It depends. Forbes's article asks the important questions to help answer this while also determining if I had a true passion for my profession. I honestly have a true passion for software development. What often I miss is the camaraderie of knowing someone 'has my back'. This combination is essential for my happiness at work.
I remember early in my career when I worked really hard to help out one team. I was assigned to 'eye ball' data and load the data into a database manually based on that 'eye balling' for matching datasets. I saw this work as dull and at the current rate, it would take me all year to populate this database. I decided to write an app to do the 'eye balling' for me. This cut down the workload for a month into only a day, ensured accuracy, and completed the work in 2 weeks that would have taken 10 months. I was proud of my creation, but a senior developer said,
"You're a bad penny that doesn't know when to go away."I was in shock. I didn't understand what I had done wrong. Later, I was cut from the team due to a RIF and that crushed my spirit. I felt that no matter what I did, I would not be happy there. So I left.
It seems that what I wanted was to be part of a team of people who cared about me as much as I cared about them. To feel like I was part of the group that created something cool and celebrated the success together. One of my managers, John Bonamico, once said,
"It's more fun to share success and money than to celebrate alone."I strongly believe that to be true. We as people need others to be successful. I wonder if Ernest Hemingway, despite his successful writings, committed suicide because of the aloneness it took to continue to be a successful writer. Although Hemingway was a writer of words, I could see this being similar to a writer of software. I'm not saying we're literally suicidal if we like to work alone, but I feel there is something missing in our lives and our work accomplishments if we work alone all the time.
