16 Mar 2026 3 min read agile-is-anarchy

It's My Job (And Sometimes That's Not Enough For Me)

"It's my job to be cleaning up this mess
And that's enough reason to go for me"
— Mac McAnally, "It's My Job"

Mark,

I know you're going through it right now. I know the depression is hard and I don't have an answer for you. You asked - both yourself and me - "Is it worth it?" and I can't tell you that it is.

What I can tell you is: We do the job because it's the job. That sounds like dodgy bullshit. It doesn't mean the cost is worth it, it just means it's the job.

Why Do We Do the Work?

"Why do we do the work?" is a false question. It's not false because it's easy to answer- lots of people find "it's my job" hard to swallow. It's false because even if you find the answer you're comfortable with, that doesn't answer the real question: is it worth it?

In 1984, Eric Corley started 2600 Magazine. FBI raids had isolated the hacker community. Someone needed to reconnect them.

In November 1985, two kids named Randy Tischler and Craig Neidorf started publishing a hacker zine called Phrack. The first editorial was remarkably casual: "we are a group of phile writers who have combined our philes and are distributing them in a group." They weren't writing a manifesto. They were solving a distribution problem.

And then they kept doing it. Phrack published 71 issues across four decades. 2600 is still publishing forty-two years later. Not because it was profitable (it isn't). Because the work needed doing.

The same is true for building teams, creating psychological safety, doing the invisible leadership work. The work exists. Someone needs to do it. We're doing it. Not because it's noble service to the community. Because this work exists, someone has to do it, and we're the ones doing it.

It's my job. That's enough reason to go for me.

But Is That Sustainable?

And any manual labor I've done was purely by mistake
If street sweepers can smile then I've got no right to feel upset
But sometimes I still forget
— Mac McAnally, "It's My Job"

The job being the job isn't always enough. Sometimes it's easy to forget.

Zines die out quickly. People burn out, lose interest, move on. I've watched it happen over and over. Someone starts a thing because it needs doing, and then they can't keep doing it, and then it stops. Blogs go from daily posts to weekly to silence. The archives are still there. The work mattered. The work stopped.

It gets complicated. There are these traps we fall into when doing invisible work:

Martyrdom: "We're doing noble thankless work." It's a pretension. You can hear yourself performing it when you say it. Except some days it feels exactly like that - noble and thankless and necessary. Some days that's not a performance.

Complaint: "Nobody appreciates us." Invisible work is invisible. That's the nature of it. Except when nobody does appreciate it. Often you're doing essential work and everyone just expects it be done and nobody notices that you're drowning. That's not self-pity, that's just true.

LinkedIn inspiration: "It's worth it because we're making a difference!" Performative positivity. The team actually does need what you're building and you can see it working, but that doesn't mean there isn't a cost.

Performing toughness: "I can handle this. I'll just try harder." Pretending you're fine when you're not. Maybe you need to build up endurance, maybe you're just hiding the stress that's about to overwhelm you.

The honest position sits within all of it - the traps and the truth of it.

You're living through it right now. You do the invisible work - building teams, creating safety, fixing what's broken. The work gets done, the teams improve, but nobody sees it. And then you're cut before your value is recognized. You've asked yourself "Is it worth it?" The cost sits there in front of you: lost relationships, lost jobs, depression, mental stability gone. Is "it's my job" enough reason to sustain you through that?

No, But Sometimes Yes

Is it worth it? I can't know that for you.

Some days "it's the work" feels like enough. The team needs what you're building. The psychological safety matters. Connections are created. Those days, the job being the job is sufficient.

Some days it's not nearly enough. The cost is too high. The work is too heavy. Nobody notices and you're drowning and "the team needs it" isn't enough to keep going.

You keep doing it anyway. Not because you've answered the question. Not because you've figured out how to make it sustainable. You keep doing it because it's Monday and there's work to do and you're the one doing it.

That's not defiant affirmation. That's not noble service. That's just what it is.

The work needs doing. That's enough reason to keep going, until it's not.