{"id":356,"date":"2019-06-14T17:10:59","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T17:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/?p=356"},"modified":"2019-06-14T17:48:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T17:48:37","slug":"when-your-heart-is-a-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/2019\/when-your-heart-is-a-hammer\/","title":{"rendered":"When Your Heart is a Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Hammer<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s great when you find the perfect match between your challenge and solution. The right ratchet for your nut or the perfect swing for a hole-in-one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a web designer this often means choosing the right technology to support your end goal. Should the site be static, or CMS-based? Or will it be completely custom, like a web app or something built upon a 3D framework? Then each one of those paths carry a big set of choices of their own. It can be daunting, but good web designers don\u2019t shy away from making the hard decisions carefully. After all, it\u2019s a choice between long-term usefulness and prosperity versus wasted effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ponder these things and am thinking that we need to be equally careful about choosing our people. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

For example, a few years ago I took a job at an interactive agency which was looking for a designer with some Flash skills. The job began with a mix of both interactive work and design, but after a couple years I was only doing the technical work with no creative at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began to have an internal struggle over this because I enjoyed programming and loved the company, but I was trained as a designer and was not prepared to abandon that other love of mine. In the end, my heart for being a designer won out over my heart for the company and job, and I eventually left to start my own business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the changes in heart and job resulted in my leaving, I did work there happily and effectively for four years and we parted on very good terms. I would call that a successful employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In filling that job I believe my employer did well, because my heart matched well with their own corporate philosophy. Skills and versatility were important, but more important was that I agreed with their philosophy of caring for their people, having fun, being responsible and working hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heart is most important. <\/strong>This might seem like a no-brainer, but if your organisation serves Liberals you don\u2019t fill your positions with Conservatives. If your company exists to promote Christianity you don\u2019t hire atheists<\/a>. You don\u2019t hire known anarchists for government jobs and you don\u2019t outsource national security projects to overseas organisations if you can help it<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any of these examples is like using a hammer to drive in a screw. It might sort of work, but in the end you will probably regret it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we choosing our people as carefully as we choose our technologies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[33,42,48],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-business-2","tag-philosophy","tag-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p28GE6-5K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confidant.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}