The Three C's of Meaningful Work

I have a great community at work. People I would hire to work with me in a heartbeat. I work in a very high impact area. I am constantly challenged by having to learn new things to accomplish my tasks…

You would think management hates us though. My manager has told me that unit tests are a waste of the company’s time. That we should leave them to the software team (I am a data scientist), despite us repeatedly fixing bugs easily identifiable via unit tests in the wee hours of the night during a managerial meltdown. Several of my teammates have advocated for a think first type second approach to our development only to be told by the higher ups that “at this company, I’m known for getting shit done and I won’t let you stop me.” I’ve heard that anyone hired after 2020 doesn’t really know how to work hard because they’ve been “soft” on us since then (they are reeling back in control with RTO). Company surveys show that people are wildly unhappy on my team, yet managements response is to shrug and say “you need to own your experience at this company.”

Maybe I’m removing myself from potential sainthood, but no amount of abuse is worth taking for meaningful work. Companies like to tout their meaningful work as a glorified guilt trip much like sports teams often like to underpay analytics folks since they’re relying on your innate interest in the position as a reason not to pay you market value. As the article states, meaningful work can be found anywhere. Do not let your company define meaningful work for you.

What about autonomy, mastery, purpose, and novelty?

There is a difference between finding motivation and finding meaning (which might include looking backward as well as forward) but I think they are related.

Challenge seems related to mastery, but contribution doesn't seem to be quite the same as purpose. Autonomy and novelty seem to be left out entirely.