Doing a good job or being a good soldier

It won't be new for most of us in your career there is a time you will be thinking whether I should do a good job or just be a good soldier - do what I am told.

Things aren't that straightforward I am afraid.

We all have free will (actually, this might be the reason why most of us spend most of our lives moaning about most of the things). Hence everyone of us has a different view of even the same matter, not mention people at different roles will take their interests at different places. Managers are generally not interested in what you are doing, I mean it. It is not because managers don't care about what you do, it is they can't. A good manage knows how to keep productivity (by providing necessary equipment, pressing the motivation button, getting rid of whatever it is in the way, etc). So if next time your manager comes to you to chat about how much they care about you as a person. Take it in this way:

First, he respects you and value what you do for the team.

Second, you are not friends, he is trying to find out whether your productivity is maintained or not and what he could help if otherwise.

Coming back to the dilemma, it is quite easy to get to the situation that you believe you know what is the 'best' route to get the result while your boss is just acting like an asshole. You come back home and complain to your wife, "why the heck my bosses are always stupid assholes". Admit it, we all do. However, if you calm down and think it over, you will find out that there is no such thing as right or wrong - your boss has his view, his priority, his take on the matter, his weighting algorithm on things. What appears to you as a big deal might be just a pawn on his chess board after all. What you think is a trivial bug and not even worth to be fixed in next release might be the biggest complained point of the product. Guess what, as long as you and him are different person, different role, this will manifest itself everywhere in the Universe. So stop being disrespectful to your boss' mum and start to find the best way to communicate what your take from your point of view, meantime, try to consider, or just ask, about your boss' other balls in his court to see whether you have missed something. Let's be honest here, your boss might be also scream in his mind thinking about what the fuck are you doing. This might be a good step forward for your relationship.

Above we assumed that you have taken the positive approach. Yes, you hear it right, positive approach. Moaning and yelling is positive! Trust me! If you do, you are still trying to do a good job. Just be careful, many cells of us like to use this as an excuse that "you know what, I am angry because I care; I am frustrated because I have come across so many obstacles, I care a lot about this business". This is bullshit, totally bullshit. If one really cares, he doesn't just talk and moan, he takes a step further, getting things done.

Okay, now we have Mr. Negativity.

"I will do what I was told, only I was told. Guess what, I am not responsible if problem happened, I already said this is not gonna work..." This is one of the most typical responses you would get. To clarify, there are two groups of people here. Some of them actually think there is a better way, and the problem is in their boss. Basically they believe the ability of their boss hinges the success. Although we all know that is not true. I believe some people are bosses for a reason, a good one, generally they have some capabilities you don't have, it is not one of those lucky number things. If one really believes probability, one should know luck doesn't exist. Anyhow, this group of Mr. Negativity decides the easiest way is to be a good soldier, well, maybe just a soldier, to the hell with being good.

This is no worse than the second group of Mr. Negativity, my opinion. There are people who really know how to take advantage of disconsent or opportunities of disagreeing. They don't know what a better way would be, they don't have another suggestion, they don't even have an opinion. No, that's not totally true, they do have an opinion - to use disagreement as guise to not having one. I guess it is quite obvious right now that this is not my favorite type of situation. To quote Prison Break, these are people who really are sufferring in the "capativity of negativity". My suggestion to this is, if you don't think you can change them, get rid of them, ASAP, before they jepodise the rest of your good crops.