I think a large part of today’s work culture is built on creating and distributing stress.

Quite frankly, the industry in which I work should not be stressful at all. Yes, we do things that are important and that help a lot of people. We do make the world a better place for a significant portion of its inhabitants. If we did not exist, the world would miss us. It’s not like I work at Wall Street, after all.

Still, it’s not like I work in the ER either, right? If something doesn’t get done IMMEDIATELY, nobody dies. Nobody even suffers.

When a project comes to us with a crazy timeline, it is always from a highly disorganised client who approached us far later than ideal and is generally underprepared to begin working the project. More often than not, they are late because their internal management is not on top of things, and they will try to make us work far faster than we should, all because they didn’t start digging the well before they were already thirsty.

What does happen in this situation?

Well, first of all, key discussions about specific requirements gets missed.

Second, key inputs needed by us aren’t delivered at the right time in the right way.

Third, the team will do its bare minimum to meet the requirements within the deadline instead of working to its potential to recommend more creative and effective solutions.

All of these spell disaster.

Result? A project that should’ve taken 5 weeks but is tried to rushed through within a month, leading to additional 3 weeks of corrections. And after all this, they get a product that is 80% in quality compared to what they could’ve received if they’d just let us do things our way. But that’s just not the culture out here, is it? If the middle management isn’t actively trying to make everyone miserable, who would even notice their existence?

It’s odd working surrounded by an inordinate amount of unnecessary stress. Luckily, I don’t strain easy. I’m still Young, after all.