I have been in your situation many times and have felt the same way; welcome to the rest of the world.
Face it, those of us who are uncomfortable with the status quo and want more than the masses are outliers. This is a good thing! Here's what has worked for me...
Rising out of the ordinary and getting ahead is all about demand, not supply.
Supply: You can read all the blogs you want, read technical books, and study new languages and so what? You are supplying yourself with things that may or may not make any difference and no one else cares.
Demand: Find out what needs are not being met at your company. You can easily do this all the time without even being noticed, "under the radar" as they say. (You don't have to go to your boss looking for something.) They are desperate needs not being met everywhere; all you have to do is look. It may be a user, a customer, a way of doing business. Then fill that need. It's that simple. You will force yourself to learn whatever you have to to get that job done. Then do it again. And again. Before you know it, people will automatically know to come to you when nothing else works.
Business is about getting things done. Learn how to do that whether it's officially sanctioned or not. You will quickly rise above the masses and your life will never be the same.
A few notes:
1. Most people won't even realize what you're doing. For those that do, most will approve. For those that don't approve, ignore them.
2. With this approach, you will optimize your learning. You will learn what is needed, not what you think is cool.
3. You will become much more valuable for 2 reasons: you will expand your skill set and you will convert yourself from a doer to an achiever. The difference is subtle but huge.
Absolutely great advice here. Except for one problem:
"Before you know it, people will automatically know to come to you when nothing else works."
And then what? Ask for a raise? In the environment he is describing, it is likely his extra effort will not go unnoticed, but rather, unrewarded. What's worse, this extra effort may even become expected of him, without his receiving any additional compensation besides making his boss look good.
While I do find great satisfaction in making myself indispensable and particularly useful, and in the whole process of learning and implementing new things, I also find extreme irritation if it only works to set a new standard for what's expected of me. That's just my personal experience and personality. Perhaps there are more altruistic types that enjoy feeling like a more efficient cog, but for me, it sucks to feel like a cog at all.
That's not to say all is lost. Certainly being an achiever and an innovator are awesome qualities. Think of your current job as a framework to discover and deploy these things. I neglected to do this at my last job, but keep a list of all of the projects you took the initiative on, what new skills you had to acquire to achieve them, and the net benefit to the company. Myself, I always figured I'd remember all the awesome additional effort / personal touches I put on things, but I didn't, and for me, interview season is right around the corner.
Bottom line, if you're not progressing and learning from your coworkers on a regular basis, it's time to look for new options. In the meantime, give your best effort and take note of your triumphs.
You are concerned that "The reward for good work is more work"?
I must respectfully beg to differ. First, it may come with time rather than immediately, but such things often are the path to raises and promotions. Nothing in his original post would indicate it was not so at his company.
Now, if he really feels he has hit a ceiling at his company, that for whatever reason (politics, no room to move up, etc, etc) he really cannot get a raise or promotion there then he may want to think about leaving. But if he leaves just because most of his coworkers are 9-5 dayjob types then he is likely to be disappointed to find that it is the same in most other places.
If he really wants to be challenged by his coworkers and his environment is bothering him, then he needs to leave but he needs to look in very specific places to find that type of environment. He should look at start ups or research labs that are on the bleeding edge.
Otherwise, he should look to himself to find his own challenges and grow in his own ways, hopefully with a community outside of work to help him do that.
I agree with you and must add that if someone truly enjoys their job, more work is not an issue. Often, an employee that enjoys their job (truly enjoys it not merely saying they do) will welcome more work as long as it continues to challenge them and test their limits. If you did something mundane such as answering technical support telephone calls all day, for example, and you found that you enjoyed it, you might push yourself to answer as many calls per day as possible. The higher your numbers, the greater your pride in your work. On the other hand, if you only received two telephone calls per hour and spend the remainder of your time sitting around, every telephone call that arrived would interrupt your 'waste of time', and you would begin to hate it. Sometimes more work can be a blessing.
1. As part of the research for requirements for a new inventory package, I noticed that every pallet was counted by 3 different people and the lowest count was recorded. I worked with plant supervisors to fix the procedures. Management then realized that there was now no need for new million dollar software. They rewarded my effort and concern for the company with lots of great project work and money. Lesson: Look for the obvious first.
2. A user asked me to help solve her forecasting problem. The two of us sat down and designed the software to do it. I realized there was a parallel effort to do the same thing in another division (with an expensive purchased package), so I made my software work for both divisions. It took 3 weeks to write and people were very grateful. I was employee of the month and got a nice bonus. Lesson: Sometimes little things can solve big problems.
3. I noticed that warehouse pickers were bending and climbing ladders a lot, so I suggested modifying our inventory system to place the most popular items in bins between the knees and shoulders. The change took one week and made us 10% more efficient (a lot of money after a few months). I would have never thought of it if I hadn't been walking around, trying to understand how my software was being used. Lesson: Give yourself the chance to find opportunities.
Did you build anything that you later spun off into a better job or a side business?
Yes. Everything I learned using these methods went into 2 businesses: a small business software package and a consulting practice. If I hadn't stretched myself, who knows what cubicle I'd be sitting in today.
Thank you, dgallagher. I was having a crappy morning slogging through a lot of low level stuff, so I thought I'd take a break and drop by hn to see what was going on. Boy am I glad I did. Your comment made my day.
Thanks a lot for sharing those. I have found myself in the same position recently. And in order to overcome boredom, I started looking for broken things to fix in the area that I work in. I have been able to find a manual data entry process that goes into our Finance database. Talk about obvious!
I put a proposal together to the management with the $$$ impact ( and it comes to a million dollars!).
The amount just broke down all barriers for me. Nobody questions why I am doing this now. I have full liberty on how to execute this. I even got another developer dedicated to work on the project with me.
This is going to be completed for testing in another 3 weeks. We will see how this turns out.
I totally agree with edw519's suggestions and examples.
Your initiative will be rewarded.
this is so true.. just try to find projects within the company you work for that are (1) within you reach and (2) have the greatest impact. by this you'll learn, trive, supprise, and get great ideas for future businesses of you own.
The thing is, how do you get the right people to notice when you fix things like that which really are a problem?
I have a real problem doing this, it feels like so much boasting.
But on the other hand, it does get discouraging if there is no recognition for when you go above and beyond, when you just know that the extra effort you put in is a big reason things are not falling apart.
Face it, those of us who are uncomfortable with the status quo and want more than the masses are outliers. This is a good thing! Here's what has worked for me...
Rising out of the ordinary and getting ahead is all about demand, not supply.
Supply: You can read all the blogs you want, read technical books, and study new languages and so what? You are supplying yourself with things that may or may not make any difference and no one else cares.
Demand: Find out what needs are not being met at your company. You can easily do this all the time without even being noticed, "under the radar" as they say. (You don't have to go to your boss looking for something.) They are desperate needs not being met everywhere; all you have to do is look. It may be a user, a customer, a way of doing business. Then fill that need. It's that simple. You will force yourself to learn whatever you have to to get that job done. Then do it again. And again. Before you know it, people will automatically know to come to you when nothing else works.
Business is about getting things done. Learn how to do that whether it's officially sanctioned or not. You will quickly rise above the masses and your life will never be the same.
A few notes:
1. Most people won't even realize what you're doing. For those that do, most will approve. For those that don't approve, ignore them.
2. With this approach, you will optimize your learning. You will learn what is needed, not what you think is cool.
3. You will become much more valuable for 2 reasons: you will expand your skill set and you will convert yourself from a doer to an achiever. The difference is subtle but huge.