Oh Software Engineer, are you dissatisifed with your job?

The count of SEs getting frustrated with their jobs has been increasing considerably. I was one of those victims (not now). But I can see many s/w junkies who still carry the same feeling – even some of the blogs reflect the same.Someone feels that he should have become a great chef, but he was wasting his time here.Someone wants to go in a time machine to change the things.Someone wants to go to hills.What else?But why is this high rate of job dissatisfaction?

What are the possible reasons –

• Staying 100s and 1000s of miles away from family and friends (We build relationships with roomies and colleagues – but many of them can’t match up with school/college buddies and cousins).

• Working late nights (Midnight on average and 1-4AM occasionally)• Unconventional deadlines and work pressure.
• Need to work with people from different cultures and having different behavior, attitude and habits (Resulting in conflicts and misunderstandings).
• No physical activity.
• Being on bench or not doing any productive work (These people believe they have skills which are being under- /never utilized).
• No time for other special skills they possess (Someone likes cooking, someone likes writing poems and stories).

So, what do these people do, in general –
1. Crib, crib and crib – No result.
2. Then, some of them take the courage and determination to get out of the world – People stamp him a rebel.
3. Some try to take it for granted – They can never reach their goals and they can never enjoy what they do
4. Some try to seek solace in other alternatives – Blogging, photography, gossiping, chatting with friends (most of the times, these friends are their training batchmates with whom they spent their first 2 or 3 months of professional lives).

What did I do –
1. Cribbed for almost 1 year. I was ready to continue, but my friends were not ready to take any more.
2. Tried to impose a change by doing non-cooperation, revolutions, what else. I was calmed, promised many things, I went for the bait and the rest didn’t make any story.
3. Tried to take it for granted and live like hundreds of others – I have a 8-6 job, some thousands get credited into my account on every month, go and enjoy TV at room, weekend multiplex movies, occasional home trips, regular mobile and online chats. But I was not able to cope with this life for more than a month.
4. Then I started blogging – used it to the max extent to crib, vent my frustration, overcome my boredom and what else.But this had not taken me anywhere.

I realized that the problem was not with my work life, but with my attitude.

I changed my perspective of SE job.
1. Whenever I felt, I was slogging here on Friday night at 8PM, when there was a cricket match going on live which I was missing badly –
a. There were 3 kids cleaning the tables in the roadside hotel where I would get my dinner pack hurriedly at 10PM in the night to catch up the second innings.
b. There were these bus drivers who drove the whole night – almost 365 days a year – even on Dec 31st and the day before festivals – while I was hurrying to my native/place like Goa to enjoy the vacation and occasion.

2. Whenever I felt, I am not paid as much as I deserve – It took my father 30 years of banking life to get to a salary of 20K per month – which I reached in 1 year.

3. Whenever I felt, there was not satisfaction in my job and my skills were not or under utilized – I remember hundreds of Ranji cricketers who deserve a place in the national team, but were denied because of politics and biased selections.