Questions tagged [motivation]
Why we do the things we do. Questions here center around the idea of how to get excited and do a good job rather than a poor one.
155
questions
13
votes
3answers
1k views
How do I Help a Team Member Recognize the Relative Importance of Their Project
I find myself in the curious case of trying to partially de-motivate someone, some background:
I am the team lead of a ~30 person team ranging from interns and new college grads to senior folks with ...
11
votes
5answers
2k views
What do I do if I can't seem to find interest for any job in my field (software development)? [closed]
I am having some major existential issues in regards to my career. I don't know if there is a true answer to this question, but I'd be grateful to receive any thoughts, experiences, or questions to ...
9
votes
3answers
699 views
Motivation/focus advice?
I have a job that I like with development chances that I appreciate. I genuinely believe I am lucky to have it.
It's just that I am being so damn distracted and giving only 5% of my effort instead of ...
-2
votes
4answers
523 views
How to motivate myself to do my own projects similar to my day job? [closed]
I got a new mobile development role about 6 months ago. I love it, the company and the people are great. I work from home too.
Previously I’d been in web development roles and grew to hate it.
I used ...
0
votes
3answers
823 views
Do they want me to leave?
I took a sick leave of more than 3 months after having neglected health problems, and an evaluation meeting exacerbated my situation. I completely lost interest in the project.
My boss asserted once ...
3
votes
2answers
548 views
How to get motivated to work on tasks that doesn't help you improve
To me there are two aspects of any task assigned to a developer in a software project. These are not exclusive so a task can be (for example) 40% aspect 1 and 60% aspect 2:
Task requires you to learn ...
1
vote
3answers
654 views
How does one know or convey to the boss that task is beyond my difficulty? [closed]
I work in a startup where I am the lone developer (there is one more person who is completely into different domain).
So it's my boss who gives me tasks consulting a mentor who she knows.
The problem ...
2
votes
3answers
583 views
Burnout - change industries?
I am a data analyst in the public sector and have been in various guises for the past 8-9 years.
I am currently pretty well burnt out in my current role - all motivation has disappeared, work quality ...
12
votes
5answers
2k views
Motivation has dropped partly due to pessimistic views on work in general - burned out?
I've been in my current role for about three years, after graduating from University. I haven't really been impacted by COVID work-wise because I'm a software developer so I can WFH.
Lately I've been ...
1
vote
2answers
454 views
Disagreements in project decisions led me to lose all motivation
We're a distributed team working on a new software project. My local team all joined around December, I joined in January. Nobody in my local team knows about the current codebase. Up until June, it ...
3
votes
4answers
1k views
Which kind of motivation software companies expects from applicant?
Some time ago I got a refusal after an interview because the company was looking for somebody who can "better express their motivation to work for Companyname".
At this point I don't ...
-4
votes
2answers
316 views
Should I start a new journey? [closed]
Almost a year after graduating, I work for a large company. I am highly motivated and passionate about my current job. I have never had any experience as a product manager, but I feel that I have been ...
27
votes
9answers
8k views
Refusing to increment productivity beyond salary raise
A software engineer in the team I lead was a very good worker and in the last two rounds and got a salary increase of the maximum the company allows. A couple of months ago, he said he was very ...
12
votes
4answers
1k views
How to give backend developers some limelight?
Recognition is one of the main topics discussed after employees surveys in our organization. One of the points raised in a recent survey is, developers want to get more chances to be seen and ...
4
votes
2answers
385 views
Decreasing motivation due to no operational tasks
Situation
I work at a large multinational company where I am part of a smaller department consisting of around 30 people. I am a BI Developer/Analyst. I have no coworkers with a similar job ...
-3
votes
3answers
993 views
Fired due to lack of motivation [closed]
So, I was fired a few weeks ago after being in place for ten months.
I was told that my manager had come in to see me for a chat, and he said "It's not good news, the client wants to reduce the team ...
69
votes
7answers
19k views
What are some strategies to maintain morale and productivity after massive layoffs?
In what was perhaps a textbook example of bad optics, our company announced layoffs recently. To make things worse, the environment was such that many of us were personal friends as well as colleagues....
1
vote
3answers
361 views
How to make Coworkers/Employees feel their work is important
Every year we have a survey at our company where employees get to rate several different aspects of their employment. The results are important to us and we review them and try to improve things where ...
95
votes
23answers
14k views
Star developer didn’t get a promotion because he isn’t a people person, so he has scaled back his contributions. How can I motivate him?
I’m a VP at a financial institution and oversee a quasi fintech branch of our company.
Two years ago, I hired a dev who turned out to be star. Great results putting him on one of our dev teams and ...
2
votes
4answers
1k views
One of my best engineers feels that he is slower than the rest of team, how can I determine the real problem (so I can solve it)?
I have a distributed scrum team and the developer in question is one of my best (produces quality code, knows his tech stack, can communicate well, etc). However, he keeps feeling like he doesn't ...
8
votes
4answers
948 views
My boss is motivated but is no longer engaged and suspects he is losing his job and this is making everyone feel unhappy, what can I do?
My boss is very clever and is highly motivated, often putting in more time than he needs.
However, recently a number of people left the company, and everything seems to have came to a halt.
My boss ...
asked Oct 28 '19 at 18:10
Professor of programming
2,2431 gold badge11 silver badges20 bronze badges
61
votes
10answers
26k views
Bothered by watching coworkers slacking off
Situation
I am working in a small office of 4 people, where 2 of us work independently and the 2 others are in a team.
It has started to bother me that those 2 in the team are not getting much work ...
3
votes
4answers
2k views
I do not have tasks due to business analyst concerns
I'm working at some software startup. I'm well paid and the project needed to be built from scratch. Some months ago, I got hired as senior programmer, then I've designed and implemented a framework ...
-6
votes
7answers
2k views
Am I being used more than my job role as a Graphic Designer? [closed]
I'm a Graphic Designer in a Digital marketing and design agency startup (8 months experience). I'm the only designer there. There's one person for copy writing and one director who checks my designs. ...
8
votes
7answers
2k views
What are some techniques to use to stop yourself from yawning during a long meeting?
I have always had a problem with yawning during long meetings (>1 hour) and I am interested in the techniques that people have used to keep themselves from yawning.
I always start to yawn after about ...
2
votes
4answers
1k views
How to deal with (in my opinion) bad firmware design forced by my boss
First some back-story.
We (4 Developers, 1 of them is my Boss) are currently in the process of designing a new iteration of one of our products. So my boss told me to come up with a new firmware-...
108
votes
11answers
30k views
Developers demotivated due to working on same project for more than 2 years
I am currently managing a team of 10 people for a project which was started 3 years ago, which will run for another year. I am not the manager, I am just the most senior developer (6yrs exp.) on the ...
55
votes
13answers
14k views
What to do when my ideas aren't chosen, when I strongly disagree with the chosen solution?
Bit of a psychological question I have here in relation to working as a programmer.
In your work environment, when you're working on a particular system and that system needs to change due to ...
3
votes
4answers
634 views
I'm no longer enjoying my work. How can I revamp?
In September 2019, I will complete 5 years in the Software Engineering industry. Prior to this, I completed lots of personal projects during my undergrad days. I have lived with the code for the last ...
4
votes
3answers
851 views
How to get over being angry due to being laid off? [closed]
Due to circumstances beyond my control, a contract that I loved working on has been terminated with very little warning and I have been told my last day is Friday.
I understand its business, the ...
-2
votes
2answers
373 views
Seeing no perspective in job - low motivation [closed]
I'm currently working as a consultant in the it department of an company which is active in industry. I've studied computer science and my goal was to become a software developer. My job currently ...
1
vote
6answers
877 views
How can I motivate someone voluntarily giving me their time?
Backstory
I'm developing a web-application for an active shooter defense training company. They go to organizations all around the country and teach them how to be best prepared for a horrible ...
0
votes
3answers
639 views
Team building events vs. presents
In our region it is often the case, that you get a christmas present from your company to appreciate for the work one has done.
That was also the case in our company, but since the company has new ...
-2
votes
3answers
228 views
Wheaton's law rewritten as a company policy / company value [closed]
Wheaton's law: "Don't be a dick", we feel would be a excellent company policy or company value. But for obvious reasons we can not use that verbatim.
What would be a more work appropriate way of ...
1
vote
2answers
314 views
How to deal with effort not being recognised?
I'm in the 4rth month of my compulsory, military service at the rank of Private. I'm knowledgeable and (un)lucky enough to be enlisted in the IT - Research Corps, so my military life so far has been ...
2
votes
2answers
569 views
Resigning from a job within months of starting [duplicate]
I have 4+ years of experience in the software industry.
At my first job, I stayed for around 3.1 years
I left my second job within a year (i.e in 9 months.) I left because I was not happy with the ...
4
votes
2answers
318 views
How do you incentivize employees with tough-to-measure roles?
I work in a sales development team as a solutions developer, i.e. I build sales and operations efficiency tools.
So, one part of the department is made up of roles like mine; we do different tasks ...
0
votes
4answers
1k views
Showing up late at workplace [closed]
I recently (about 2 months ago) hired in a software development company as SysAdmin.
The main reason I got hired was to improve my skills in SysAdmin and DevOps stuff, I had my own dedicated server ...
44
votes
4answers
15k views
How do I motivate usage of Git for the next maintainer?
I'm currently preparing to leave my company and writing extended documentation on the system for an eventual successor. An important note: I was the sole developer on the whole project for the last ...
165
votes
13answers
20k views
How do I keep myself motivated when working alone/at home?
I am working as a data scientist in a multi-country company. There are only 4 of us located in my particular country. The other 3 are often on the road, meaning that quite a lot of days, I am alone in ...
6
votes
2answers
2k views
How to keep team members motivated when working with bad manager
I’ve been working for the same company for few years now, recently they hired a new manager and I was assigned to be part of his team, starting a new project. I’m a lead developer in that team and I’m ...
8
votes
2answers
731 views
How do I improve my relationship with difficult/pretentious colleagues?
I'm a programmer at a smaller company and I enjoy the responsibility and the freedom that this brings. It also mean that the professional relationships you have inside the company are more important.
...
59
votes
6answers
9k views
How to keep motivation in a burnt out workplace while interviewing elsewhere?
I currently work at a company that's experiencing something of a mass exodus. Due to managerial issues, 5 of the best engineers on an 8 person engineering team have either left or put in their two ...
-1
votes
1answer
263 views
How can I make a lazy/busy person respond to my email? [duplicate]
Imagine I sent an email with a question to a person working in the UK in an organisation with relaxed work standards. Technically it is his responsibility to reply but in reality I cannot complain to ...
2
votes
4answers
1k views
Moved to scrum, now developers are doing just QA
I understand that in scrum developers do some QA, but in the last several sprints we've been doing almost nothing but QA.
We've brought this up to management, but they insist that that's how scrum ...
11
votes
6answers
2k views
Change things, or look like the bad guy? [closed]
When I joined my job, I replaced a guy that had all of the tools and processes in a mess. He wouldn't fix them and made himself essential to hold everything together. At the time, I thought of him as ...
1
vote
1answer
234 views
How to deal with manager who keep leading project into wrong directions?
My current situation is as follow:
i work in a software company, mainly focus on embedded system. i moved into current company in 2016 and started as fresh-man at division X.
The current project was ...
0
votes
1answer
194 views
How to ask to get back to previous department?
Last year in July, I started working for my current employer, a software firm with ±250 employees worldwide (just to get the picture). We are working on a client-server based software product, and I ...
11
votes
5answers
2k views
I see myself consistently falling into micro-sleep at work [closed]
As a web developer, I see myself consistently falling into micro-sleep - mainly at the beggining of afternoons and during the end of mornings. Obviously, my productivity isn't the best.
I pay ...
173
votes
12answers
42k views
New manager penalising my team for 'tiredness' - how to shield them?
Background
I'm an infrastructure support night team leader for a very large IT services company in the UK. Due to the requirement for 24/7 support that most of our clients have, the support teams are ...
