If you read this, then your work is probably not hard

Original author: Jason Fried
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Basecamp's notorious Jason Fraid burst into a discussion essay about work that sparked fierce debate on foreign sites. We at Alconost rushed to translate it.

Designers, developers, investors, and technology industry entrepreneurs love to talk about how hard their work is.

Let's be honest.

The hard work is to pick vegetables eight hours a day in 30-degree heat.

Hard work is to raise children alone when you have to work hard in two places for a minimum wage and without a single break for rest.

Hard work - knee-deep in mud to carry stones at a construction site. Or control an industrial machine, which instantly turns into a cake - it is worth only a little mistake.

There is an obvious rule: hard work is hard to find. But many people want to be programmers, designers, strategic planners, social media consultants, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. But if it comes to working on a farm, there is already less enthusiasm. Hard work is work that others do not want to do.

Develop software, design, make presentations, ring customers, enter data in spreadsheets, blog, promote products on social networks, buy ads, look for the right color, choose the right paper, make an adaptive interface, invest in other companies, conduct pre-investment checks To make decisions, develop a strategy, allocate funds, plan a budget, and deepen your knowledge in any subject is not hard work. It is just a job. If you are sitting in an air-conditioned office and nothing physically threatens you, along with the rest of the staff, this is not hard work.

Such work can be difficult. May be creative. May require qualifications. The correct result may not be obtained the first time. You may have to learn something new. It may not work for a long time. You can "hang" on some issue. You may not know how to get B. from A. Perhaps you have to convince someone. Or deal with unpleasant people. Or sell something not quite right. Or act creatively. And even create something that no one has done before. Or overcome other people's inertia. Or fight for several days to end up in a dead end. Or compromise. But all this is work. And if the desired result is not achieved, this does not make work difficult - it just means that there is more work.

If you like to work most of the time, then your work is probably not hard.

If you had to solve a problem, this does not mean that you worked hard. This means that to solve the problem I had to immerse myself in work. Perhaps you had a different train of thought. You may have looked at the question from a new angle. Perhaps you decided to take on something that the rest could not see. And still, this cannot be called hard work.

It may also be that you are a first-class specialist in an area where the rest are not even a foot away. But this does not make your work hard.

Working overtime does not mean working hard - it means just working beyond normal hours. The time allotted to a task does not determine the severity of this task.

Brainstorming is not hard. Dismissing employees is not hard. Joining forces is not hard. Riding at a conference is not hard. Maneuvering in the flow of cars is also not difficult, because it is just driving. It may be tiring, but not hard.

And - I beg you - to express my opinion is also not hard. Running from meeting to meeting and giving advice is not hard work.

I understand why we like to call our work hard: it’s nice, it gives us importance and allows us to feel that you are doing something that others would not undertake. I understand that very well.

But this does not make hard work.

We all have work - requiring diligence, creative, thoughtful - and we do not spare forces on it. But do not flatter yourself by telling how hard this work is.

From comments on the article:
“It reminded me of some good advice I read somewhere in case a pause occurred in a conversation that was not the most important.
1. Ask what the person is doing.
2. Then (no matter what they answered) say: “It’s hard for you, probably!”
The interlocutor immediately perks up and continues to chat. ”

About the translator

Translation of the article was done in Alconost.

Alconost localizes applications, games and sites in 68 languages. Native translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, project managers 24/7, any format of string resources, translation of technical texts .

We also make advertising and training videos - for sites that sell, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliner, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

Read more: https://alconost.com


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