I was reading a posting recently that was completely unrelated to IT and technology recently, but it really made me stop and think about my career. Brian Kelley, a valued member of the SQLServerCentral community for years and SQL Server MVP, wrote a devotional that talked about The Quality of Our Offering. Whether or not you adhere to the same faith as Brian, I think he has interesting things to say about life in general, and this was a great one. If you're interested, you can follow Brian on Twitter (@kbriankelley) and get notified of new postings.
The message from Brian today was that we ought to give our best and not abide by some certain minimum amount of effort. Effort can be measured however we choose, but our goal ought to be to do our best for that time, and not necessarily abide by some measuring stick we've arbitrarily set.
How does this relate to being a technologist? I think it ought to make us stop and think about how we decide if we are doing a good job. Is it being physically in our office for 8 hours? Is it ensuring the code we agreed to write is complete on the day we estimated? Is it hitting the goals needed to make a bonus? It could be all those things, but it shouldn't be so regimented that we seek to just hit our goals. Or even that we constantly exceed our goals, but that we give our best.
I don’t think of people as "resources" that are interchangeable. We each have skills that are valuable, and flaws that make us human. Our efforts in our career are not consistent as we grow, and they won't necessarily be consistent day to day. Life gets in the way, and we may work less when we're sick, distracted, burned out, etc. We may work harder when we're invigorated, happy, or feel things are going well. A good manager, and a good company, recognizes this, and works with us to get the best out of us that they can.
It's hard to hire and keep the most talented people around. It's a challenge many of us face as we hire people or give our opinions in interviews. I think it's really hard to find people that will give you their best every day. Not a consistent amount of work, not the best work, but the best they have to give every day. I know I'm not there, but I keep trying to do that each time I start a new day.
Steve Jones
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