It’s been a while since I posted something new. Of course there are some reasons for that, but the main one was the constant stress in my job. Well, my previous job.
I quit recently (actually 3 months ago, but yeah law in Germany allows companies to have 3 months notice periods) and started a new job 2 days ago. This post is related to that experience.
In the past year or so, I was having quite a lot of stress in my professional job. Long working hours, not being able to stop thinking about job, having constant pressure from the managers/leaders, subpar environment to work in for this kind of job… There are many reasons for this stress, but I have realized something in the last couple of months I was working there. I was just very close to burnout. Maybe I was already past beyond burnout, but since I have never experienced it before, I just kept going. I thought if I do this and that, it will work better and I will be free of this constant pressure. In fact, that was wrong. Constant pressure, especially if it’s not necessary, is really a big problem for teams/individuals. Managers are trying to do something by facilitating the team under them. This is not something new. A good manager IMO is someone who works with you, which happens to be your boss too, and tries to solve problems together with you. This type is aware of their powers and enables you to focus and work on the thing, while keeping the shit out of your sight. Reducing the amount of meetings, reducing the quantity of unrelated and underqualified questions from project managers, keeping the supply-chain alive by thinking out of the box. You know, just enabling you to work. Giving space. Being a shield for the things that fall down from the top-management. Not letting through unnecessary stress so that you can focus on the goddamn job, which you are getting paid for.
Unfortunately, this was not the case for me. I have realized, none of the things above was true for my manager. They have an idea in their mind and took some actions, made some decisions and expected us all to comply with it. Without prior talks with the team, without prior brainstorming or anything. Just pure decision making so that the upper management is happy, and reflecting this stress below as a “challenge”.
I understand these individuals have career ambitions, experiences in their previous jobs where they successfully applied this way of working for their teams, but the real issue I believe is every company and every team is different and you can not go straight and apply the same rules everywhere. That just does not work.
Of course I did couple of things wrong too. One thing which directly comes to my mind is that I believed if I express myself clearly and try to show what works and what not, what we need, what we could have, people will hear it, accept it and take action. This is completely wrong. No matter how you communicate your needs in favor of the team or the company, individuals will still hear maybe 10% of it and calculate what to do based on that. The rest will be their own ambitions and ideas. I have constantly expressed my concerns about a lot of things. Like the laboratory environment where we suppose to work and the unprofessional design of it, necessary tools to do the job, how can we improve the processes, what kind of people should help where etc. None of them has changed anything in the past 2 years I was there and in the end all I got was “yeah you are right, I am completely on your side in that matter, I believe you touched a good point”, but no action. Nothing. Nothing has changed in that period of time and more disturbingly, I believed I was being heard. I just kept saying myself things will change, but they need time, they need some approval or whatsoever. This was wrong thinking. I was naive. I learned not to be.
Fortunately, I was quick enough to find something for my taste and the process went smooth. I started 2 days ago in my new company as Senior Hardware Design Engineer, where I will develop frequency inverters and servo drives for various sizes of motors and applications. This is going back to the roots, because as I started my career, I started in this subject and worked in related problems for around 8 years. Now I’m back at it again!
I learned a lot in my previous job. Not only technically, but also politically and socially. I learned how not to approach people problems and ask for me and my team’s needs. I learned what kind of influence and help a good manager could be. I’m happy about my decision, not only because of going back to topic I will work in, but also for the company I chose. During the interview process I felt I was being taken care of because of my concerns I have communicated and the way the process went. Even this small thing shows something unique and I am looking forward to invest my expertise and time to achieve great things with my team and manager, together.
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