If you are reading this, then your work is probably not hard.

Basecamp's notorious Jason Fried broke out in a controversial essay about work that caused fierce disputes on foreign sites. We in Alconost hurried to translate it.

Designers, developers, investors, and technology entrepreneurs are fond of telling how hard their jobs are.
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Let's be honest.

Hard work is picking up vegetables eight hours a day with 30-degree heat.

Hard work - to bring up children alone, when you have to work hard in two places for the minimum wage and without a single rest break.

Hard work - knee-deep in the dirt to carry stones on the construction site. Or control an industrial machine that instantly turns into a cake - you just have to make a little mistake.

There is an obvious rule: hard work is hard to find. And many want to be programmers, designers, strategic planners, social network consultants, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. But if it comes to working on a farm, there is less enthusiasm. Hard work is a job that others don't want to do.

Develop software, design, prepare presentations, ring up customers, enter data into spreadsheets, blog, promote products on social networks, buy advertising, search for a suitable color, select the right paper, make an adaptive interface, invest in other companies, conduct pre-investment checks , making decisions, developing a strategy, allocating funds, planning a budget, deepening your knowledge in any subject is not hard work. This is just a job. If you are sitting in an office with air conditioning, and you and the rest of the staff are not physically in danger, this is not hard work.

Such work can be difficult. Could be creative. May require qualification. The correct result may not be the first time. Perhaps you have to learn something new. It may take a long time. You can "hang" on some question. You may not know how to get B. out of A. It may be necessary to convince someone. Or deal with unpleasant people. Or sell something not quite necessary. Or act creatively. And even create something that nobody has done before. Or overcome someone else's inertia. Or fight a few days to end up in an impasse. Or make compromises. But all this is work. And if the desired result is not achieved, it does not make the work difficult - it just means that there is more work.

If you like to work most of the time, then your work is probably not hard.

If you had to solve a problem, it does not mean that you worked hard. This means that in order to solve the problem I had to plunge into work. Perhaps you had a different line of thought. You may have looked at the question from a new angle. Perhaps you decided to take on something that the rest could not see. Still, it can not be called hard work.

It may be that you are a first-class specialist in an area where the rest is not even a foot tooth. But this does not make your work hard.

Working overtime does not mean working hard - it just means working beyond normal time. The time given to any task does not determine the severity of this task.

Brainstorming is not hard. Dismissing employees is not hard. Combining efforts is not hard. Riding at a conference is not hard. Maneuvering in the flow of cars is also not hard, because it's just driving. It may be tiring, but not hard.

And - I beg you - to express your opinion - is also not hard. Running from meeting to meeting and handing out advice is not hard work.

I understand why we like to call our work hard: it is pleasant, it gives us importance and lets us feel that you are doing something that others would not undertake. I understand this very well.

But this does not make the work hard.

We all have work — demanding, creative, thoughtful — and we do not spare our strength. But do not flatter yourself by telling how hard this work is.

From comments to the article:
“It reminded me of the good advice I read somewhere when there was a pause in a not very important conversation.
1. Ask what the person is doing.
2. Then (no matter what you answered), say: "It is difficult for you, probably!"
The interlocutor immediately perks up and continues to chat. ”

About the translator

The article is translated in Alconost.

Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 68 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources, translation of technical texts .

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