Demotivation
08 Jul 2008
For the first time in a very long time (probably > 4 years), I've hit the wall and become completely unmotivated. I won't get into the specific details, but there's just a hodge-podge (technical term) of work stuff going on that leaves me feeling empty, defeated, and broken. I feel like I've actually been a fighter for change (positive change, at that) in this company, and I know that I've worked extremely hard to make things better for the company, my co-workers, and our customers.
Don't get me wrong, the company has (financially) treated me well. I've gotten the opportunity to do a lot of great things, and gotten opportunities I wouldn't have gotten elsewhere.
But I kind of feel like we're drifting in different directions. The company (as an entity, not necessarily the employees) is headed in one direction, and with that has come changes in tone, process, and even our moral compass. The things that made me excited and energized to come in and change the world have taken a back burner to onerous processes, misguided and (often) conflicting objectives, and just a grand feeling of a lack of efficacy.
So here I sit, entirely demotivated, chugging through the work I have to do, but watching as the little things that we used to do so well and made us successful (and got us to this inflection point) are falling through the cracks, people knowing ignoring them, knowing that they're going to bite us in a month or two. But since that's not right now, not this exact moment, no one really cares. Hell, every one of our systems is currently down and has been for a couple of minutes. Not because people are bad at their jobs, but because we aren't taking the time to do things right.
We're basically at the point of considering everyone in the company cheap labor. "Don't worry if it's scalable or the right solution, just do it and we'll deal with the consequences."
Easy to say when you're not the one getting woken up at 2am.
It's frustrating, it's somewhat demeaning, and it's utterly demotivating.
Sadly, it is fixable, but I don't think I have it in me to fight to make people recognize that something needs to be fixed. Instead, the only motivation I have right now is to make a change to my own situation.