Playing the Devil. Is it a Work Habit?

I have been up to my old pattern of slogging extremely long hours again. It is now back to the same old shite – grab a cup of coffee from Kopitiam, drag myself into office, watch my colleagues saunter into office. Then it is the mad rush of fire-fighting throughout the entire day, well into the night.

Worse still, in order to meet the tight schedule of the project, I had to play the role of the devil, and enforced strict working hours for the entire team. Which basically feels like a self-imposed imprisonment. In a project environment like mine, it just will not cut it that the lead who imposed the working hours gets exemption from the rules, does it? Who respects, much less follows the instructions, of a man who does not walk the talk?

In a recent interview session that I attended, the interviewer was rather surprised that I kept long hours just to ensure that my team members do their jobs accordingly. Perhaps it is a different work culture, but from what the interviewer told me, they seem to have trouble keeping the schedule. I can make a guess or two why.

Is it really an old habit, and the leopard does not change its spot? I doubt it. If anything, I prefer very much to be home by 6pm, have dinner with Warden, catch a drama series on cable and play my favorite MMORPG. But as long as I am paid to do what I have been hired for, I will need to hang in there and deliver the goods. That’s life.