Quotes About Work

It's not a new, radical idea for work to have meaning and for workers to have both great freedom and pride in the work itself. Instead those ideas are rooted in the origins of work; we've just lost our way.

Books about the future of work make the same mistake: they fail to look back at the history of work or, more precisely, the history of books about the future of work and how wrong they were.

The popularity of Dilbert, The Office, and any number of other pop-culture windows on cubicle life attests to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar work."2 It has been only in the past hundred years that work has become this way. In the centuries of civilization prior, many more of us had crafts and skills that gave us pride.

A major reason it works at Automattic is belief in a counterintuitive philosophy: safeguards don't make you safe; they make you lazy.

Asking the user experience question is the ultimate way to prioritize engineering work, as it shifts the perspective back to where it belongs: the impact that decisions will have on customers, not engineers. Both matter, but the customer matters more.

Adherence to checklists implies that there is a definitive process that guarantees a particular outcome, which is never the case. In reality, there are always just three things: a goal, a pile of work, and a bunch of people.

If I started a rock band or a company, I'd want to share the same physical space often. The upsides outweigh the downsides. However, if the people I wanted to work with were only available remotely, I'm confident we could do great work from thousands of miles away.

It's a shockingly recent notion that work and play should be mutually exclusive things. We learn about ourselves and each other through play, which helps us work together.

much of the boring machinery identified as management has more value for the manager's ego than the quality of work produced.

The most dangerous tradition we hold about work is that it must be serious and meaningless.

Making everyone work in support forces everyone to take customers seriously, which we should since they pay our salaries.

critical path is the shortest sequence of work that can complete the project.

I just feel like if I do good work, then people should respect me for the work I do.

What do you do,' said Jean, 'with, ah, "ungifted" children when you have them?' 'Cherish them and raise them, you imbecile. Most of them end up working for us, in Karthain and elsewhere. What did you think we'd do, burn them on a pyre?' 'Forget I asked

What good's slacking all the time if the ship comes apart beneath you while you sleep?

Painting, carving, rigging - you two will be rather busy.' 'Wow,' said Locke, 'that sounds like an absolutely grand way to spend the voyage.' It wasn't.

workers with children).1 Crime travels hand

Learn from everyone. Follow no one. Watch for patterns. Work like hell.

Q: Why did the Buddhist spill his coffee while driving to work? A: He had bad kar-mug.

A lawyer calls a plumber to fix a leak in his shower. After about thirty minutes the plumber hands him a bill for $300. The lawyer is furious and says, "I'm a lawyer, and even I don't make that kind of money for thirty minutes of work!" The plumber replies, "Neither did I, when I was a lawyer.

Everyone has these leaks, as the poker players call it. A leak is something that drains your income, something that has nothing to do with your work. And it's often something you're not willing to give up.

I think L.A.'s terrific. You fly an hour and a half and you're in the mountains in three feet of powder. I also think it's a much better city if you're working as an actor. If you're not working and you don't see your dreams coming true, there can be a lot of heartache.

What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time?

Life wasn't about deserving anything. It was about earning everything.