More Tickets for Your People Work Backlog

The fact that I am losing followers on this newsletter every time I go on a people-related rant is in fact, good news. It’s very freeing, it means the ones of you who stayed aren’t looking for a certain narrative to “share internally” and aren’t afraid of the reality of the human work. In fact, I’d wager anyone reading this is aware of their Human Debt and is trying to keep it in mind and at least not create more if not lower it which is a lot more than can be said about some other functions and job titles in the enterprise.

You already know that on here all you’ll “hear” is how your CI/CD pipe is worthless if there is no people work continuous improvement to speak of. You expect my demands and my pleas to help your people because no one else will. You’re aware I believe you’re their only hope not to be actively disengaged and unhappy while burning out and living with dread and fears.

I wrote a thing in the other newsletter this Monday and unsurprisingly, as they don’t have the same resilience and goodwill, it ruffled some feathers. I was calling out the abuse that many enterprises inflict on their own people. Of course, nobody wants to own up and identify with that. No one wants to admit they are indeed the cause of heartache to other humans. It’s not a nice feeling, we’re not those people. We’re not devious, bad, uncaring. So we’re in denial. But really, seeing how abuse doesn’t have to be manifest to still inflict damage and the subtle kinds where we turn a blind eye or simply hold back can hurt too, we’re all guilty of it to one extent or another and said denial won’t help anyone.

We all have moments when we’re neglectful in our human relationships and our work ones are no exception. They aren’t as evident as willingly ignoring someone or intentionally discarding their feelings but they are there. They are the times when:

We lose sight of the bigger picture and the true value of it all and we lose contact with that place in our mind and our heart where we hold it important.