Trying to bring religion into this is beyond amusing. I guess the Japanese are all protestants? Hardly. And rationalizing poor behaviour by saying it's rational is another good one. Lastly, you're trying to shift the discussion by claiming "best way possible" as opposed to others saying "do the bare minimum". These are very often not the same.
The problem is, people don't "get it". There are people in this thread protesting about "doing poor quality work", eg, "racking up tech debt". Why?
Because it eats at them. Because they are in this to build, and build that which holds, which has value.
They have pride in their work! Yet the response some have here is simply don't do the best you can do. These two things are counter to one another!
I am advocating that yes, do the best you can do. Take joy, deep internal joy in doing your job correctly, because of what you build. This indeed does not mean doing the bare minimum, by some broken, made up rationalized excuse.
As I said, a good work ethic is not a protestant thing, it is a human thing.
We can expand this to everything. What are you being compensated for? Are your ethics formed around what's profitable?! Madness!
It's also interesting that you bring the Japanese into this. While they certainly to care a lot about producing high quality work, they also have one of the world's highest suicide rates.
I understand taking pride in what you build.
However:
1) it's important to not let that destroy the rest of your life
2) it's a lot easier to take pride in what you build when you're working on something you own[0]. As I believe I alluded to in other comments on this thread, and was kind of insinuating with the original comment that you replied to, deciding that extra effort spent on a dysfunctional enterprise project micro-managed by 3 competing orgs who spend their time changing requirements in order to win minor political victories (yes, this is an extreme example, please bear with me) is better spent on a personal open-source project, or even building something like a sport club or happy family seems to be the logical course of action when you care about what you build.
Which isn't to say don't do the best you can at work - ship the code they ask you to ship, write it well, add unit tests, all that jazz.
But then once that's done, you can either focus on being the best employee for Megacorp, which is likely to be soul-crushing, because you'll have extremely little reward for your effort, or you can be the best employee of You, LLC, where you natural human desire to make something beautiful can express itself in a way that is much more rewarding for you, both financially and emotionally.
What is seen as "good work ethic" is absolutely a cultural thing, and at least partially explains economic success (or lack of) in many countries. The Japanese aren't protestant, but they have other elements in their culture that encourage hard work as a virtue.
I take joy in projects that I actually find meaningful. Being an underpaid cog in the machine, working on JIRA tasks visioned by someone else isn't meaningful. Lack of adequate pay makes me feel underappreciated, and frankly destroys any motivation I could otherwise have. So no, I'm doing the bare minimum and don't feel bad about it. I treat my employer like it treats me, that's called justice.
It's not beyond amusing, the protestant work ethic is the tradition from where a lot of nations have derived their work ethic from. Just like the Japanese derived their work ethic from their traditions, bringing it up is just clearing the way that yes, it's a religion-originated way of thinking about work, there's nothing wrong about that and you getting hung up on it is what's truly beyond amusing.
> Lastly, you're trying to shift the discussion by claiming "best way possible" as opposed to others saying "do the bare minimum". These are very often not the same.
Because the discussion gets murky exactly at this point. Doing the bare minimum means not going out of the way to solve issues for others, like Americans working outside of their working hours and bosses expecting that should be done. I have many work colleagues in the USA who are beyond annoying by trying to prove themselves by working outside of what they are paid for, with the thought they should go "above and beyond" instilled in their minds. It just creates issues for other cultures who do not prize themselves in sacrificing their lives for the job.
The other side of it is doing the best work you are willing to do, with the limitations you currently have (skill, health [physical or mental], time, etc.), that's what I call "bare minimum" for myself. I won't be wasting my time trying to come up with new products, new paths of generating revenue, simply because I'm not paid for that, when I am in that spot I definitely offer the best help I can but I won't be fighting political infights, depriving myself of a life to work another 2h/day to setup a new project for some higher ups, and so on.
> I am advocating that yes, do the best you can do. Take joy, deep internal joy in doing your job correctly, because of what you build. This indeed does not mean doing the bare minimum, by some broken, made up rationalized excuse.
You don't need to take deep internal joy of doing your job correctly, at all, one just need to have a work ethic that doing your job correctly is the right thing to do, it's what I'm being paid for, and that's the bare minimum. If that means I can slack off a little bit because I'm aware I can deliver what's expected so be it.
Perhaps we are talking past each other here because I do not disagree mostly with you, I probably just disagree with your approach to it (and hence what I called a derivative of the protestant work ethic).
> As I said, a good work ethic is not a protestant thing, it is a human thing.
Not necessarily, if your work is bullshit and you are not paid enough for it without much chance to do something else because of life's circumstances there's absolutely no inner motivation to have good work ethic.
> We can expand this to everything. What are you being compensated for? Are your ethics formed around what's profitable?! Madness!
Much the opposite, what's profitable is usually the least of my concerns ethically-wise, I would even say it is most times detrimental to ethical behaviour.
The problem is, people don't "get it". There are people in this thread protesting about "doing poor quality work", eg, "racking up tech debt". Why?
Because it eats at them. Because they are in this to build, and build that which holds, which has value.
They have pride in their work! Yet the response some have here is simply don't do the best you can do. These two things are counter to one another!
I am advocating that yes, do the best you can do. Take joy, deep internal joy in doing your job correctly, because of what you build. This indeed does not mean doing the bare minimum, by some broken, made up rationalized excuse.
As I said, a good work ethic is not a protestant thing, it is a human thing.
We can expand this to everything. What are you being compensated for? Are your ethics formed around what's profitable?! Madness!