Being The Dumping Ground

Assalamualaikum w.b.t. and Greetings.

When I moved to Germany and rented my very first house here, one of the most dreaded tasks was throwing away the garbage. Yes. That simple task.

I have to be specific in throwing the garbage. Certain of them go to a certain bin, and if I do it wrong, I could potentially be fined. Not to mention that there are neighbors eyeing my activity, and I have a good name to uphold. My name, family name, country’s name and my religion.

Once I understood the process, everything felt natural and automated, and I just throw the garbage without the need to think about it that much anymore.

Ironically,

the dumping ground is us.

Yes, you and me.

Just like the dumping ground, it gets so efficient, and I can start focusing on other tasks in my life, that it becomes invisible.

Or is it?

You Have Your Right

First of all, we are not a dumping ground. Or a trash can. That is just an example, but ironically, one that is easy to understand too.

And my next point is, we all have our own rights.

Just like the dumping ground.

Do you know that at times, the sanitation workers in Berlin will form a protest? And when they do, oh boy, would your life look like a literal mess.

What used to look nice and clean, now you have to thread in between the garbage to throw your own garbage. What once was a clean city now smells so bad and is a sore eye.

You never knew how much their work means in your life.

Until they protest, or worse: left.

But on the other hand, I did not even know how important their work was at first. I was so focused on my daily life, where I had other pressing matters to attend to, that I forgot how each of those around me had such a big impact.

Throwing garbage is also a pressing matter. I just did not notice.

You matter.

Speak Your Right

I did not think much of a sanitation worker until I migrated to Berlin.

What a respected job. They do it professionally. They clean up everything. And they are reliable.

I definitely would not want them to ‘not’ do their job. It is just that impactful.

But do you know, YOU are also making an impact not only in your work, but also in your life?

It is easy to look at ourselves as a “dumping ground” when it is not true.

Our manager often ‘dumps’ everything onto us, as we become more efficient, the tasks are then even stacking up more and more towards us.

In fact, this speaks to the fact that we are:

Reliable.
Efficient.
Silent hero.
Get things done.

Yes, you can make a poster out of that one. You are doing an important job in your day-to-day life, and it is very easy for others to overlook how efficient you are. It is also one of the reasons most managers and employers are shocked when an employee suddenly wants to resign.

The cycle was so efficient, they thought it would continue forever until we die.

But they guess wrong.

It is such a drastic measure to submit a resignation. On top of the company’s existing pressing matters and an important project unfolding, “YOU”, the important piece of the puzzle, is now planning to leave.

Just imagine if all sanitation workers in Berlin protest when there is a Christmas market next week!

They protest. They speak their rights.

Not only these workers, but also other workers, such as train conductors also did their protests, which is another crucial part of the Berlin public network. Just search for the news around this, and everyone in Berlin dreaded when this happened.

But this is only one part of the equation.

Speak. YOUR. Rights!

But if I were to suggest, protests are usually the last piece we would play. When all the other routes have been exhausted, this is the last way to voice out.

Just like resigning.

So, we will now explore how to leverage all of our options before we take such a drastic measure, when a company does not “seem” to appreciate our work. As a slight hint, they do appreciate, at least any good employers will.

Start by Appreciating Yourself

Have you looked at how a child, a student, gets home so happy and tipsy, and presents their drawing to their parents?

The drawings are often not like Da Vinci or professional artists, yet they drew anyway and did their best in drawing them.

They have such high confidence, with whatever their skills were at the time, and they celebrate themselves by sharing such great drawings with their loved ones.

When was the last time you appreciated yourself? And when was the last time you shared your success with your loved ones?

As we grow, we rarely do this anymore, even though it is important to us.

Why didn’t we do that anymore?

Recently, I was filling up my brag list, and I believe you should do the same. Pick up any text editor that you like, or any tool, and start investing in yourself. List down all your successes in such a list, even the small ones.

If the sanitation worker created a checklist of everytime they attend to the bin and clean the city, the list will grow huge and can be presented at a town hall where everyone can appreciate such work.

I often at times do this with my newsletter.

There are times when I do not feel like writing, but then I look at my checklist for each week I write the newsletter, and then the gear just fires up even more. Seeing physically how far I’ve come makes me feel bad to break that consistency.

I want to preserve that.
I want to grow the list even more.
I want to start appreciating ‘me’ more.

The sanitation worker woke up so early so that everyone would not walk on the sludge and dirt.

That was a long piece of text to read, but these are some items we all can start with today without delay.

• Give yourself a cool title: This forces you to look at yourself from a truly different perspective. Give yourself a few minutes to come up with a name for yourself. Legacy code whisperer, cross-team peacekeeper, bug exorcist, system beautifier, guardian of the team. Screw “L1, L2, L3, L4” positions.

• Brag list or Impact Book: You earned that, sometimes even you are lost in your success, that you feel like you achieved nothing. You are, you are progressing. You just need a second to write down and acknowledge that.

• Build “Work Monuments”: Each time you achieve something, create something tangible or physical out of it. Unlike a brag list, which is a list, this is the physical evidence of it.

• Say “No”, or “Not Me”: This is your protest, this is you giving justice to yourself. Remember, in the last few newsletters, I mentioned that what we do is a scale. If everything is heavy on our side of the scale, and the other part is so light, something is wrong, or we are not saying “no” often enough. Say no, but with empathy and reasoning too, not a harsh and rude one.

• Make it a ritual weekly: We are drowned in our day-to-day tasks, but surprisingly, when we think and see it on a ‘weekly’ scale, it is bearable and gives us breathing room. Day = busy, week = recuperate. Take a small time of the week to perform the above points, to conclude what you have achieved.

Perspective is gold.

Build “Leverage Assets”

In every part of our lives as workers in the system, there are numerous repetitive tasks. What I used to dread the most was being given repeated tasks.

“I thought I did this already. Why me again?”

Start asking this question instead.

Why don’t we automate them?
Why don’t we delegate them?
Why don’t we create a template for them?

It is so, so easy to get lost in our busy schedule, that we slowly go into ‘autopilot’ mode, and this is the bad kind of autopilot.

“Yes, sure, just give me the task.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

If you do that 10x times a week, it is not a surprise we are burnt out and feel angry at our work!

What I would advise is:

PAUSE

If you play a strategy game, like one I enjoy recently, Oxygen Not Included, it is easy to press the 3x speed and just let my mind ‘autopilot’ the whole thing. Then my colony died one by one, and I started only then to stop and pause, and plan wisely.

Give yourself some time to pause, to think.

Do not just say yes instantly.
Stop autonomously nodding.

I learned to make funny facial expressions when I want others to know I’m thinking. “You stop right there, I am thinking right now.”

When I do not understand, I would say so and not just say yes to please others.

Once you have mastered this, you can start building your leverage assets.

Look into automating your work. Identify the repetitive manual tasks that you hate, and start automating them. There are a lot of AI tools out there, delegate what you can to them.

Personally, I have led numerous projects to success, not because I do everything alone. Not at all. I work alongside great teammates and delegate to their expertise. I delegate business analysis to our BA and trust his expertise in the field. I don’t perform everything on my own, but I ask how an existing employee performs their work currently. I brainstorm and architect with great engineers and technical leads shoulder to shoulder.

I am not alone.
I have tools.
I am meaningful.

Once you start accepting this, you will start making room for more impactful works, where solving them will truly reward your career.

Is It One-Sided?

Whatever you’re doing right now, it will only benefit your manager and employer, right? There is not a single piece of the cake for you.

We are just the cog in the wheel.

Well, here is the truth.

If you’re on autopilot, then yes.
If you’re intentional, not necessarily.

Autopiloting an airplane will require tremendous planning. Critical resource such as fuel consumption, engine checks, turbulence and all of that is not an easy feat. Even autopilot requires proper planning.

And here we are, autopilotting like a madman with no limit, and that is not good! That explains why we are burning the oil so fast and exhausting ourselves easily.

Remember.

PAUSE

Take a moment in every decision, and do not accept everything blindly. Do not simply follow the stream, where it will end up who knows where.

If you can be conscience of your decision, you then own your trajectory.

It is now not a one-sided benefit, but instead a respected transaction between professionals.

We are not a garbage cleaner.
We are superheroes to our own selves.

Own your perspective, own your narrative.

If you let others dictate even this, then we are at a loss and need a reset.

As always, I pray that Allah s.w.t. blesses all of my readers, eases every hardship that you are facing right now, and gives you good news soon.