{"id":406,"date":"2024-09-07T10:56:45","date_gmt":"2024-09-07T08:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/emd\/?p=406"},"modified":"2024-09-11T12:59:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T10:59:44","slug":"working-hard-or-working-smart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/emd\/2024\/09\/working-hard-or-working-smart\/","title":{"rendered":"Working hard, or working smart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A big misconception in the academic world is that working hard and working smart are the same. Well, they are not.<\/p>\n

You could also entitle this post “Save yourself before it is too late.” It is a message to those falling into the spiral of death in academia.<\/p>\n

We need to go back in time: it is the winter 2008-2009, and I am a doctoral student at the University of Padova, temporarily dispatched to ABB Corporate Research in V\u00e4ster\u00e5s, Sweden, for five months. This is the same place where I got my first employment in 2010 and where I stayed for eight years of my professional life.<\/p>\n

During that period, ABB advertised a researcher position in the team. Many candidates came to V\u00e4ster\u00e5s for the interview. In one case, the team manager asked me to join the candidate’s technical presentation and then asked me to talk privately to this person to understand him more from a personality standpoint. I was culturally closer to this person than the manager, so he relied on that to know more about the candidate.<\/p>\n

The manager and I discussed my conversation with the candidate afterward. He asked me what I thought of the candidate. I said, “Well, he knows his technical part and is a hard-working guy.”<\/p>\n

The manager looked at me and said, “I do not want hard workers; I want smart workers. I want someone who does the job excellently and then leaves the premises to do something else at home.” He was not joking.<\/p>\n

When I terminated my period at ABB and returned to Italy to complete my studies, I was involved in a workshop where the local industry and the university met to discuss the future of electrical machines and drives. My former supervisor, prof. Zigliotto, was with me, too. I remember him talking to one of the CEOs of the participating industry. This CEO told him: “Look, when I receive a CV from a student of your university, I look at the grade the student has received from you. I know that your grades are a summary of the person’s technical skills, personality, and humanity. If the student has low grades in your course, I exclude it immediately even if the other grades are excellent.”<\/p>\n

These two examples have permanently shaped my professional life. Needless to say, I have an enormous amount of respect for people who carry on their work in such a way that technical achievements are just a part of a well-rounded, healthy, and happy life, inside and outside the office.<\/p>\n

It is sad to see how these simple concepts of life are neglected everywhere. You do not need to go far to see people working 24\/7 and being “socially incompetent”… and for what? A name on an article? Glory? But who is giving you glory? Other 24\/7 monkeys?<\/p>\n

My stand is this:<\/p>\n