I work in the IT industry, and one of the biggest changes I've noticed over the past few years is just the fakery and buzzwords and meetings full of nonsense verbal-posturing and hot-potato tossing ownership around the room.
I remember when the Indian slang "do the needful" was a joke, but now it often seems like that's become everything now. Sadly this has gotten exponentially worse, because leadership wants to silo and automate everything.
You get a ticket-system that breaks things down to individual granular and sub-granular tasks, and now you've got staff who only know how to do their 1 little task. Too many leadership layers (all wanting "visibility" and "awareness") - not enough simple tangible every day "getting work done".
I've long learned it's not my problem if someone is not doing their job. But the most valuable lesson I've learned is never cause more work for your manager.
Your goal is to be the CEO of your life.
Your only obligation is to yourself and your loved ones.
Your mission is to extract as much value from these soulless megacorps as you can.
Milk the fuckers until sand squirts out of their chafed nips.
Do not worry about results -- "good enough" is truly good enough. There will always be work left undone.
Work your wage. Going above and beyond is only rewarded with more work.
Don't work for free or do additional tasks outside of your role, as that devalues the concept of the division of labour.
Sleep well, never skip lunch, get enough physical activity (I'm guilty of the last part).
Few years ago I got burnt out pretty bad. I knew I had to do something to change what I was doing and how I managed my work load. I just focused on getting MY stuff done and that was it. I stopped taking on other's people work. I stopped taking on more work once I got my stuff done. I would do exactly what a Sprint called for. Nothing more, nothing less. If I finished early with my tasks, I would stretch out the time and just tell the scrum master I was close, but not done yet, but always finished on time. I basically just did what was required of me. I wasn't out to impress anybody, I just became "Mr. Dependable" on any of the teams I worked on.
This was the approach that changed everything. Separating my personal life from my work life with a hard delimiter was paramount.
I found out that if you don't protect your sanity and your own well being, people will take advantage of you and your time and it will never end. Once you break the cycle and get that time back for yourself? You'll make sure you never willingly give it to someone else ever again.
Protect yourself. Protect your sanity. Once you lose it, it's very, very hard to get back.
I hope this helps someone else struggling to break this cycle.
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