It took me about half a year to score a nice workplace with a large window right behind my back.
I hated it when I sat next to a door or with my back towards an aisle. Felt like someone was always watching me from behind. And even though the HR reps here are very kind here, it took me quite a few tries to end up in a place I kind of like.
I can tell you for a fact that this is exactly the kind of problems the majority of intellectual workers are thinking about. Man, what a comfortable life we live.
Anyway.
So now I have a premium workplace.
Once every hour my watch tells me to get up and move a little bit.
I should probably walk at least a hundred steps when it does that, but usually I just stand up and look out of the window for a while.
If you look at the horizon – it’s pretty. You can see some of the old buildings of the old city of Lviv. But around our office there’s nothing to lay an eye on.
Parkings, gray houses, offices.
The thing is that big IT companies here just buy out or rent huge buildings which were built by the Soviets to support the ever-spreading industrialization.
For example, in the building I work in there used to be a factory that produced TVs and later on, I think, trams.
So every so often I come to my window and look around. And yesterday a simple thought struck me.
Very vividly I saw that 40 years ago there must have been someone who worked in the same spot I do now. They might also have been glad to have a window to themselves. They thought that the TVs and trams they worked on made a difference. They worried about doing their job good, or they slacked off. They built relations with bosses and tried to climb the career ladder. They might have worked extra hours to meet the unrealistic requirements of the 5-year plan.
And these are all normal things to do and want. But I felt very strongly that in reality it all just doesn’t matter. None of their ancestors care if they made good TVs or not. Soviets died and there hasn’t been any global communist revolution they dreamt of.
Even more so, capitalism won so hard that robots will replace us all pretty soon. So this laborer who worked where I work now, could dial it down a notch and just do the bare minimum he was required to do.
In my head it all didn’t sound that depressive. It was even kind of inspiring.
I felt that all those things we do and care about now at our workplaces matter very little in long term. The only things that matter are the things we love and enjoy doing. The people we want to spend time with.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t work hard at our jobs. I’m just articulating another cliche – work isn’t everything.
Because I’m sure that when this worker looks back at his time on this factory that made shitty TVs and extremely loud trams, he feels sorry for caring too much. For coming home tired and emotionally exhausted.
I bet now he sees that it was all not worth it and he made all the wrong things his priorities.
I wish I could say I learned from the mistakes of my predecessor here. But unfortunately, I don’t think this realization will change my attitude towards work right now.
I think though, that the big changes are very rarely made instantly. They are usually a complex of many small revelations and ideas you get that shape the way you’ll turn out in the future.
Hopefully.