Ideal worker

While there has been much discourse around burnout, and much evidence of kids popping in on Zoom calls, all this visibility hasn’t necessarily led to employers changing their demands on workers: Americans are actually working more hours per day on average now than when the pandemic began. And experts say it’s not enough for companies to just be okay with kids making an appearance during a meeting — they need to make real changes like hiring more employees and reducing hours so that people actually have time to tend to their lives. Meanwhile, policymakers need to consider reforms from paid family leave to universal basic income that would make it possible for everyone to meet their needs.

Overall, it’s long past time for the idea of the “ideal worker” to retire

Source: The problem is work by Anna North, https://www.vox.com/22321909/covid-19-pandemic-school-work-parents-remote

My workplace is aggressively “ideal worker” concept. There is even a particular person that gets rolled out into stage whoever there’s a new “work is hard, suck it up” message - usually around a benefit changing, or some cockamamie scheme to “better balance work and life.” They have kids but manage to work really long hours and it gets glorified on stage.

It doesn’t surprise me that hours are up in part because people feel the need to “make up time” after kids go to bed.

How many problems could we solve if we just… capped CEO pay and hired more people with that money? Or even…. cap the work day for real.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/ideal-worker

Be The Thorn

There will be no common set of knowledge of practices, procedures, and processes regarding anything. Don’t look towards your management and leadership either, as they’re none the wiser. If privacy is a factor in your future workplaces, it’s likely to be driven by the legal department as a strictly reactive, scary, and deeply resented legal compliance obligation whose purpose is to cover your company’s backside rather than protect the people in your data.

All of that means that someone in your workplaces, and on your career journeys, needs to show leadership in privacy, and it might as well be you.

Source: What would a privacy curriculum for future developers look like? - Hi, I’m Heather Burns by Heather Burns, https://webdevlaw.uk/2021/03/21/privacy-curriculum-developers/

It is absolutely worthwhile to be the One Person pushing for change at a company, any company. Especially in areas that have a regulatory component.

Being the thorn in the side of the company can move mountains. Whether it can wake that mountain up to move itself is a whole other thing…

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/be-the-thorn

Look outside your current 4 walls

When we’re no longer confined to our homes, just think of all the options that will open to you: you can work at a coffee shop, of course, but you can also work…..with your friends? A lot? And your kids will be in school, or in care, but most importantly, not with you? You can go work in a library, or a co-working space, or a park, or a different co-working space. What matters is that it will not be you, in your home, alone — unless you want it to be.

Source: Anne Helen Petersen - Culture Study by Anne Helen Petersen, https://annehelen.substack.com/people/799855-anne-helen-petersen

This… I hadn’t even realized this. While I am very content working from my home office most days, the future choice of work environment is… freeing?

The funny thing with my current job is that I worked all around campus all the time. The only real difference now is that I’m not physically present in meetings. Technology has caught up to that need now. Offices are nice but don’t need to be mandatory now.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/look-outside-your-current-4-walls

Privacy protection and humor? Nice. 👍🏻

DuckDuck

I’m trying new browsers that are stricter with user privacy and I thought this image from the on boarding process for DuckDuckGo was pretty funny.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/duckduck

Careers as adventure

Quests are actionable. They are understandable. They aren’t tasks. They are work with a bit of poetry. They are always front-of-mind, and if I’m not on a quest, my wife can confirm that my only goal at the point is, “Find a quest.”

A title is a sign-post. It tells you where you are. A title is a comforting reminder of where you are, but what is more interesting is where you are going next and how you will get there. This will involve a quest. I stand firmly behind my career title opener because it begins a vital conversation; it’s starting a story with the human across the table, not about what title they want, but what quest they need to begin.

Source: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/you-are-going-on-a-quest/ by , Rands in Repose

I love this framing. My current workplace does this fairly well… or at least did - the newer generation of leaders seems much more linear advancement focused. My career exists because of the adjacent possibilities of whatever I’m currently doing.

It’s side quests becoming the quest.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/careers-as-adventure

organizing by color

Organizing bookshelves by color is by no means a modern novelty (nor is shelving books spine-in, but that’s a different kettle of fish). In 1848, English publisher Joseph Cundall remarked how, “in the British Museum, books of Divinity are bound in blue, History in red, Poetry in yellow, and Biography in olive colored leather. This is an excellent plan in a large library.”[i] Private collectors of the past were also concerned about the colors of their bookshelves: either as a navigational aid or as an effort to present an image of uniformity.

Source: https://www.bookhistoria.com/blog/no-mere-foppery-a-defense-of-rainbow-bookshelves

I wish books were still color-coded by subject! I prefer color blocking books - I find it soothing. For a large number of books, I’d organize by topic and then by color.

My work bookshelf is color organized. Interestingly, that shows trends in book cover art in the productivity sphere. Yellow was the new red. Blue is the new yellow.

Permanent link: Http://blog.angrybunnyman.com/organizing-by-color