Send to KindleI came across this very interesting blog post and discussion thread today on Google+.
Here is the original blog post that started the conversation.
ROBBIE ABED’S PERSONAL BLOG: Fire Me Now, I beg you!
In every situation I ask myself two questions:
- What do I want the outcome of this situation to be
- What do I secretly want the outcome of this situation to be
For example, at one of my previous jobs, my boss setup an emergency meeting in her office. The title of the calendar invite was “catch up”. It was one of those vague meeting titles that meant one of two things: 1) She wanted to catch up or 2) She was going to lay me off.
Read the entire article here
More importantly, here is a great discussion thread on Hacker News that that blog post generated.
YCombinator: Hacker News Discussion Board
There are some great thoughtful and insightful comments there, including…
This is actually a great mental exercise for determining if you’re fundamentally unhappy at your current job. Just try and imagine your boss calling into a meeting like the one the OP describes and giving you some sort of, “your work has been good, but unfortunately we have to make some changes, and this will be your last day” speech, and imagine how you would feel.If your reaction is something along the lines of relief, then you are fundamentally unhappy at your job. You have not only concluded that it is not a good situation, but that the situation is incapable of improving. It’s likely only artificial mental restraints keep you from doing anything about it (“oh man I may have to move, moving is annoying… and I guess I get paid pretty well, most of my friends are making half what I do… and my boss said some things would change, although he said that months ago…”) and those restraints aren’t even that strong, otherwise you wouldn’t be relieved if you got laid off.
It is very worthwhile to look through this thread no matter where you are in your current job.
Career Success with New Media
