Week 10, 2025 - Busy-ness

Song of the week:

Thoughts

Anyone who knows me, likely knows I work a lot. I sacrifice a lot of 'friend' time for work because it's so all-consuming. I'm not a career-ladder specialist trying to hit the highs of executive title bingo. Nor am I trying to swallow a small countries' GDP per year into my bank account (though that would be nice). I'm just built to work; and work a lot.

I think it stems from my background. Moreso my parents' background. My dad grew up in Raheny, and my mum in Stoneybatter. Both areas that today would be phenomenal results. But in the 60s and 70s, they were not the middle class utopia they appear to be today. My dad worked in one job his entire career in effect, though through acquisition and shifts in tech, it appears he moved around. But he did no such thing. He started at the Dept. of Post & Telegraphs, which taught him to drive and sent him to college. That became Telecom Éireann. I distinctly remember him getting a call during the 6 O'Clock news about a big shift in the company. He chose to pivot to an engineer in mobile telecomms, in the to-be-rebranded-and-upgraded Eircell. I remember being in school and giving his ~40 year old man advice on what effectively was "yolo." I give myself that advice a lot. Eventually that was acquired by Vodafone. And then the techie/networking bit was spun out as it's own entity as telecomms went from sexy tech stuff that we recognise in my world today, to commoditised retail.

I say all of that because my parents came from working class areas. And while my dad was successful, it was not born of a sense that we are smart and capable. I have never felt smart of capable. I just feel the gut need to work harder to get over the fact that everyone else is smarter and more capable than I am.

I realise that sounds like either I'm fishing for some compliments (I hate compliments, birthdays or attention so that'll never be true) or delusional. From any reasonable standpoint, I'm probably delusional in some scenarios. Experience and age in my work and personal life means I'm probably not always the dumbest one in the room. But I'd rather be ignorant to that and work harder, constantly ask questions and be in a learning/growth mode all the time.

It's one of the reasons I pivoted my ostensibly very-similar tech career a few years ago. $job meant I was carrying basically the same career trajectory. Similar title, output, role, position, etc. But the company is in such an insanely different space to $previous_job that I had to completely rethink myself, my context and learn an awful lot. About 4 years since that move, I'm finally feeling more comfortable in my skin. Give it a few more years and I'll either be bored and move on, or shift to another career in the same company given how utterly mad the industry we're in is.

And that's why I mentioned my dad's career. He never actually applied for jobs or did anything to pivot. The world rotated around him and he just worked at it.

I still pine after starting my own small/mid-sized business in the automotive space. I love the idea of having a few fancy sheds in a field somewhere in Ireland thinking through the challenge of making old cars new again for fancy clients. I've no skill in that space. But skill and ability, as I mention, is not the challenge. Work ethic is.

And this is the crux of my point. I'm hiring now. And I also get to see a lot of younger folks come up through the ranks. And very, extremely privileged, smart and capable young men and women will wind up with mediocre careers. Because some entered the workplace filled with privilege and started too high and never actually soaked in the message about Icarus. And in some other cases, because their intellect and ability (and worldliness -- 24 year olds are so much more worldly than I ever was!) is in the way of any work ethic.

TLDR, you can be an eejit and be successful if you just work harder than the other guy. And success is measured by you. Not anyone else.

Photo of the week

(via my flickr)

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Published on: 8th March, 2025

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