Today I publish a article that is not mine, but is too good to not share with others.
Is a shame that some times the companies didn’t care engough to build safe spaces where we can express ourselves. Today I give voice to someone that rather remain anonymous.
Original in Spanish https://open.substack.com/pub/emmanuelvalverderamos/p/antes-mi-profesion-que-mi-trabajo
Giuseppe Arcimboldi, THE WINTER 1563
I love my profession. I love being a software engineer and I love software. Not only software, though, I deeply enjoy everything that comes with it. I enjoy understanding the people I work with and thinking about our relations. I like who I am when I code. It stimulates me in a way that nothing else can. I love to learn. I am very happy and grateful to have found my calling.
For a long time, software has been the glue holding me together. It was the pillar upon which my self-perception was being supported. Coding made me feel good about what I was doing. Software has also been a priority in my life: I’ve made decisions based on maximising such a positive feeling. Some of them came with unpleasant consequences and some led to outcomes entirely different from what I expected. I don’t regret any of them, although I’ve learned from them and today I probably would choose differently.
Recently I was flattered when someone asked me to join an interesting project as a founder and technical lead. To my surprise, I instantly knew I would say no. I even allowed my dreamier side to sweeten my thoughts with the fantasy of success. To be honest, I just realised that probably I wouldn’t start a project from scratch again. Been there, done that. I’m simply no longer interested.
For quite a few years now, I’ve been able to choose my work. I am aware of the privilege that this is and I feel grateful every day.
So far, my career navigation strategy has always been expansive: Which is the next challenge? Which project will take me to the next level?
I had never questioned whether this way of thinking made sense—I just assumed it was what I had to do. And it worked well for me. Until it didn’t.
I ended up at a company where human relationships were different from what I’d encountered before. I found far more politics than I could handle—or wanted to. Most of the strategies I had honed over the years weren’t even applicable. In short, it was an unfamiliar environment, and more than a little reluctant to change.
For the first time, I experienced irrelevance firsthand. The bare minimum expectation for performance. The possibility of staying quiet, doing the work, and getting paid. Overpaid. Getting way too much money to create garbage. I realised I no longer thought about work in my leisure time nor wanted to do so. In short: the mediocre peace, a watered-down wine, the profitable nap.
Actually, it wasn’t quite like that. I had to crash into a wall, break my head open, and wake up from a coma dazed in the same place. I was the same but it felt entirely different.
It comes without saying, I wanted to change my environment in my own way. Like many times I did before, not caring much about the evidence. Ego? The very one.
You can’t change people nor groups of people. You can support change, even lead it, but you can’t impose it. Trying to do so is, at best, naïve but mostly futile.
Needless to say, the journey was emotionally painful and professionally counterproductive. My mental health suffered, and, to put it bluntly, I was shown the exit door.
It wasn’t a pleasant time, but it was the best thing that could have happened. As I hit rock bottom in my grieving process, a quote from Rafa Muñoz came to my rescue:
"I’ve decided to stop talking about the bad things and start talking about the good ones, because holding onto anger only hurts me and not the person who caused it."
A lifesaver, let me tell you. Like a third-act movie scene, I woke up in my own body, but everything was different: remote work, good pay, flexible hours, minimal expectations, maximum comfort. Jackpot!
The bottom of my pit was actually a wormhole to another universe where my job and my profession were distinct things. Who would’ve thought?
At work, I’m like a plant. I just exist. I only need a little water and sunlight. Plants don’t argue—they photosynthesize monitor light into money by the end of the month. My work ends in the late afternoon; my profession begins after that.
Books, katas, conferences, podcasts... Black and white turns to color, and sap becomes blood again. From then on, I become the version of myself I enjoy the most. I don’t need to be paid for that.
Perhaps someday my job and my profession will converge again—I truly hope they do—but for now, I’ve freed myself from that need. I’ve found balance on the other side of the local maximum I once thought was absolute. An unstable balance, perhaps, but one that is necessary and sufficient. For now.
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