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Having a full life to go to after work avoids the defensive,
overburdened, resentful attitude I see in many people at full-time jobs
(and some contractors, lest I offend someone here). They mask it in
politeness, but they're accustomed to a certain amount of doubt,
because the workload never ends and their methods of addressing it
never change. If instead of retreating into this defensive mentality,
workers and their leaders look at the task at hand and the methods
used, there is almost always a way to make it more efficient and fun.
Interestingly, the corporate world is taking notice:
According to this year's Deloitte study of 500 CEOs finding, hiring,
and retaining top IT talent is on top of the high brass' agenda for
future growth. According to the report what is making the situation
worse is the impending retirement of baby boomers who are leaving the
workforce in droves.
"Technology companies, which rely heavily on top talent to drive
innovation, will suffer especially from this global problem" said
Deloitte technology media and telecommunications industry group leader,
Damian Tampling, who thinks that the shortage will become a crisis for
the industry for decades to come, particularly in Australia.
...
Global recruitment companies were telling prospecting employees that
they were no longer going to be employed just because they were a
technical guru. They were going to have to learn to dress, communicate,
and adapt all the traditional corporate ideals that IT has been exempt
from during the dot-com boom.
Fast forward to Web 2.0 and while workplaces aren't as cheesy with
their decor as they were were in the late '90s, and developers aren't
getting paid $100K for being HTML and JavaScript jockeys, geeks just
aren't chuffed with corporate culture.
I recently heard of a developer taking a pay cut of around $40K a year
to leave his business intelligence programming and consultancy job to
work as an engineer for Google Australia. It wasn't the money that
necessarily was keeping him around but the lure of working on
innovative projects in an environment where lunch is provided,
developers get to work on their own projects, and most people have
passed a stringent brainiac litmus test before being employed.
> There are discussions and proposals to change the
> law, but I
> think that it is healthier for people to learn how to not make work
> their
> biggest priority. Personal and family health suffers when people
> work long
> hours.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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