, i still perform my work to the best of my abilities. There is nothing ambiguous about that statement.

In your post of that same thread you state: if the manager does not want to hear what you're saying, then all you can do is document the project development and do the best you can.

If you want to claim there are semantic differences there, it's a free world, but i see it as the exact same thing. ;-)


-pete
_{I just can't seem to get back my IntelliSense}

 

[GreenTeeth]

Hello chaps, this is something kinda close to my heart too, hence it is something I am constantly working on. There is a certain traight recognised in psychology called the Over achiever this type of person tends to work all hours given, tends to excel in his/her field and tends to be the one when offered something to say nah, don't worry about that, then end up working till 2 in the morning because he/she feels like a failure if they don't finnish the job.

Does this sound familiar to any one, or does it sound rediculous way to look at work, or perhaps, both.

Can I just say out at this point that you have a right to free time and you have a right to have stress free free time. and you have a right to say NO. Can I also point out that saying &quot;no&quot; is not an &quot;I don't care attitude&quot; and it isn't illegal,(though your boss will try to tell you it is)

In case you had not guessed, I come into this catagory of people, however, sometimes you just have to make a stand. If you want to go deeply into it, it is an issue of personal boundaries, or rather lack of. Its like this, you start in a new job with the skills you have, your boss asks you to do your job at first, fine, then maybe one day, he say could you stay a little later please, and being a nice guy you say yes ok, and that's it, once that has happened more than a couple of times, it becomes expected. You had the choice all along to say no, and just set up a proffessional boundary and that is not an unreasonable thing to say, in fact I have learnt that it is important. but it must be said with conviction and you have to beleive it.

I am no authority on this by any means, but as an internal martial arts teacher of 4 years, I have had much direct experience of this sort of thing.

Once you have given your boundaries away, it is hard to get them back, but you can get them back. It is a subject that is important, very important, because if you are always giving in, you will find this happens else where in your life.

We all need down time, time to be thoroughly deconstructive
but you have to set that time aside, you do have to schedual it.

I am gonna shut up now.

 

[Grenage]

Well its a personal thing, if your life is your work your going to care a lot more than somebody who works to support their life.

While the &quot;dont care&quot; philosophy sounds good it's a lot easier said than done with regards to something you are generally passionate about. But if you can avoid stressing about things you really cannot control it does make things easier.

I like living and dont want to die, but it's going to happen eventually so why lose sleep over the uncontrollable.

 

[pmonett]

I must agree that I do have a tendancy to care greater than a tendancy to not care.
Explanation : I find that the job of the developer is to make the life of the user easier. If what I do complicates things, then it is a good indicator that something needs to be re-analyzed. I am always on the lookout for some workflow thing being done in Excel that could be actually automated and made more useful in Notes (yes, I am a Notes developer). I think that means I care. And I will work weekends if necessary to ensure that the project is delivered on time (just two days ago I stayed up till one A.M. to test the online e-commerce site, on the lookout for a particular function to switch data values at that time).
If the projects I am given are managed by someone who lays out unreasonable or contradictory requirements (and by unreasonable I judge by the complication rule I give above), I will still care enough to discuss the details until either I get satisfaction or I am convinced that, unfortunately, for the moment there really is no other choice.
But if I find myself regularly showered with contradicting demands by managers who don't have a clue as to what they are asking or why, I will quickly stop caring. I will do what they want to the best of my abilities with the resources I have at my disposal, but if I am pushed or someone tries to intimidate me, I will have all the necessary arguments to snarl back and dish out two points that tell him I am not impressed with his management.
As I reread this, I realize that I am giving the impression that I can bark back and do so with impunity. That is not what I mean. I obviously do not bark at a customer, and I very rarely bark at my manager (I have done so once or twice, though). I do however reserve present my counter-arguments without any notion of subordinance, though politely.
An IT project is not about one person, it is about a tightly knitted group of people, resources and methods. Any modification of that group needs to be carefully planned and rarely depends on just one element. In this environment, one does not get up in the morning and say &quot;today, I will have our network and data migrated from NT to 2000&quot;. Anyone who tries that will find that there are dozens of small details that will stand stubborly in the way until they are correctly addressed.
That is my point. To those managers who will attempt to pressure me without any consideration for all the stupid things they asked, I will have a retort that will include some of the stubborn issues THEY have not addressed.
I will not say it in a mean fashion, not will I yell, but I will say it and if they don't like it, tough.
And no, I don't care if they don't like it.
I am willing to care for a lot of things, even for the stupid user who just cannot understand what a PC is. But I will not care for a manager paid more than me, hired to think out issues and plan, and who just struts his stuff and barks when what he didn't plan or forecast ended up happening.
And if I'm fired for it, it's his loss. I'll be off to a better job.
At least I hope ;-)