You are going to get angry. In fact, the longer you stay at a company, the angrier you will get (a.k.a. the “Camelback Effect”, see below). Unfortunately, anger is the enemy of almost every other rule. So you must either actively eliminate your emotions OR actively fight against expressing your emotions in any discernible way. Unless you are a psycho, you are going to wind up doing the latter. Take a beat and try these thought experiments when it becomes too much:
“Will I remember this a year from now?” If the answer is no, or not without some effort, why on earth is it worth getting upset about?
“If this was my first day at the company, would this bother me?” I find that most things that really piss me off do so because of a longer history triggering me. Try your best to see each issue as isolated in the moment.
“Is the whole thing a waste of my time?” The amount of small, unimportant things I’ve gotten angry about has to be in the hundreds if not thousands. But I’ve had plenty of times where the person driving me nuts quit. Or the task I was so passionate about proved to be small and pointless. Or the very thing I was furious about became a funny story to share over drinks two days later. That could be happening right now.
And seriously, when it is over – fucking let it go. Carry none of the weight with you. Hanging onto anger “is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.” Take it from someone who has drank a LOT of poison, you are only harming yourself.
Definition: The Camelback Effect Deriving it’s name from the expression, “The straw that broke the camel’s back,” the Camelback Effect reveals how the cumulative frustration of a long-term employee clouds their judgement about any newly discovered problem. Basically, the longer you stay at one place, the more issues you see. The more issues you see, the more frustrated you get. The more frustrated you get, the less tolerant you become towards additional issues. Illustrated below:
At some juncture, there will be a sharp decline in frustration, as the employee either comes to accept all the bullshit or they quit.
