He's not describing a tar pit, though. He says he works one day a week -- he could, in fact, be running faster.

The simplest thing to do would be to sign up for more tasks (his calendar is open, after all) and/or tell his manager he wants more challenging work.

"Hey boss, I'd like to move faster on Project X, but there are too many review processes"

That's just the way it is, John.

"Hey, I'd like to change the change review process to streamline it from a catch-all form, to one more appropriate to our workflow"

Sorry John, QA will never sign off.

"Hey, why are we wasting 30% of our team on Project Z? It's a total duplication of work for Project Y, and brings no value to the company - it's the pet of that VP of finance, because he ate dinner with an Azure rep three months ago."

Man, I hear ya, John. What a stupid project. But that VP has the ear of the Board.

"Hey, I'd like to work my way into a design role, to help craft more common-sense engineering and be at the table when we talk about backlog priorities"

Let's put that in your development plan for 2022. We need to knock out Project X.

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Working at large companies can be soul sucking. There is a comic called "Dilbert" that touches on it.

This is exactly how it goes and it's clear you've worked at a large company.

At the end of the day you have to accept that, yes, you are a cog in a machine. You have to morally reckon with the fact that the company is making millions or billions of dollars and sometimes you're not giving 100% of your mental effort because there's a lot of bureaucratic crap in the way. That's how it is. You either accept that and make peace or leave and go to a small company and try to make an impact that way (with way less pay).

Being super efficient at your job is not a "moral goal" when working at a big company. It's too big and complicated to draw clear lines about what is right and what is wrong when doing your work there. Even if you become more efficient at your job and make better product, often the thing holding back your product is something else entirely. You could improve the product by 1% by working harder but maybe your marketing department sucks or your senior leadership doesn't know what they're doing. The people in those positions could make different decisions and make your product 5x better, so it doesn't even matter.

Work long enough at a big company and you realize even if you do a bang up job, it won't make a huge difference in most cases. (Sometimes the product you're working on gets cancelled or fails in the market, so what was the point of stressing anyway??)

I agree it can be demoralizing but what you've presented takes the perspective that you are just a victim to an organization rather than part of that organization.

>That's just the way it is, John.

Maybe you didn't communicate the value of moving faster that speaks to your boss's incentives.

>Sorry John, QA will never sign off.

Maybe you didn't show QA how the improved workflow actually improves the quality of the work

>Man, I hear ya, John. What a stupid project. But that VP has the ear of the Board.

Maybe you can find a way for that VP to get credit for that 30% reduction in waste

>Let's put that in your development plan for 2022. We need to knock out Project X.

Maybe you can take a lead in project X so you can build the trust needed to be given a role in design with more responsibility

I know these can come off as glib, but the point is that sitting on the sidelines talking about how things can't get done only ensures things won't get done.

Having done transformation work for the last 4 years I can tell you...the individual employee will almost certainly literally die of exhaustion before they see meaningful change.

Yup. I haven't done that type of work, but I feel like to make change at a large company you need to be okay with imperfection all around you first and then find one or two things that could actually make a huge impact. Trying to fix little things here and there is just an exercise in futility.

I can commiserate with this attitude but still find myself disagreeing. I have worked in the type of role where I was expected to lead a transformational change when it seems like the incentives at every level are aligned against it.

I do personally feel an obligation to keep trying because if I didn't I'm not doing my job. Throwing up my hands in exasperation means I'm collecting a pay check just to keep the status quo. That makes me part of the problem as well as resigning myself to be miserable. I think we owe it to ourselves and the organization to move on if we get to that point.

> I have worked in the type of role where I was expected to lead a transformational change.

Most roles have nothing to do with leading transformational change. You can concede that much?

Yes, but the comment I was replying to specifically spoke to the exhausting nature of transformation change

I think the saying is “frustration is a failure to manage expectations”.

I think often we get into organizations overestimating the impact we’ll have. It seems our impact can be inversely proportional to the size of the company. But that may be an artifact of how we define “meaningful change”

I have tried - and though I still push, I still call out the craziness, it truly isn't worth the effort.

It's like politics, but at least political change and civil rights are worth some mental exhaustion.