At my company, I accrue 3 weeks worth of paid time off a year. This is a lot of vacation time! My manager is also very good and allows us to TAKE our vacation.
I just came back from a 1 week trip to Hawaii. Sadly this trip came right on the heels of my negative performance review. This review really hung over my head during this trip. I think a point that really stung from my review was my manager saying "Because you're still an inexperienced programmer, you didn't design for all the cases in your code." I spent quite a few moments mulling over what this review means, thinking over what my work ethic is and trying to pinpoint what I want in my career and taking stock of my skill-set.
As a white collar worker, I am stuck in this position: I can be assigned exciting projects that challenge me to grow but that are loaded with pressure and stress. Or I can be assigned boring projects, that have little pressure but makes me unmotivated to work.
Ultimately, I want to be respected by my peers for my technical skills and my professional attitude. But I don't want projects that keep me up at night and cause my nightmares. Like I said before, I really want to leave work at work. That way I can focus on my family when I get home.
But what kind of engineer would I be if I never grew my technical skillset and shied away from hard projects? Maybe I should embrace boring projects at work, and work on expanding my technical skills on my own free time? Is it realistic to think that I will never be assigned a "hard projects?" Maybe I shouldn't be an engineer? Maybe I should try to start a side business.
I really don't know the answer. These are just some thoughts.
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