My friends in software industry, this post is for all of you who are below the level of TL.

We all do the work assigned to us by our supervisor or Lead or whatever. It might so happen that you have started your career newly, or the project is new for u, or the lead is new guy etc., in short there is something new in atmosphere. So when your lead assigns the work to you, you might do it with great deal of excitement, enthusiasm etc etc…. and u might be well praised for your hard work by your TL. In order to get the same congratulatory words or praises we keep on accepting more and more work thus sacrificing our personal life. At the max what we might get is the words “You are really doing a great Job. Keep it up”.

Here is the trap. The sentence “You are really doing a great Job. Keep it up”. Actually means “ Come on my Bakra, u r making my life a pleasure” !!!!! you might get surprised, but this is the reality. You don’t get rewarded for taking more work. Instead u will be putting yourself into trouble. What will happen is that by accepting more & more work you will be increasing the expectation level of Your lead. Imagine that on some particular day you were unable to accept the work request for some reason, and this continues for some days like that. At this point, your lead will forget all the impression u created earlier, because u are failing to meet the expectation level u had set by yourself. Meanwhile the guy who had the track record of accepting the work in certain limits i.e not more or not less will get good feedback from your boss for his consistency level. This is one of the major setbacks. You will stand as looser both in your personal life ( i.e health, relationship, career growth plan etc) and work life.

Instead, work in smart way. Accept the job keeping in mind your limits and personal and other commitments. Whatever work you do, please let your supervisor be aware of that. This will help your supervisor to know what you are doing. Don’t be afraid to reject the work for any genuine reason. And do never suppress the Genuine reason while accepting work reluctantly.

You are really doing a great Job. Keep it up” = “ Come on my Bakra,” applies in every walk of life. In home also. If your neighbor thanks you for helping him/her it actually means “ Thank god , this Bakra made my life easy”. I’ll give you guys an homework, please recollect the incidents in your life where anyone has thanked you profusely for helping them. Just look whether the above analogy can be applied on them. Please exclude your near and dear ones like close friends, parents etc from this. Because it is mutual help that exists there.

I know its too early for me to comment about the software work life now ( I’m just 1year + 1 month old in this industry). I’m open to all critics. All kind of comments to correct myself is duly welcomed.