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Saturday, October 2, 2010

Are you having fun @ work ?

Most of us are great at what we do in our jobs, either working for some firm or working on our own ventures. But, big question is do we all enjoy what we do and have fun doing it.

One of the criticisms we hear quite often is about the lack of freedom to be creative at enterprises. Its not at all unusual for someone working in an enterprise to say this (we often hear it), but it appears this happens in even smaller businesses too.   37signals seems to be no exception.

It’s interesting to think about how when a project is a hobby, it frees our mind up somehow to show more personality—to be more playful. Then when it’s time for “professional” work everything gets buttoned up and grayed out.

- “Personality vs Professionalism”, Ryan, 37signals

As the organization grows bigger, it appears that it implicitly imposes certain boundaries on free and personal expression towards more ‘professional’ or formal expression, which could  be totally boring at some point.

On a related note, talking about having fun at what we do or enjoy doing it, like my father says, most of the criticism about corporate/work life by entrepreneurs and independent consultants have something to do with ownership. Because ownership changes the whole perspective of looking at things. 

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