{"id":17,"date":"2007-03-17T16:31:59","date_gmt":"2007-03-17T15:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/judykat.com\/ken\/2007\/03\/17\/youre-an-experiment\/"},"modified":"2010-09-06T06:26:20","modified_gmt":"2010-09-06T10:26:20","slug":"youre-an-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/youre-an-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"You&#8217;re an Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m on the management side of the labor divide and yet I&#8217;ve never held a position my parents would consider a permanent job. To work these days is effectively to be <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/At-will\">employed at will<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I once had a senior executive tell me that my team was an experiment. To prove the value of development staff, we had to replace an outsource, maintain their legacy applications, and deliver a challenging new project. If we failed, next year&#8217;s budget would go to re-establishing the outsource.<\/p>\n<p>We faced a hard date, skeptical clients and a steep learning curve but we had an honest leader, the means to succeed and a way of measuring it. All we had to do was execute. <\/p>\n<p>I never felt more control over my fate. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0471714402?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=judykatcom-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0471714402\" title=\"Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/047171440201_aa_sctzzzzzzz_.jpg\" alt=\"Just Enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=judykatcom-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0471714402\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/>A family friend works for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.doctorswithoutborders.org\/\" title=\"MSF-USA\">Doctors Without Borders<\/a>. His labor benefits society in ways that will outlive him. In the balancing act that is my life &#8212; privileged by world if not New York standards &#8212; I&#8217;ve deferred, if not entirely foregone legacy. My job is about significance and achievement. Significance comes in providing for my family, not only a biological imperative but a profound joy. <\/p>\n<p>Achievement rests in approaching each year as if it were an experiment. What accomplishment justifies my continued employment? What one thing should I do to materially advance the interests of my employer, our customers and\/or my team? It&#8217;s the chart of that course that makes me show up in the morning and it&#8217;s sightings along the way that allow me to sleep at night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m on the management side of the labor divide and yet I&#8217;ve never held a position my parents would consider a permanent job. To work these days is effectively to be employed at will. I once had a senior executive &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/youre-an-experiment\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[11,158,6,157,159,148],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","tag-agile-management","tag-doctors-without-borders","tag-good-work","tag-legacy-applications","tag-new-york","tag-senior-executive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/03\/047171440201_aa_sctzzzzzzz_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2207,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/2207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/judykat.com\/ken-judy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}