I'm not real

I’m very unlucky in life. All my life I have been surrounded by people who are engaged in something real. And I, as you might guess, is the representative of the two most meaningless, far-fetched and fake professions that you can think of - a programmer and manager.

My sister is a teacher at school. Plus, of course, a class teacher. My other sister is a doctor. Her husband naturally, too. My father is a builder. A real one who builds with his own hands. Even now, in his 70s.

And I? And I am a programmer. I pretend to help all kinds of businesses. Businesses pretend that I really help them. Another business pretends that business is people. Helping business, I help people. Not, in general, these, of course, are people. Only they can be listed on the fingers. Well, those to whom I help, when costs are reduced, profit grows and staff decreases.
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Of course, there are - and maybe "probably there are" - real programmers in the world. Not those who are "labor", but those whose work helps people - ordinary people. But this is not about me and not about my profession. Yes, I forgot to note: I am a 1C programmer.

Any automation of any business is not a real job. Business is a virtual phenomenon in general. Some guys were sitting, working, and suddenly decided that this would not work, and it was necessary to do the business, and not to hunch over uncle. They found money, or connections, founded a company, and are trying to make money.

Well, yes, there is - or, "probably, is" - the business has some kind of social mission. They like to say that - they say we create jobs, we make the world a better place, we produce our products, we pay taxes. But all this, firstly, is secondary, and secondly - not unique.

Each business creates jobs, produces products and pays taxes. Neither the number of jobs, nor the volume of production, nor the size of payments to the state in any way characterizes the business in terms of its "reality" on my scale. Well, in the end, all this goes the second echelon of the main goal - making money for the owners.

Earned money - great. At the same time, they managed to come up with some kind of social mission for themselves - fine, urgently add it to the advertising booklet. When the owner goes into politics, it will come in handy. And about the fact that we produce yogurt that is useful for the whole world, so the advertisement says.

Since a business, as an automation object, is not real, then automation, as an improvement of this object, cannot be real. All the people working in the enterprise were put there for one purpose - to help earn more money. For a similar purpose, contractors are involved in the business. All together make money, helping each other make money.

No, I’m not a preacher-hungry man, and I understand how our world works. I’m not worried about 99 percent of the time. Moreover, both the programmer and the manager are paid pretty well for their work.

But I feel terribly embarrassed of being in the company of real people. See above - I find myself in such a company every day. And with sincere pleasure, almost opening my mouth, I listen to stories about their work. But in essence, there is nothing to tell about my own.

Somehow I ended up on vacation with my sister and her husband. She is a therapist, he is a surgeon. They then lived in a small town, where only two surgeons were available. Long warm evenings passed while talking, and of which only stories I had not heard. For example, how, after a major accident, they brought in nine people to be sutured, per one surgeon on duty.

What was particularly striking - he told it quite calmly, without managers inherent in people like me, simulated emotionality and attempts to embellish the story. Well yes, nine people. Yeah, sew up. Well, sewn up.

I asked with childish naivety how he feels, saving people's lives. He says that at first he tried to somehow realize, or rather, to force himself to realize that he was doing something really useful and valuable. Like, I saved a man’s life. But, he says, so no special understanding has come. Just such a job. They brought it - sewn it up. And he went home when the shift was over.

It was easier to talk with my sister - she was very interested in the topic of career growth, and at that time I was an IT director, and I had something to tell. At least some outlet, at least I managed to be useful to them. He told her unformulated career steroids then. By the way, she later became deputy. head physician - apparently, we have something in common in character. And her husband is protecting people. And then he goes home.

A constant source of torment was the profession of another sister, who is a teacher. I often listen about her class, about the children growing up before her eyes, about their teenage problems, which seem so important and insoluble to them. At first, he did not delve into it, but when he listened, it became interesting.

Each such story was like reading a good art book, with unexpected plot twists and turns, deeply worked out characters of the heroes, their searches and rebirths, difficulties and successes. This is a kind of session of real life in a series of my pseudo-successes, pseudo-failures and pseudo-difficulties. I literally envy her with white envy. So much so that I myself am trying to go to work at school (which, of course, I will never do for financial reasons).

I’ll also mention my father. He lived all his life in the village, and worked his whole life as a builder. There are no corporations, teams, ratings or reviews in the village. There are only people there, and all these people know each other. This leaves a definite imprint on everything that happens there.

For example, there are honored masters of their craft - those who make their own business. Builders, mechanics, electricians, even pig killers. If you took place as a master, then you will not be lost in the village. Actually, that’s why my father once dissuaded me from the profession of engineer — he said that I was drunk, a profession that was too demanded in the village, due to the complete absence of any repair shops.

In our village it is difficult to find at least one house, the construction of which my father would not have a hand in. There are, of course, buildings of his age, but starting from the 80s, he participated almost everywhere. The reason is simple - in addition to the usual construction, he became a stove maker, and in the village a stove is built in every house, not to mention every bathhouse.

There were few stove-makers in the village, and my father, speaking my language, occupied a niche and developed his competitive advantage. Although, he continued to build houses. Even I somehow participated as a subcontractor - for 200 rubles I poked moss between the bars of a folded box. Do not laugh, it was 1998.

And I took part in the construction of the stove a couple of times, on the rights of "bring, give, go on, do not interfere." The funniest moment in the whole project is to flood this stove for the first time. She begins to smoke from all the cracks, and we must sit and patiently wait until the smoke "finds" a way out. Some kind of magic. After a few minutes, smoke finds the chimney, and for the next several decades it will only exit through it.

Naturally, almost the whole village knows his father. Almost - because now many people from a neighboring city settled there, for the sake of clean air, the forest across the road and other village charms. They live and don’t know who he put down the stove, the bathhouse, and maybe the whole house. Which, in general, is normal.

This “normal”, in a strange way, distinguishes all the real people I know from real professions. They just work, do their job and live on.

In our environment, it is customary to build a corporate culture, engage in motivation, measure and increase staff loyalty, learn language and conduct team building. They have nothing of the kind - everything is somehow simple and natural. I am more and more convinced that our entire corporate culture is nothing more than an attempt to convince people that their work has at least some sense other than making money for the owner.

The meaning, purpose, mission of our work is invented by special people, printed on a piece of paper and hung out in a prominent place. The quality, credibility of this mission, its ability to inspire is always at a very low level. Because the task solved by writing the mission is virtual, not real - to convince us that helping the owner to earn money is honorable, interesting, and in general, in this way we realize our personal mission.

Well, crap is complete. There are offices where such rubbish is not soared. They stupidly make money, not bothering with husk, not trying to pull on top a beautiful blanket of mission and contribution to the development of society and the state. Yes, this is unusual, but at least without cheating.

Having talked with real people, rethinking my work, to my great satisfaction, it became easier to relate to work. I haven’t been going to corporate parties for a long time, I ignore all “employee codes”, dress codes, missions and values ​​with great pleasure. I’m not trying to fight them, this is not right - since the owner decided that everyone should wear pink T-shirts with Mabel and the unicorn, this is his personal business. Only I will walk in a yellow T-shirt. And tomorrow - in red. The day after tomorrow - I do not know how the soul will ask.

I rethought my work to improve efficiency. In general, I have long been seriously ill with this topic, but always put business at the forefront. Like, it is necessary to increase its effectiveness, this makes sense and mission.

It is necessary, of course, if this is my job, if I was hired precisely for this. But, usually, this activity is secondary, it goes as a trailer for some kind of “ordinary” work. Therefore, it is optional, and gives a wide scope for creativity.

So I show creativity. Now my main focus is to increase the personal effectiveness of employees at work. Not so that the business earns more, although this goal is also achieved, but - by the trailer. The main goal is to increase employee income. Those who want this, of course.

After all, every person, having come to work, will still spend the whole day there. The time spent in the office is his cost, and they are constant. And the money and competencies that he earns are his result. We divide the result into costs, we get efficiency.

Then everything is simple. Costs i.e. time at work, reduce is unlikely to succeed. But getting more results is still how. And efficiency is growing. Roughly speaking, this is the effectiveness of “imprisonment”, because work is a necessary necessity, if without embellishment.

Of course, the level of "reality" that doctors, teachers and builders have, I can not reach. But at least I will help someone. To a living, sad, cheerful, problematic, untidy, beautiful, eccentric, gloomy, but real - Man.

Or go to school teachers? It’s too late for doctors, but the builder will not succeed - hands from the ass grow.