Sankofa

I can still clearly remember the words of our Tech Lead as if it was just said yesterday…

“Madali lang to sayo. Parang laro laro lang.”

He would always give me that answer while putting on a big, warm smile. Every time that I see him coding or preparing a design document, I would always approach him and ask him out of curiosity, “Ano ginagawa mo Sir? Mahirap ba yan?” and he would always give me that answer. And I have always wondered what he meant by “parang laro laro lang“. Sadly, I was never able to ask him about the actual meaning of it (he is now in Singapore) but as an Intern, I assumed that he meant that “If you’re having fun, it’s easy!“.

So much for work being fun?

Even from Day 1, I have never looked at my job as *real* work. I have always looked at it as “laro laro lang”. That work is something fun. That does not mean that I don’t take my job seriously. As a matter of fact, I think that I am doing a good job while having tons of fun. Of course, seeing your job as “laro laro lang” does have some negative effects. As one of my co-worker has pointed out, I’m a bit lacking in the “professionalism” department. I don’t exactly know how she arrived to that fact but I am assuming that she doesn’t like me watching SNSD videos in the office or playing a casual Facebook game once in a while.

So I wondered, what’s the big fuss about Professionalism and what exactly is professionalism? A close colleague of mine suggested that I should read about professionalism while we are having a discussion about proper work ethics. And so I did. Quoting from Wikipedia, for someone to be considered as a “professional”, he/she should have the following:

1. Academic qualifications – a doctoral or law degree – i.e., university college/institute
2. Expert and specialised knowledge in field which one is practising professionally
3. Excellent manual/practical and literary skills in relation to profession
4. High quality work in (examples): creations, products, services, presentations, consultancy, primary/other research, administrative, marketing or other work endeavours.
5. A high standard of professional ethics, behaviour and work activities while carrying out one’s profession (as an employee, self-employed person, career, enterprise, business, company, or partnership/associate/colleague, etc.
6. Reasonable work moral and motivation. Having interest and desire to do a job well as well as holding positive attitude towards the profession are important elements in attaining a high level of professionalism.

1, check. 2, specialized knowledge, check. 3, sure, check. 4, check. 6, motivation! check!. Out of the 6 criteria, I sort-of fail in one so I’m about 83.33% Professional. Kidding aside, despite having someone put me on the “unprofessional” basket, I still believe that I am a professional. I still think that I have a high standard of professional ethics (ask the people that I have work with), and I still think that my behavior, even though you can classify me as a Kid with ADHD, is still within the “appropriate” range (I am not a model employee in terms of behavior, though). I admit that some of my work activities are not professional though, like playing a casual Facebook game in the office. BUT I assure you, it hasn’t negatively affected my output and my job. I would even go out on the limb here and claim that being able to have fun at work resulted in a positive output. (Facebook vs. Productivity articles here and here)

"Nerds are always getting in trouble. They say improper things for the same reason they dress unfashionably and have good ideas. Convention has less hold over them." - Paul Graham (Hackers and Painters)

Last Friday could have been one of the happiest day of my young career (~4 months). I was recognized for my efforts in delivering a product on time that is of high-quality (I’m paraphrasing here, couldn’t remember the exact words from the certificate). But sadly, last Friday turned out to be one of the saddest day in my professional life.

During our weekly team meeting (which is held every Friday), our Manager gave a guideline about the team’s “Expectations on proper usage of internet resource”. The guideline basically says:

1. Use the internet resource wisely
2. Access to Social Networking Sites like Friendster, Facebook and Multiply should not be abused
3. If you’re going to use the internet that is non-work related, be discreet.
4. Absolutely, no GAMES allowed

The guys made it clear that this is just a guideline, not a set of rules that we need to follow. They also stressed the fact that access to Social Network Sites are not forbidden but we should exercise our “best judgment” when accessing them during office hours. Finally, it was said, in verbatim, that games of any sort are no longer allowed.

In actuality, I am not against this guideline. The exact instance that I took the job, I was asked to sign a 13-page document that basically say “The internet is just for work”. I am just frustrated that the guidelines are not clear. Telling me to use my “best judgment” is like giving a kid the key to a candy store. My judgment and reasoning is so unconventional that conflict may arise from my actions. Also, judgment is subjective, what’s okay for me may not be okay for others and what’s okay for them may not be okay for me and that scares the sh*t out of me.

For some, this guideline is just, well, a guideline. “This is just a guideline, don’t take it too seriously”, a close colleague told me. Well, not for me. This particular guideline is a team “expectation”. It is like a promise that we have to each other. That is how I feel about it.

Personally, using my best judgment, I think that I have never abused my usage of the Internet. I may not be discreet on using them because I don’t understand the value of being discreet. I mean, we are still doing it, but we are doing it “secretly”. For me, Its like lying and I don’t like to lie.

I don’t understand why casual games in Facebook should be banned. I don’t understand the difference between a video and a game. If we are talking about bandwidth, the bandwidth consumption of a 5 minute video in Youtube is so much greater than the bandwidth consumed by Barn Buddy, a casual game that I am playing in Facebook.One of my colleague has pointed out that you are not just focused on the game but your cursor is also in it (You can’t really multi-task!). That’s a good point though but I’m not entirely convinced. But for the sake of following the guidelines and as a respect to the people around me, I will indefinitely suspend playing games while in the office (or I will be just “discreet” ).

Judgment is subjective. And that scares the s*it out of me.

To check how different the judgment of my colleagues are, I asked them personally about their take on the guideline. And boy I was not that surprised to discover that judgement is really subjective. One of the guys basically told me that “The 8 hours in the office should just be for pure work”, while another guy told me that “It’s okay to take a break once in a while to relieve stress”. Another guy told me that “This is not an issue about productivity but the proper usage of the company resources.”.

This is what I am really scared about, judgment is subjective. You see, if I exercise my “best judgment” and still use Facebook, people on the team may think that I am being “abusive”, they may think that I am not paying attention to the guidelines, that I am disrespecting the entire team by not doing my part.

To be on the safe side, I just stopped using the Internet for non-work related stuff for the rest of the day. Considering that I only stopped using the Internet for just 4 hours, the psychological effect is so devastating. My motivation was down to ZERO and it felt like that I am just a slave that should do what he is supposed to do. From that point on, I felt that work is no longer fun. Work is now officially work and that made me extremely frustrated and sad.

My biggest fear is that this guideline will make work no longer fun. It will make work feel like *real* work. I can tolerate that kind of environment but I am afraid that this will hinder great work. I have always believed that the source of my skills is my passion. That I am doing a great job because I am enjoying every single moment of it. I am afraid that my output will be negatively affected if I no longer find work enjoyable. To quote Joel Spolsky:

For his part, Jeff says he didn’t want our new venture to feel “like work” — that if Stack Overflow wasn’t fun to do, he didn’t want to be doing it. If I had tried to make him play by my rules, I don’t think the project would have come together, at least not as well as it has.

The truth is, the three guys who coded Stack Overflow are great programmers. They’re smart, and they get things done. And in the end, that’s what really matters.

I believe that my team is composed of great software developers. I believe that we are smart and we can get things done. And I also believe that this is what really matter, to get things done.

So by Monday, I will default back to doing what I have always done which is to have fun. I will still try my best to get things done (which I have always done in the past). I will no longer play casual games in the office (to show my respect to the team’s expecatation) or at least hide somewhere when doing it . I can’t promise to be discreet but rest assured that my work and my job is still my priority. Finally, I believe in my teammates… I believe that they would always be there to offer me their best judgment when they find mine unfitting.