Joie de Vivre - exuberant excitement for life. Wait a second, is it even possible to have that feeling at work? Can anyone achieve this at all? Not every moment in life can be so fulfilling and exciting. I think we have moments that can be. And those moments mostly happen outside of work. Like graduating from college, getting married, having a baby, etc. Is joie de vivre possible at work? I think so.
We may never experience JDV in a meeting or during a performance appraisal. But we might, just maybe experience it at other times while at work.
For example, I do a lot of shell scripting at work to automate a process, monitor a server, send alerts, etc. The act of coding isn't JDV but the outcome can be. I've often worked through lunch just to complete a function in a script that was giving me fits. It was at that moment when I FINALLY got it to work that I felt a little JDV. When my code finally did what I wanted it to do and it worked flawlessly I would throw my arms up in victory and lean back in my chair. Pretty lame huh?
It's moments like that we can achieve JDV at work.
Another time I was digging and digging into a security issue. It was one of those zero-day vulnerabilities of which there was no work around or patch for yet. I knew the application was highly configurable and the vulnerability only affected this one small feature buried deep in its configuration. After clicking and digging, researching and reading I found the vulnerable feature and turned it OFF. Crisis resolved. Victory lap around the building followed shortly afterwards.
Where it's difficult to experience JDV at work can be in those LONG projects that never end or with little to celebrate. My hats off to those who are stuck on the long treadmill at work with few victories to celebrate.
You may have experienced JDV at work lately - tell me what it was that allowed you a moment of celebration.
No comments:
Post a Comment