How important is work quality in your life?

How much does work quality matter at workplace?
Does the satisfaction you derive from your life largely depend on the kind of work you do since u spend majority of time at office? Or other factors like environment,peers,fun-element at work,recognition are equally important?can they even compensate for work-quality?

Well, this is a question I've been pondering upon for almost a month now. And I've been really awestruck, deciding on what I want from life. Of course, you can't get everything bundled together in life. Everything comes as a package: some pluses and some minuses. It's extremely rare to get all the pluses without the minuses.

Until sometime back, I had been paranoid about quality of work, involvement and all. I had always wanted to be a scientist from my childhood. And going by my distinctiveness, attitude, approach and aptitude, it looks like I've been slowly progressing towards my goal of doing Industrial Research & Development: trying to solve the complex-real-world problems relevant to today and tomorrow (but not doing blue-sky research in academics, and hence not doing a PhD). But life took a perpendicular turn for me: only for me to realize that there are other things in life which might compensate for the quality and satisfaction of work.

And now, I'm not really sure: what can give more happiness?

Whatever work I have done so far are the ones in which I had given my 100% and I had been really passionate about (being always into R&D groups at Siemens and Intel), until sometime back, when I joined a not-so-high-tech group (in my perception).

Well,ever since childhood i'd always wanted to be a scientist and always be proud of my work.quality of work has always been at top of my head.i had always been kind of fortunate to get "high-end" quality of work till sometime back.
Being a Rotation Engineer at Intel India,I had been really fortunate to choose the kind of work to some extent during 1st year.I've seen diverse groups doing really different work across very different team settings n work environment here:from research labs to production support.
At the time i had to decide my final placement,i didn't get an R&D group,something i've always been passionate about,due to variety of reasons.so i chose the best among the available options,which was a production environment (well, after-all, it's not a software products company).even very initially,i was kind of sure that i wouldn't be satisfied here.so i kept my job hunt on,and very specifically only for R&D divisions of companies.i found my preferred job at Siemens corporate technologies very soon,where i know almost everyone,since i did my internship there.it's such a cool place to work and in a very interesting area for the position of "research engineer" - something, I exactly wanted.

the current team is one of the liveliest and most fun-loving and young team.they don't do extraordinary brilliant work as they do in R&D orgs,but have lot of fun.i've gelled so well here.but work is definitely what i'm passionate about i'm not utilizing my distinctiveness.going by quality of work,i'd have almost blindly gone for Siemens,without thinking twice.but i don't know why it's still a tough decision for me.

afterall,i had been from a really niche segment in Intel: REP,had lots of fun,treated royally,have extremely good contacts n friendships,improved a lot in terms of personality and still having fun.but not passionate about what i'm working on.

it looks like the work-culture,values,and other emotional aspects have taken a toll.so much that i've started questioning myself: is work quality really so important that i can forego almost all the other things which i've really enjoyed and which have really helped me in a big way overall? Like developing my personality much more,providing with such a wide exposure,all round development,and above all people: young,lively,vibrant and fun-loving group! Looks like i've not had as much fun here anytime,but here,the work is not something i'm passionate about and i'm not utilizing my distinctiveness.and it's a production env afterall :( but given that it's a company i really respect a lot where i'm,the decision is getting tougher day by day.i'm not fully sure how imp is work quality vs other things.

what do you people think?how much importance do you put to different aspects like: work quality,culture,team env,money,brand value etc?how would you make a decission?

What do u think about....??

This is more of an elaborate poll rather than a blog post.so my views will not be very elaborate.

I Strongly request you to read the comments of the previous posting of my blog before reading this.The reason is that these questions were not framed in isolation. and probably they would help in better understanding of these questions & their context

http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=11828335&postID=114218327827273246

Due to self-explanatory reasons,i'm forced not to publish the name of the institute.
but its obvious to people o whom i'm addressing, what am i talking about.
what do u think about life at this campus?
-do u think that slogging like here really helps in the long run towards making a better life for yourself?
-are you really learning something great here,which u think one couldn't have done otherwise?
-how much time do u get for urself?(i mean activites which do not involve the institute in any way)
-how much time to study with peace of mind,any topic,which may or may not be a part of syllabus?
-do u believe in specialization or being a jack of all trades,master of none?
-how good are the institute's policy matters?are you satisfied with its oonchi dukan,pheeki pakwaan approach? or before than do u think this is really the case here?
-do you feel the sraineous life here had health implications on you(physical or mental) or it might have in future?
-apart from a little higher paying job after coming out of here, what do u think are the other benefits you see, VS the coss you have incurred: two years of your precious life,a sum of almost 4 lacs, several opportunity costs.


now my opinions

I don't see any major new learning here in two years. Which approach do u think works better? applying the things learnt earlier (e.g. in btech), learning little, and applying it to code projects? or learning as much as possible and apply less?
Wait, i don mean to partition into two water tight compartments. There are people like dutta babu n mayank raj to name a few, who are so hard working that they can manage both. There are a handful of people who seem to have that level of spirit of hardwork in them to achieve both. but if i talk about an average one here, like me, what do you think is a better approach?

I see that here, there are just tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many things to be done. So much, that its almost next to impossible to have mastery in one particular thing,or even a handful of things, unless u r not already the master of that.
Is it really a masters' degree then just for name sake? if someone asks what's really your core-competence,then i'll be in real doubt, whether am i really competent at all in the first place at anything which may be relevant to an organisation looking for an MTech.Aren't our times are really dilluted by too many mundane things?what do these ppl mean by giving JSP/ASP.NET projects? they're done by almost every aira gaira diploma passout or btech from a local college fresher.I would be really ashamed to write this in my resume, or to tell any of my friends about it.

do u believe in quantity or quality? i'm a firm believer in quality. and i can seriously see that we're having too much of work none of which can be done to a sufficiently good extent, given my level of competence and the amount of work i can put in.what do u think about it? I'm obviously not hoping to hear that obvious n diplomatic answer Just put in your best. That doesn't work n is not good enough.

the reality is that more u work now, still much more u will work later.Trust me, i've seen this to be true in almost all cases i know of, including my own family.(read the comments on my previous blog)then where is the other aspect of life?

chalo guys.. think abt this n keep posting.n thanks to all of you for helping me. cheers!!

Am i really living my life?

Sometimes, I really question myself. why are people of today's fast paced generation expected to work so hard? what is this race headed towards? what is the need to work so hard and scrifice so many other things? One has to sacrifice family, outings, casual hang-outs, good times etc etc. why is life so complicated? why are there so many constraints in life? for whom am i living? myself? my family? what is the importance of my life? i don't see in aiming high and spoiling ur life after it in the race of getting richer.

it really pains to even survive gracefully here with everyone specifying so much of work to be done in such a small amount of time. all the work is specified at the last moment.there's no peace of mind at any point of time, neither there is much of learning. is it really worth spending 2 years of life into such a horribly tough life, including the amount of money involved? what are the returns after getting out of this place? a job paying somewhat higher and into a better profile, which would have been anyways achieved in two years after the BTech?

I don't know what am i doing and what is the use.

I don't feel like living my life this way, when i cannot find any enjoyment or enrichment.

overall i don't see much in life with all these things.i've seen my btech batchmates working from 9:00AM to 11:00PM or at times even 1:00AM in their offices in prestigious IT firms like MindTree Research,HP,Cadence etc just because of complying to their deadlines.Now where is the other aspect of life?if thats the way this kind of an IT life treats, then i wud prefer not to live this way, or change the kinda domain.i know it sounds strange to talk about it at the age of 23, but there are enough reasons for it.

My Views

Am i still a kid?
Well,that's what some people think of me as.
The reason? Well, so many..I don't drink, neither do i smoke,nor do i talk of useless stuff.

Have you ever wondered why people drink or smoke? (or at least how they started to?) Most of the guys started it during their first semester of their college, during intro period taken by seniors. Later they consider it to be "Cool" and use it to give an impression to the gals of their batch.And thereafter they make smoking & drinking a part of their everyday life: be it misery or joy.And it has been observed that the non-regular smokers'/drinkers' tendency to smoke/drink increases manifold during periods of stress(smoking) or jubiliation(primarily drinking) or sorrow or depression(drinking and/or smoking heavily).So it can be said that people endulge into these activities in order to feel a little 'out of the world' at such times, at least for sometime, untill the 'nasha' of the cigarette/alcohalic drink lasts so that the stress is reduced for that period or you get detached with the reality for at least some time, and ence detached with the sorrow too.. You start feeling that you're simply in an altogether new and happy world..While a person is drunk, it is a common observation that he/she can be more 'himself'/'herself'. In times of jubiliation, when a person drinks, this adds to his pleasure for the same reason as mentioned earlier: he/she tends to feel the joy more because of the dizziness associated with it, thereby making you feel out of the world and you enjoy more.

But what if the person is mentally very strong? He's strong enough to face the reality as it is at all times. He's always on his own: like an ideal introvert.What if the person has been drilled so much and has faced so many tough times in life that they no longer appear as matter of sorrow? or even if it appears, the guy has the courage to resist all such temptations to artificially suppress the sorrow by smoking/drinking because that's just not the right solution for the right problem.Drinking or Smoking doesn't solve the problem at all. In fact it increases the problems manifold.Firstly, you forget the problem in the first place and instead of looking for the solution, you try to escape from the problems.Now compare this with a guy who when faced with trouble is strong enough to face it,without the need to set aside the present even for sometime by smoking/drinking,keeps struggling and trying hard to find a solution for it.Whom do you consider brave and courageous? The man who struggled hard finds the solution and gets over it and then ends up in jubiliation, while the smoker/drinker being complacent(since he/she has been virtually out of the problem) just calms him/her self by drinking/smoking and never work out the solution of the problem and therby making the problem a part of everyday life. I understand that there are problems which don't have immediate solutions, and that a person needs a break after trying very hard and still not coming up with the right solution to the problem.but does it mean that one should give up thinking and try to escape it? Definately no. And if you want to chill off, clearly there are better ways to chill than to smoke or drink.The best way i would say is to endulge in your favorite hobby, which obviously varies from person to person, but some well-accepted ones are listening to soothing music, playing Violin, Piano, going for a ride on a peaceful highway towards the coutryside, having a conversation with a neutral friend or near & dear one, your loved one.. etc etc. discussing the problem with your friends, relatives also eases off the burden and even leads to solutions in many cases.So if you're emotionally and mentally strong, you should never need such stuff.
Secondly, which is very obvious is the fact that they are not healthy ways to chill off.

A smoker or drinker can never be very strong minded or determined and can never match a strong-minded non-smoker/non-drinker, since the former class of people have already become slaves of stuff which give them 'temporary pleasure' and killing them silently and slowly.After a dose, they tend to think lighter and virtually free, though in reality they become more detached with the reality and gradually lose their inner strength & courage to face the harsh reality.Do you consider slavery and loss of inner strength and guts as cool, brave and manly?? If you've got the guts,u gotta face the world boldly, not with cowardly acts which ruin your senses temporarily (and gradually permanently), making you feel good.

Now comes the times of jubiliation.Why has champagne become such an inevitable part of every party? Why have alcohalic drinks become the life of get-togethers in moments of joy?for the reason that u get to feel 'out of the world' and enjoy?To a certain extent this may look okay, but not good enough.Can't we have the norm of only enjoying, forgeting everything else, without the need to drink or Smoke? And always be on your own, not giving a damn the world, as long as you consider yourself to be right? Why do we forget that we live for ourselves and not for anyone else? If a person follows these basic norms, I don't think he'd ever need to endulge in such activities.

If you love someone with all your heart, and if you're true to yourself, do you ever need to even think of other people of the opposite sex at all? There might be many people you might be attracted to, but there's always only one whom you really love and care about for a long time, if you're true to yourself.

After all this, do u still think I'm a kid?

are u just any other citizen?

all the time we keep complaining about our nation. We dont have the roads well.. political scenario is corrupt.. country is so poor.. etc etc.. before blaming the govt or the socio-political structure, just think in your own minds: what have you done for your country? who is responsible for all this? Am i not at all responsible for all this? have i exercised my right to vote correctly? no.. i never got the time to go out to the polling booth to vote. n lo!! It is me who has disrupted the very essence of the democratical system.the harsh reality is that most of the educated youths are like me.they dont bother when its time to elect ur govt,who is in turn responsible for lots of woes.
Talk about cleanliness. i always keep my home and work place as clean as possible. i even dispose all the scrap to a scrap-trader very frequently. but have i ever worried about where does that go? do i care about spitting on the roads or backyard, when nobody is watching? do i care not to smoke in a no-smoking zone when there is nobody to catch? what about pets? dont u let your pet shit in he open? and then your neighbour complains to municipal corporation about that cleanliness? how much can govt handle? don't we as citizens have some sense of responsibilty?
Everyone of us must understand his/her responsibities as conscentious citizens.

How are love,want and relationship related??

If you really love someone,does it have direct connection to wanting the same person? Love is such a selfless emotion in my opinion. Why is it that people associate this selfless emotion with selfish things like want, lust, desire and even relationship ( i mean the relationship which one thinks of in today's context like just getting physical).

If you are really a very good friend of someone,then love is actually a crucial ingredient of that friendship.I've still not realised where lies the boundary between love and friendship.

If someone is very good on these concepts,then do post back. i wanna get logical and sensible answers,not the routine,taken for granted answer types.