When everyone's working together for the collective good

"Why do you care? You're leaving at the end of the week."

I've been reading, the excellent, Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet.

It's made me reflect on two work-related scenarios:

The first is where the above quote comes from. It was after the weekly developer-team meeting and two days before I left the company. In the meeting, I advocated for a change to a process that I thought would improve the time and effort required. I wouldn't be around to see the benefit, but everyone else would. That a colleague asked me why I cared when I'd be leaving confirmed that I wasn't a good fit for the company I was soon to leave. I wonder how many people in this world are like this colleague. I hope it's only a few. I fear it's a majority.

The second scenario is more current. I'm being passively-aggressively encouraged to step away from an open-source project I've been contributing to for several years. A change of leadership and priorities (that are no longer public) clash with my desire to understand why decisions are being made and being open about what is happening in an open-source project. Not wanting to stay where I'm not wanted, I'm thinking about where to best focus my time and attention next. But I'm also concerned about what I'm leaving behind. Before I go, I want to ensure I'm leaving it in the best possible state, and that means continuing to strive for improvements. I'm still trying to work out how to do this in the best possible way and am open to suggestions.

I want to make things better. In addition to the products I work on, I desire to make the places I work, the projects I work on, and the processes I use to make things better.

Is this misguided? I hope not.

Is this all a case of me caring too much? If so, how much is too much?

What's it like when everyone on the team is working to make not just a great product but improve the process as well? - If you have experience of this, I'd love to hear about it.

Is your organization looking for an experienced .NET & Windows developer who isn't afraid to speak up and improve processes?  I might be a good fit. I'd love to hear from you too. 😉