In order to illustrate a point I thought I would share a story which is loosely based on some events in my life although the scenario and people have been changed.

Once upon a time there were a group of builders who were working in the middle of a blazing hot summer. The scale of the building project made it seem like no progress was being made, and everyone became increasingly disheartened. Everyone? Why no, there was one jolly fellow, named Jack, who whistled all day and always had a joke to tell. No matter how hot the day, how strong the sun beating down on him and how thirsty he became while working his attitude never wavered. “How is this possible?” thought his co-workers, and yet no-one had bothered to ask.

One day, even hotter than all the others, Jack was whistling away and cracking jokes like always. Suddenly one colleague, David, asked Jack how he could be so merry in such conditions. All of a sudden everyone stopped to listen to Jack’s answer. Jack thought about the question for what seemed like an eternity to everyone else. Then, all of a sudden, with a burst of laughter and an innocent grin Jack just chuckled “I just decided I would be happy!”.

The fact is that we can choose the job we work to at least some degree. We can change jobs, or stick around. We can choose how we do the job we are employed to do, as long as our employer keeps us in the job. We can even choose how we respond to what we are asked to do. Beyond that we cannot choose the exact work that we will do because we are being paid to do a specific job. Projects come and go and the project work must be done. It may be boring, it may be repetitive, it may frustrating. Yet only you choose your attitude. You have the ability to bring a good attitude or a bad attitude. You have the power to have a laugh at work or be bored. You have a choice to play around a bit, have a coffee and a good time. You get to choose how you interact with other people and with your work.

What does this have to do with agile? It’s simple. Someone else may give you a process to follow or a project to work on. Only you decide how will approach the work. If anyone says that they are: –

• Bored
• Cannot think of anything to improve in a retrospective
• It’s impossible to release more quickly
• The project sucks
• The software stack is terrible
• The existing codebase looks like horse vomit covering dog poop, and smells worse
• etc.

You are still the people who choose how you respond. If you bring a positive attitude and try and find a way, or choose to just make the most of the time with your colleagues, you can still have a good (Or at least better) time at work.

So what attitude will you bring to work? How will you respond to what you see? Will you roll your eyes and raise a snarky remark, or will you crack a joke and make your worklife better? Most of us have resigned and moved jobs often enough to know that the next job will likely be very similar to the previous one. It’s not the job that matters, it’s what attitude you decide to bring to work. So, what will it be? Sad or happy?