Changing How You See "Work" Changes How You Play the Game.
Learning How to Do This the Hard Way in My Career.
Talofa reader,
Last week, I gave a talk to my ‘Pasifika Tech Network’, which I mentioned in my previous newsletter.
Digging through 20+ years of tech experiences to write the talk gave me a chance to reflect on how I got to where I am today, and the lessons I had to learn along the way.
In my talk, I walked through each role I’ve ever had in tech, chronologically, poring over the role details, mistakes made and how that propelled or set me back, before moving or being pushed to the next role.
I noticed a recurring theme that wove itself through each of my early career roles, and that was how oblivious I was to the corporate game and how that lack of understanding influenced my experience, hindered my progress, and affected my overall happiness in those roles.
I think the vast majority of workers, in my experience, tech workers, don't fully appreciate how much this lack of "game" affects their careers, career options, and overall sense of autonomy and control of their fate.
This is a mistake.
How you see and understand the corporate game determines whether you play it or it plays you. If you see the workplace in any way paternalistic, like it's going to look after you, that if you do the right things and perform well, that it buys you job security, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.
I'm not saying this to be cynical. Doing a good job and the right things is great! Your workplace and company will be well pleased with you, for sure. I'm saying you're misunderstanding what incentives are keeping you employed.
Thinking like this leads people waiting for training budgets before they up-skill themselves. They could be waiting a while before seeing any budget, and even then, they may be limited in what they can spend it on. I’ve also experienced situations where training budgets are allocated to a limited number of people per quarter. This is quite amusing for a few reasons.
First, in the tech industry, do you think the industry is waiting on the sidelines for your training budget to turn up so you can keep up? No, it's full speed ahead, leaving you behind. The second is thinking you can hold the work the company wants you to do, to ransom, waiting on the training to be delivered. You are going to do the work anyway - under protest, sure - but what choice do you really have?
When you find yourself here, resentful for all the extra unpaid hours you put in, evenings and weekends lost, the company loyalty you displayed so proudly, only to be disregarded as soon as you didn't make economic or strategic sense to the company, you'll ask yourself, "How did this happen?"
You did everything right.
You were just playing the wrong game.
And I know because I learned these things the hard way.
I've been in these operations and engineering teams working beyond my contracted 40 hours of work time1 to deliver things outside of my job description and beyond my pay grade. Stressed, overworked, and unhappy, I still bit the bullet and delivered the work.
I didn’t have a choice.
I know about the training budget issue because I can recall the same experience over and over again across multiple companies spanning a decade. I'm definitely not preaching this from a high horse because I only learned about these things from making mistakes, being naive, and ignorant.
But once I started to understand what was happening and how things really worked, it not only changed the way I looked at things but also allowed me to change my actions and achieve the results I actually wanted in life. The results were not just about economic outcomes, landing a job, or getting a pay raise. It was also about restoring some sense of logic and reason to my life. Cause and effect became understandable and almost predictable, which brought me peace in a chaotic world.
Changing my worldview on work, the role of the worker, the company, and the relationship between these things gave me a better understanding of the game we were all playing. This understanding helped me make the necessary moves to get what I wanted in the exchange and also to understand and manage my expectations when things fell short or didn't go my way.
Add a sprinkle of gratitude and "only worry about things within your control," and you have a much more measured, peaceful, and clear vision of the landscape, along with a game plan with a good chance of success.
I will leave you with a couple of major tenets that ultimately changed the course of my thinking and behavior in my dealings with work life:
The company is there to make a profit.
I can't stress this mental model enough. The company is an entity that exists to create a profit, utilising products, services and any and all legal, advertising, marketing and human resources available to achieve this goal.
Once I understood this, I stopped seeing the company and its leaders as elders in a tribe ultimately responsible for looking after me. Instead, I saw them as leaders of an entity that aims to derive as much value from my labour at the lowest possible cost to them.
I would always assess myself in terms of where I made the most profitable sense for the company.
Always be ready to leave.
There are two things you need to leave a company: the capacity and the will. The capacity refers to the economic aspect – do you have enough savings to sustain yourself until the next opportunity arises, or do you already have another gig lined up? The will is the actual nerve to pull the trigger, which becomes much easier when you have the capacity.
Understanding the corporate game means you know you’re responsible for your career, your training and skills, your work hours and health. That attitude will motivate you to save the money required to have an exit plan on standby and a healthy relationship with the corporate entity to not “get in your feelings” about leaving if the arrangement no longer serves you.
Thanks for reading - see you in the next one.
If you genuinely found this post interesting, please give it a ❤️ to let me know 🙏🏽
Learning
Things I’m actively studying or learning this week…
Studying for the ‘AWS Certified Security - Speciality’ certificate - 74% through the course: Organisational Trail.
Building
Things I’m building or working on this week…
I’m away in PNG for work this week so no building til I’m back.
Interesting Reads
Articles or other writing that stood out to me this week…
Slow week reading wise, nothing to report.
Community
Other projects in community I’m working on…
Pasifika Tech Education Charity - Providing Tech Learning Opportunities for the Pasifika Community.
Pasifika Tech Network - A Network for Pasifika Tech Professionals & Learners.
yes, we know that “an employee may also do additional work as reasonably required by an employer” [source: Employment.govt.nz]