What Makes Me Happy At Work
We all have an emotional battery that gets charged when we work in a well-run team, and discharged when not. When looking for a gig, be it a consulting project or a full-time job, you should look for a work environment that charges your emotional battery.
That brings up the question, what charges your emotional battery?
I wanted to answer that for myself. As you read this, if you disagree with any of the points, feel free to delete them to create your own list of what works for you:
Autonomy, or having some control over our work environment, as opposed to being micromanaged. An example is having the flexibility to achieve your goals. I like autonomy over a smaller area in preference to influence over a larger area.
Mastery, or becoming really good at one area, like iOS programming. This becomes an achievement we look upon fondly years later.
Purpose, or a larger sense of mission.
Ethical, or a sense that you’re helping rather than hurting society. For example, I chose not to join a startup that buys and sells personal information of users without their consent or even knowledge. Work on something that’s positive-sum. Not zero-sum, where you’re hurting one party to benefit another. Or negative-sum, where both parties lose. Whatever your ethics are, don’t do work that compromises them.
Relatedness, or working with people you want to work with, whether that’s culture, goals, priorities or anything else.
Trust:
Working in a relaxed rather than stressed environment. I wanted to work with people who’re calm, because that gives me the space to focus and get work done. Not people who feel like they’re pushing a boulder uphill, because their stress will rub off on me.
Proactive rather than reactive. Being interrupt-driven and scrambling to deal with things as they come in stresses me. By contrast, putting them into a priority list and working on them as per my decision reduced stress. Instead of being a call center agent who has to answer the phone when it rings, visit a library where you decide which book to read and when. Other ways to not be reactive are logging out of Slack when you’re not working, and even when you are, so that you can focus on the work.
Work with people who are transparent, since we as a group can make better decisions that way. Transparency creates an environment of trust rather than one where we wonder what the other person is hiding from us, and what hidden agenda they have for doing that.
Aligned with my work principles.
These are what make me happy. It has hopefully provoked some thoughts in you as to what makes you happy.