"Work?"

My mentor/friend asked me the other day,”Thanesh when do you work?”. For a moment or second I was confused. Well I am always confused about myself but now I was actually thinking “Do i do any work?”. I started to question,”What is work?”. This led to a series of questions aimed at my mentor/friend over IM. He of course busy with work and realizing that he had just triggered my head’s motor wanted to calm it by saying, “I am just pulling your leg”. Me on the other hand had already ventured into the avenue of analyzing, dissecting and reassembling that question. I was questioning my work, my accomplisments and most of all my work ethics. {BTW i am very proud of the “little” i do and have accomplished so far, but just like Rooney I am going to get better – that is a fact – but to even question these aspects is a big step for me}.

I have a prejudiced view that all managers, team leaders and other top management level folks look at a person’s ability by the quantity of work they do – the hours the set at work, whether they are sitting on that chair for 8 hours in a row and of course do they get the task done and whether its on time. I guess the last two factors are the decisive ones to make up a person’s mind. I dont think I can quiet fit into this categorization. First of all I am unpredictable at how long I can sit on a chair for – usually not more than half an hour. Do i get my task done on time – records show that I havent {please bear in mind that these tasks I do usually recieve -well for some odd reason, no one has done them before – so before you start comparing me – I am admitting my faults. I also like to add that some tasks well were really “challenging”} and also do i get the work done – Yes, I have and I can say that proudly{again took alot of time in certain tasks so that doesnt make my feats that great}.

So do i do any work? Hmmmm – well if you go by “MY” prejudiced view – I guess its a big NO NO. Then I came across an instance that made me feel that I did have something in me and i do work but just not in the typical way. When I started working in Chennai, I came across one of the most accomplished, intelligent, educated yet enlightened, eloquent, black & white character. His name will not be mentioned for obvious privacy reasons. My initial opinion of his attitude towards me was -”This kid doesnt know jack from jill”, and thought to myself that he doesnt like me. He would include me in discussions but I felt that I will not be able to impress him. Slowly but surely as days went by, I was taken back by his work ethics {yes he had all that characterisitcs of an excellent worker – inlcuding sitting on the chair for straight 8 hours, excluding lunch} and most importantly by his soft charisma. He wasnt the the guy who would go talk to people or chat around but you wanted to get his attention because he had the “brains”. He would make random statements such as “Thanesh I dont want to talk to you because I have a lot on my plate and dont want to get confused”, and go to the extent of not looking at my work. Of course he had too much on his plate to look at my work but i was taking all these actions personally. So i decided to sit next to him and that is when I guess a small insignificant relationship started {significant from my point of view but insignifcant from his – guessing here}. Chatting to him was like going through a maze and trying to figure out the terabytes of information he was pouring out. It all started with “User Transactions” and I was getting excited at work. But I still needed that validity -that confirmation from him that I was not just some other developer or consultant. He gave me more responsbilities and more tasks and I was getting involved in his tasks and helping him out. It was an exchange of ideas, thoughts and more importantly it was the ability to tick the other individual’s mind. That was all the validation I needed. Of course, I did get some positive verbal feedback but I didnt really need it. I knew and still know he respects me and he has my utmost. And we did accomplish a certain level of “work” during that period. We initiated a relationship with an individual from a certain company that would help our process and tasks to be completed on time{it has come in handy in more than one instance}. We exchanged ideas and suggestions that would help the team and overall product in the future. We definetly created a more friendly team environment during that two week tenure. Its just that I didnt check in the damn jsp and java classes.

So what work do i really do? If the lifecycle of a product was linear from step 1 to step 30, i definetly dont fit in the teens. In the perspect of the software industry this would mean the actual coders – the ones who write the jsp and java classes. Do i fit into the early numbers? The creators, the brainstormers, the initiators. Maybe. Do i fit into the twenties – the final product and marketing? Could be. The problem is I am put into a situation where I need to be in the teens and thus the performance and calibre factors are going to be defined by the jsp and java classes that I write. Can i do it? Of course.

To top of my confusion, let me illustrate the following example that took place a couple of weeks ago. I was asked to define a content model for a certain application. The defining factor in creating this model was the ability to allow it to be re-registered during runtime. And the technology to be used was open source and new – thus no documentation. I did it and I doubt anyone in my team would have thought about it in the way I did. I created the method – very few lines – not more than 20 -but that 20 lines were important; and handed into other team members and leader. They of course changed it here and there and made it picture perfect so that it fit into the applcation without any issues. And of course they checked in the code.

So did i do any work?