Work
02. 04. 2024
Slovenians have some interesting sayings. “He who does not work should not eat.” “No work, no food.” These sayings come from another time, another era. When a large part of the population was tied to working the land. Maybe today, little by little, it is coming back. In a completely different context, of course. Quite a few people have their own garden again, where they grow some vegetables. And how good those vegetables are. Although I am not so sure that it is always actually that much better than the one in the supermarket. I would attribute a lot of it to the effort and, last but not least, to the pride that we Slovenians are so lacking. I am not so sure that if someone put the same vegetables that you yourself have grown on a shop shelf and you bought them, you would have the same belief. The fact is that food in the supermarket, strange as it may sound, is under much more supervision than your home-grown food. It is only under the control of your eyes. Whereas food producers have to have a whole bunch of safeguards, analyses, controls, checks … I am not saying that everything is perfect in it. But the fact about product control is still valid. And that’s part of who we are. It is part of LOTRIČ Metrology that ensures that the measuring instruments used in analyses are appropriate, accurate (calibrated). All of this could be described by a quality infrastructure. Just as there is a road and rail infrastructure, there is also a quality infrastructure. You just don’t see it as roads and railways. In principle, this is a good sign, because if you don’t see the referee at the match, it means that he is doing his job well. I think that the quality infrastructure in Slovenia is doing a good job. Probably in the other parts of world as well. Not many people know much about it, apart from those of us who work in the system. So that you can go to the petrol station and fill up with the right fuel and pay for it at the same price as you have filled up in terms of quantity without worrying. So that you can walk into a shop and pick up your fruit, vegetables, meat and pay what you weigh without worrying. So that the pharmacy can mix the cream, the eye drops, correctly. So that they correctly quantify your electricity and water consumption. That’s why. That is why it is important that this system works. And it works. Believe me. Mistakes do happen, but they don’t have to happen again and again.
“Whoever works makes mistakes.” The hardest thing to do is nothing. You don’t even know when you’re free. When you’re done. Work gives meaning to people. Not any work makes sense, to not be misunderstood. The best work is the kind you enjoy. That’s when time passes more quickly. A friend once said to me: “I like going to work in the morning very much and without any problems. It’s much harder to wait eight hours to go home.” Apparently, only 20 % of people enjoy their job. I cannot imagine doing something I do not enjoy. I was once asked at an “Engineers We Will Be” event what I thought of my job. Pure pleasure was my answer even then. That’s not to say that there are no hard days, that it’s always like that. But most of the time it is, and that’s what makes up for it. Probably my turning point was one of the many seminars I have listened to in my time so far. By the way, every seminar, no matter how inconsequential, has something to give. We never get direct solutions, that is utopia. But if we have our head in the matter, then we will get an idea based on something the lecturer says. And my advice. Attend all the seminars they enable you to attend. All of them, and I stress again, if they are so pointless. And they never are. If nothing else, meet new people, make new connections. To return to the point. At one of the lectures organised by my company, it was stated. “Who can put me in a bad mood? Who? No one, no one at all, except myself.” And that made me think. Is that really the case? Today I can say that it is so true. With a little brain training, repeating what I have heard, I can say today that this is absolutely true. People know exactly that if they want to have muscles, they have to train. But they do not associate it in the same way with their brain, with their mental fitness. The brain also needs training. It needs to put in the work. You think that writing was a pleasure for me at first. I could barely get it together and get started. At just the fourth letter, I would already say that it is a pleasure to share my thoughts with you. Basically, I write for my own sake, to improve that part too. If I attract someone else in between, help them in any way, so much the better.
Mental health is much more important than people think. It’s only when we get sick that we really get it. And it all starts with our mental health. My mentor always stressed that when we get sick, the body puts all its efforts into healing itself. That’s when we are not really able to have relationships with other people. We simply aren’t. We lie and feel sorry for ourselves. So, when we are healthy, we focus our energy on making sure others don’t get sick, are happy and feel good in our presence. That is what companies should be doing. In fact, the only and main task of any manager is to keep his employees happy. His main virtue, on the other hand, is to be able to convince his boss that he needs something. That is why it took me a while. I was kind of pushed into the water. No experience, no knowledge of management. It was a difficult first few years, as far as management was concerned. Too often we think that people know how to lead, that they have these skills. But we are not born with that. These are their own, quite different skills. What helped me was that I knew everything technically and I could not be easily fooled. It helped my staff to see me as a leader. But we have to take the first step ourselves. To understand ourselves as a leader. That is not easy. Commanding is not leading. It is not. Commanding leads to dissatisfaction. Even as a child you needed some kind of stimulation to get a job done. What I have learned over the years is one fact. A threat without a punishment is a reward. Think about it. A child at the age of five in a shop with a parent. Because the parent doesn’t want to buy it, the child starts blackmailing him. He starts to shudder or cry. Because you are not comfortable, you threaten that if he is not good enough, he will not get the lollipop. But the child persists because he doesn’t understand the world as we adults do. And he keeps on blackmailing. Remind him once, twice, five times. Then buy him a lollipop to make peace. What message have you given the child? Bad. My advice. Don’t be blackmailed. One way or another. People will appreciate you if you have clear principles that don’t change. I am by no means trying to say that threats are the way to go, but sooner or later you have to face these situations. But just remember the story of the child in the shop. We have all been there or been there. We all have.
In my career, I can say that I have been lucky. Although I don’t actually believe in luck. It is overrated. Because what is luck? You can’t even explain it very well. Happiness comes with hard work, which leads to satisfaction, that feeling that you are valued, that you are important, that people can rely on you. Happiness comes with responsibility. To learn something, I don’t know today. For me, a lot of satisfaction lately comes from passing on knowledge to others. To be able to share my experience. Breeding, as I say. When you help someone to come up with a solution on their own. Not by giving them a solution. People need to be taught to catch fish, not to be given fish. If you think about what you are doing, you learn. I once heard someone say, “A good worker will think at home about what he is going to do at work, not the other way round, at work about what he is going to do at home”. For me, every job is an honourable job. Everyone has to do his or her part, otherwise sooner or later there will be a hole. There is too much disrespect for certain jobs. Being a cleaner is as honourable as being an aerospace engineer. Who do you think cleans that same aerospace engineer’s toilet? Who takes his rubbish away? Who changes his water pipe? Why is it that some people expect people to respect them, but they are incapable of doing so. They say the most about themselves. About their own limitations. And these are the people to fear. These people need to be told that they are not the only ones in this world who have done something. Or that what they are doing is bad.
This is not just true for people in office. It also applies the other way around, to people in production. We often hear “they’re up there”. I find the phrase itself very interesting and offensive at the same time. Offices really are normally “up there”. For a very simple reason. Because it is much easier to carry yourself upstairs, as opposed to machines or materials. Conversely, being on top does not mean they are more important. It is true that they were probably once willing to take on more responsibility. Being a leader does not mean less work, it means more work. You just have to try. I do not have an office and I am in the middle of our main process. Because I want to at least have a sense of what is happening on a daily basis. If I am not already in the middle of it. To feel our pulse. Speaking of life. They are often labelled as the ones who do little or nothing. Who do not do the right thing. Who are not worthy of being up there. Allow these people to feel what it means to be up there. Let them do all your tasks for one day, or one week, or better, one month. Let them take on your responsibilities. It will quickly become clear that their sentences have no real basis. I was once asked by a (now ex-) employee why he got such a bad monthly review. I explained it to him in a nice long and broad way. But he did not agree with me. You know that statistically, on average, men rate themselves better than they really are, and conversely women rate themselves worse. I suggested to him that next month he should write the evaluations for all the employees instead of me. So far, he has agreed. But when I told him that everyone would know that he would write the evaluations, he didn’t like it so much anymore and said that then he wasn’t going to do it. It will be no different. Even otherwise, all the staff know who writes the evaluation when I write it. Interesting. How little responsibility we humans are generally willing to take. As little as possible. Humans are actually lazy animals (not literally). I count myself among the lazier ones when it comes to physical work. But mentally I think a lot about all sorts of things. When you understand something better, it is much easier. Understanding each other is mostly the reason for “them up there”. So, give people information, show them what you are doing and they will understand you much quicker than you think now.
Primož
Next time, 17th of April 2024, ETALON