Hustle culture and the unending desire to climb the Corporate Ladder

 With the emerging creator economy, the word on the street is HUSTLE HUSTLE HUSTLE!!

If you are not working on a gig then you are letting your future, the good days slip right through your fingers. This has given birth to the term "Hustle Culture" which am not sure is a real term but it better be. 

The other day l was scrolling through youtube, something l normally do to ignite the fire to create videos again but somehow, it's not working, lol.

Well, l stumbled on this video talking about the Cost of Hustle culture and it sparked all the hatred l have previously had for people who romanticise hard work. 

You can't turn down a job because it requires you to work Monday to Saturday

You are just fresh from school you will have to do a lot of dirty work to finally get where you want to be (the corporate ladder)

You don't have the skills yet, maybe accept unpaid internships (even when the workload is for a paid position)

A monthly salary will not take you anywhere, you have to create a side gig that you can turn into a self-sustaining project after a while

The nonstop working to the extent that even the gigs you start out of passion end up being corrupted because it is now work. You can't stop analyzing why money is not coming in, why maybe your flowers no longer sprout at the same time. 

The number of times l have felt guilty because am not doing anything "productive" on a Monday is overwhelming but when l get to think back to that last-minute edit l had to do on a piece at 9pm on a Friday night because the client wanted it urgently l gladly laze my Monday away. 

That constant "grind" is not going to be of any use if your body can't handle the stress within 5 years. That talk of "5 years of hard work will set you 10 years ahead in your life", what if you don't make it to 10 years? How about you live your life as you work on it? 

A friend of mine recently quit her job after being there for not even 3 months. 

Fresh out of school even before she graduated she was chanced to land a job that required her to work Monday to Sunday, 8 am to 8pm! 

There's no way you are going to be productive in that kind of work because if you are not working, you are thinking about the work that's awaiting you. If you tell me that's a way to live "so you can have a brighter future" am gonna be mad.

When it comes to being fresh out of school, it gets worse. I already talked about knowing which bottom to start at. Not every little job opportunity will advance your career. 

Please keep in mind that;

Working hard and working smart are totally different things

You can have your dream life while working a 9 to 5

It is okay if you have no desire to climb the corporate ladder

It is also okay if you have no desire to work a 9 to 5

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur 

Rest is not earned but deserved, allow your body to rest before it forces itself to

On a random Monday morning checking to see whether my boots still fit

Read More Related Posts;

• Staring at the Bottom to build your Career

How to Thrive in Tech.

 

The Technology (Tech) Field is one that has tremendously grown in the past decades following numerous technologies and tech start-ups. with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an extensive shift in the tech field and how it has influenced most operations in other different fields. The need to thrive in this field and not just be mediocre or lose your mind is highly necessitated. 

In our class orientation today, did l mention am a student at Refactory? Okay, not necessary, we were elated to hear from Ronald K Sebuhinja, Chief Technical Officer at Yo Uganda, and as someone who has been in the tech field for a while now, his presentation was mind-boggling!

So how can you ace your way through this tech field? 

Have a passion for the field. 

Not just passion for coding but passion for the ever-changing technologies. Take it upon yourself to find out what the latest tech invention is, what programming language is selling like hot cakes. The tech field and late nights go hand in hand and if your passion can't see you through the late nights, you might never succeed. 

Acquire Knowledge. 

Learn as much as you can, don't fall back on that one programming language you were first introduced to. Learn how to achieve the same tasks in a different language. Have it on a virtual machine so you don't dismantle your perfect setup. 

Familiarize yourself with the whole pipeline of production, from the idealization, planning, development to deployment. The tech field is constantly changing don't limit yourself to just coding but be flexible and move with the changes. 

Identify what you're good at. 

Scale down what you like and what you are actually good at and strengthen the area you're already excelling at. If you are strong at back-end development, explore more in that. Forcing yourself in a field you are not genuinely good at could end up stalling your overall development progress. 

Practice, practice, practice. 

You will never know what is missing in your code if you don't write it down. Practice as often as you can, code a complete website and deploy it on any of the free hosting platforms. Share your work on platforms like GitHub and get feedback. Write documentation for your programs, make it look like a real gig, and do it to the "customer's" satisfaction. 

While you're at the practice, check out other services in the field and see how they run, could you manipulate a certain platform that you just came across?  Practice both as a tech user as well as a tech developer. 

Network. 

Most of the opportunities will always come easily through the networks you have cultivated. Get out of your introverted programmer mode and join tech communities, locally and internationally. Interact with your idols in the tech field, attend tech seminars or in the modern-day, webinars. These will even introduce you to new tech findings that you would have never known about or maybe have taken longer to know about. 

Take care of your health. 

Having established that the tech field and late nights go hand in hand, very many developers have traded their health, sleep, relationships for perfect code. Take breaks before your body demands them, move upcountry for 5 days without your computer, love and accept to be loved, get married, raise a dog with someone you love. Generally have a life outside your code and computers. 

Consistently be on the lookout for opportunities. 

Programming opportunities are literally available in everything, whatever field. It could be the commerce sector, there's now the association with tech, which is e-commerce. Look out for what you can transform to technology, and that is almost everything. Seek remote freelance opportunities, when you are sure of what you can provide. This will, in turn, keep you growing in the tech field.

May the force of tech be with you as you thrive in this field.