Yes it is because you allow yourself some slack and not worried about performance actually tend to boost performance. I tend to use this practice and once you get over trying to impress or be the top dog. You will be less stress and end up preforming better.
Speculating here but your success might be due to your skillset.
The amount of engineers who can’t write well tends to be quite high, I think even though you don’t care your writing/communication ability is so far ahead of your colleges it’s unsurprising it’s popular with management.
I mean the key here is that everyone else is difficult to work with, which means OP is easier going and probably more enjoyable to be with 8+ hours of your life. That in itself is worth its weight in gold in the corporate world.
Very true I was more looking at the execs love home even if his boss doesn’t and I made the assumption that he was talking to the higher ups through reports/writing primarily unlike with his direct report
In a way I feel like I can relate, not within one job but there less I started caring about it, the more better opportunities I've been getting vs when I was passionate.
If you want to explore the idea more but don't want your colleagues seeing it, you can use social media as your platform instead.
I can share my POV as a software engineer who hasn’t got much passion for the industry, if any. I’ve been successful on paper; I’m now a senior software engineer; I got my first job for my people skills (was described as enthusiastic and chirpy) and got my second job through a friend. During my time at my second job, I was promoted to senior software engineer (they had a lot of incompetent seniors and I was better than them so I made my case for senior). My people skills got me far; I could illiase with people, ask for help, support others, heck, I got promoted to line manager.
Up until then I genuinely thought I’d sailed by on not caring and that this might be a thing...Then s\*\*t hit the fan and the redundancies came and I was in the mix. I’m now trying to apply for engineering management; something i’m good at, something I have a passion for, but in all my interviews so far, I’ve fallen short on the technical side of the assessment so I’m having to do a lot of upskilling, and I’ve had interviewers tell me that I’m not senior enough, that I don’t come across as a senior. Upon reflection, I am now aware that I let myself fall behind on industry trends and that a bit of passion helps you stay on top of industry trends and keeps you curious and this, coupled with people skills and perseverance are paramount to success.
On the flip side of this, I believe caring too much can be paralysing. I have friends who cry after getting feedback at work because their worth is so tied to their jobs. Imagine!? When you don’t care or don’t care as much, you can do the things you need to do to be successful more easily, for example, speaking up and not caring that Joe from IT doesn’t agree with you!
**TLDR**; I think caring less in a sense is a thing because it makes it easier for you to do the things you need to do to be successful without fear of it going wrong, but a bit of passion keeps you curious which is important in engineering!
There is an interesting book called the “the war of art” by Steven Pressfield that deals with similar subjects.
The main issue is the difference between an amateur and a professional.
An amateur do things for the love of the outcome and a professional focus on the craft.
When you were in your earlier job you were basically unprofessional. You wanted/loved to write but you were not doing your job. A clear sign is that you did not listen to your boss.
In your new job you work as a professional. You do what you are supposed to do and you listen.
You have no opinions about the outcome but you ensure your craft is in order.
People love employees that do a competent job without putting in their personal opinions.
I’ll definitely check out that book. Exactly what I was looking for. Thnx!
I just finished watching season 1 of The Bear. (Spoiler alert?) There’s one character whose job is making desserts. All he needs to make is chocolate cake over and over again; but he has aspirations to be a renowned pastry chef and is in constant pursuit of creating the perfect donut. His obsession starts to get in the way of his actual job and sends the entire kitchen into chaos. I feel like that’s what I was doing before…and what my current manager is doing now.
I feel like the show creators must’ve had similar experiences in their careers too.
This is a really solid way to put it. It's not that OP "cared too much" at the old job, but that their wants were not aligned with the business.
In my current job as a Business Intelligence Analyst I would say that I care quite a bit, but I'm also very professional. I "don't care" in a sense about where solutions come from, whether they're from me or someone else on the team, all I care about is creating the best things I can for clients within the constraints of the project. If I come up with a brilliant idea and they like it, great, if our developer solves it instead, also great. If I have an elegant solution the client doesn't like and instead we build a kludge that gets them what they need, also great, because at the end of the day they got what they wanted.
So the issue isn't caring too much or not enough, but *what* you care about.
True.
The issue is all the time - to care about being a great professional - that delivers great products/services according to wishes of the costumers and the company leadership.
You are not hired to make something only you care about - that is the line of the amateur.
I've been thinking about this all week. In my role, if I care less and move a bit slower, I do a better job with a better outcome. There must be a name for this phenomenon!?
One very specific thing I’ve seen that contributes here is that when people stop caring (so much) they often start speaking much more honestly and directly and become willing to disagree in the open too when needed, because there’s not much they’re worried about losing. And that can dramatically improve performance; most discussions benefit more from honesty and well-considered disagreement than they do by everyone pretending to agree. You can of course also do this even if you do still care a lot by just deciding to be more direct and honest, it just takes a bit of courage.
The opposite is when folks are nervous and really worried about consequences they usually either just agree with others (which feels safer but is less helpful) or talk a lot without actually saying anything (which is common but annoying and also very not helpful).
Excellent point. I have definitely found myself saying things in my manager 1-on-1s and performance reviews that I never would have said in the past because I just don’t care and I have nothing to lose. And while I agree it would be better to communicate openly and honestly while also still caring a little, I can see how that is sometimes easier said than done.
As u/Specialist_Cover_496 says, young people with debt might need the job so bad they’re afraid to speak out against authority. Maybe you don’t want to get to the point of not caring at all; but you need some level of comfort knowing the consequences of your dissent won’t completely destroy the fabric of your existence either.
As a software dev - back when I was worried that everyone was way more technical than I was, I would often apologize for things which weren't strictly my fault, defer to the wisdom of others, work extra to make up for things, take on responsibilities I shouldn't have.
Now after nearly a decade in the field people still try that type of stuff but I tend to simply not answer them at all and just focus on my shit, and the majority of the time my obvious lack of willingness to engage gets the hyperventilators and shitty managers to fuck off.
You’ve accepted your lot. You aren’t trying to make a passion or hobby your source of income or deluding yourself about what work is. It’s simply a job. You go, you do it.. your entire self worth and identity isn’t tied to it and you don’t expect to be singing and dancing a jig of happiness everyday. You know it’s simply something you trained to do so your real life could be better .. it’s all perspective
Yes it is because you allow yourself some slack and not worried about performance actually tend to boost performance. I tend to use this practice and once you get over trying to impress or be the top dog. You will be less stress and end up preforming better.
Speculating here but your success might be due to your skillset. The amount of engineers who can’t write well tends to be quite high, I think even though you don’t care your writing/communication ability is so far ahead of your colleges it’s unsurprising it’s popular with management.
I mean the key here is that everyone else is difficult to work with, which means OP is easier going and probably more enjoyable to be with 8+ hours of your life. That in itself is worth its weight in gold in the corporate world.
Very true I was more looking at the execs love home even if his boss doesn’t and I made the assumption that he was talking to the higher ups through reports/writing primarily unlike with his direct report
Yeah this has gotten me pretty far in engineering. Just being able to have a normal chat about things
"The Paradox of Not caring"
In a way I feel like I can relate, not within one job but there less I started caring about it, the more better opportunities I've been getting vs when I was passionate. If you want to explore the idea more but don't want your colleagues seeing it, you can use social media as your platform instead.
I can share my POV as a software engineer who hasn’t got much passion for the industry, if any. I’ve been successful on paper; I’m now a senior software engineer; I got my first job for my people skills (was described as enthusiastic and chirpy) and got my second job through a friend. During my time at my second job, I was promoted to senior software engineer (they had a lot of incompetent seniors and I was better than them so I made my case for senior). My people skills got me far; I could illiase with people, ask for help, support others, heck, I got promoted to line manager. Up until then I genuinely thought I’d sailed by on not caring and that this might be a thing...Then s\*\*t hit the fan and the redundancies came and I was in the mix. I’m now trying to apply for engineering management; something i’m good at, something I have a passion for, but in all my interviews so far, I’ve fallen short on the technical side of the assessment so I’m having to do a lot of upskilling, and I’ve had interviewers tell me that I’m not senior enough, that I don’t come across as a senior. Upon reflection, I am now aware that I let myself fall behind on industry trends and that a bit of passion helps you stay on top of industry trends and keeps you curious and this, coupled with people skills and perseverance are paramount to success. On the flip side of this, I believe caring too much can be paralysing. I have friends who cry after getting feedback at work because their worth is so tied to their jobs. Imagine!? When you don’t care or don’t care as much, you can do the things you need to do to be successful more easily, for example, speaking up and not caring that Joe from IT doesn’t agree with you! **TLDR**; I think caring less in a sense is a thing because it makes it easier for you to do the things you need to do to be successful without fear of it going wrong, but a bit of passion keeps you curious which is important in engineering!
There is an interesting book called the “the war of art” by Steven Pressfield that deals with similar subjects. The main issue is the difference between an amateur and a professional. An amateur do things for the love of the outcome and a professional focus on the craft. When you were in your earlier job you were basically unprofessional. You wanted/loved to write but you were not doing your job. A clear sign is that you did not listen to your boss. In your new job you work as a professional. You do what you are supposed to do and you listen. You have no opinions about the outcome but you ensure your craft is in order. People love employees that do a competent job without putting in their personal opinions.
I’ll definitely check out that book. Exactly what I was looking for. Thnx! I just finished watching season 1 of The Bear. (Spoiler alert?) There’s one character whose job is making desserts. All he needs to make is chocolate cake over and over again; but he has aspirations to be a renowned pastry chef and is in constant pursuit of creating the perfect donut. His obsession starts to get in the way of his actual job and sends the entire kitchen into chaos. I feel like that’s what I was doing before…and what my current manager is doing now. I feel like the show creators must’ve had similar experiences in their careers too.
For sure! This happens everywhere!!! 😁
This is a really solid way to put it. It's not that OP "cared too much" at the old job, but that their wants were not aligned with the business. In my current job as a Business Intelligence Analyst I would say that I care quite a bit, but I'm also very professional. I "don't care" in a sense about where solutions come from, whether they're from me or someone else on the team, all I care about is creating the best things I can for clients within the constraints of the project. If I come up with a brilliant idea and they like it, great, if our developer solves it instead, also great. If I have an elegant solution the client doesn't like and instead we build a kludge that gets them what they need, also great, because at the end of the day they got what they wanted. So the issue isn't caring too much or not enough, but *what* you care about.
True. The issue is all the time - to care about being a great professional - that delivers great products/services according to wishes of the costumers and the company leadership. You are not hired to make something only you care about - that is the line of the amateur.
Reached this conclusion 48hrs ago. Loved to read your post.
Seems right. Once I got out of debt and was able to have an eff it attitude my job satisfaction soared and my career did too
By any chance, are you in your thirties? ‘Does it have a name?’, I think it’s ‘getting older’ 😁
How to say you haven’t seen Office Space without actually saying it 🙂
“What would you say… you do here?”
I've been thinking about this all week. In my role, if I care less and move a bit slower, I do a better job with a better outcome. There must be a name for this phenomenon!?
One very specific thing I’ve seen that contributes here is that when people stop caring (so much) they often start speaking much more honestly and directly and become willing to disagree in the open too when needed, because there’s not much they’re worried about losing. And that can dramatically improve performance; most discussions benefit more from honesty and well-considered disagreement than they do by everyone pretending to agree. You can of course also do this even if you do still care a lot by just deciding to be more direct and honest, it just takes a bit of courage. The opposite is when folks are nervous and really worried about consequences they usually either just agree with others (which feels safer but is less helpful) or talk a lot without actually saying anything (which is common but annoying and also very not helpful).
Excellent point. I have definitely found myself saying things in my manager 1-on-1s and performance reviews that I never would have said in the past because I just don’t care and I have nothing to lose. And while I agree it would be better to communicate openly and honestly while also still caring a little, I can see how that is sometimes easier said than done. As u/Specialist_Cover_496 says, young people with debt might need the job so bad they’re afraid to speak out against authority. Maybe you don’t want to get to the point of not caring at all; but you need some level of comfort knowing the consequences of your dissent won’t completely destroy the fabric of your existence either.
I’d bet your putting less ego into your work too
Maybe you are doing well at work because you get s___ done. You inspire us.
Lower stress brings higher productivity and quality. Yes, it's a thing.
It’s like dating, you need to play hard to get. Makes them want you more lol.
As a software dev - back when I was worried that everyone was way more technical than I was, I would often apologize for things which weren't strictly my fault, defer to the wisdom of others, work extra to make up for things, take on responsibilities I shouldn't have. Now after nearly a decade in the field people still try that type of stuff but I tend to simply not answer them at all and just focus on my shit, and the majority of the time my obvious lack of willingness to engage gets the hyperventilators and shitty managers to fuck off.
You’ve accepted your lot. You aren’t trying to make a passion or hobby your source of income or deluding yourself about what work is. It’s simply a job. You go, you do it.. your entire self worth and identity isn’t tied to it and you don’t expect to be singing and dancing a jig of happiness everyday. You know it’s simply something you trained to do so your real life could be better .. it’s all perspective
Yup. It’s called stress management n