Occupation Matters
Hello My Fantastic People,
As you probably guessed I've been away for a while. Its been out of no fault of mine but I had something to do with it. Maybe someday, in the distant future I shall tell you what went down but for now let's keep to the matter at hand.
Before I proceed I must give acknowledgement to whom it is due. I was at home for a few days, unwilling and unable to leave my house but I transacted my business with my bank , conveniently and comfortably, without talking to anyone, from my phone. In all honesty, GTB actually exceeds my expectations most of the time,save for the occassional ignorant customer service personnel- which is to be expected, this is Nigeria after all- by a wide margin. Kudos to them, but i digress.
Ok. So here I was at home, minding my business (as I usually do) when a sistah brought a problem to me. Now I'm not in the business of solving everyone's problems, one interaction with me will tell you that, but this problem seemed unavoidable primarily because I was beginning to sense some mutual reactions in that area. (In English, I felt the same way as well.)
For a long time I took job satisfaction for granted. In my mind, it was not negotiable. I couldnt do a job where I wasnt satisfied in every way, or so I thought. Then a job came along that fit the criteria for my personal abilities and psychological interests. Although it was a different career path entirely it had a relatively good pay package to go with it, and didn't require the amount of time I was putting into my other line of work. I took it. But appearances are deceptive. That was when I began to find out the real meaning of boredom. For a workaholic like me that is hell, pure and simple. And I really didnt know whether to just get up and go, or to stay.
So my girlfriend had a similar problem; she has what everyone called a good job but she is so dissatisfied it's hard for her to get up in the morning-literally! She can't resign because she needs to maintain a decent looking resume, and she can't stay because she has no idea what the hell she is doing there. Her question to me was, ' how am I to know if I am in the right job? What is the right job?'. Now I couldn't give her an answer because for me the choice is emotional not practical. But I happened to stumble on an old copy of a magazine, O, where that topic was well treated. As a matter of fact it was addressed by Suzy Welch, the wife of Jack Welch, the author of 'Straight from the guts' and 'Winning' -one of my favourite books which I read constantly. (Yes, it's with me Tony, and I dare you to come and take it back. Speaking of taking it back, a friend of mine was telling me about some books she was reading, one of which had such an exotic title I had to ask what it was about. She had no idea. I then asked why she bought it and she said she didn't. She stole it from the house of a friend's boyfriend, as punishment for his keeping her waiting for a long time. Some punishment, huh? But again I digress. )
Suzy Welch realised that a great many of us would have this problem and gave 5 guidelines in form of questions that we could ask to help solve that problem. (Caveat: As I have already said, I am not in the habit of solving problems and there are only that many copies of O in my house, so please, the next question will have to go to an agony aunt.) The first of these questions is: Does this job allow me to be with people like me? You could be an introvert, or an extrovert, out-going, with varied interests. Hanging out around passive, conservative types would never work for you.
Does this job make me smarter? I have/ had a friend who I felt could endure any working condition. She worked with the meanest bosses, stayed longer than anyone else, and contributed more than everyone else. Now make no mistake, she wasn't a hanger-on on the job, infact she is something of a celebrity in our field. So I asked her how she could work under the circumstances in which she did. She said she always gave herself a time limit (two years) and if she was learning anything new in that time she would stay. So there you have it.
Does this job open the door to future jobs? If you are in the job market, ensure that the job you are doing will aid you in getting others.
Does this job represent a compromise for mine or my family's sake? After all said and done, some jobs have to be taken (or dropped) for personal reasons. You may need to be nearer an invalid relative or more available for your children. Only you can make that decision.
Does this job - the stuff that I do everyday- touch my heart and feed my soul? For me, this is the most important part of any job. You have to like what you do. It helps the long days, it helps your self esteem , it helps your benevolence. That was where i was stuck in the scenario above, and I believe that was where my friend was stuck.
This is for her. I hope she finds her way through. For me, I didnt resign. I just used my leisure to pursue the job that made me happy. Of course it was hard combining the two, but I was happy and exhausted; and to my workaholic self that's pure heaven.
How ya living?
Chili
As you probably guessed I've been away for a while. Its been out of no fault of mine but I had something to do with it. Maybe someday, in the distant future I shall tell you what went down but for now let's keep to the matter at hand.
Before I proceed I must give acknowledgement to whom it is due. I was at home for a few days, unwilling and unable to leave my house but I transacted my business with my bank , conveniently and comfortably, without talking to anyone, from my phone. In all honesty, GTB actually exceeds my expectations most of the time,save for the occassional ignorant customer service personnel- which is to be expected, this is Nigeria after all- by a wide margin. Kudos to them, but i digress.
Ok. So here I was at home, minding my business (as I usually do) when a sistah brought a problem to me. Now I'm not in the business of solving everyone's problems, one interaction with me will tell you that, but this problem seemed unavoidable primarily because I was beginning to sense some mutual reactions in that area. (In English, I felt the same way as well.)
For a long time I took job satisfaction for granted. In my mind, it was not negotiable. I couldnt do a job where I wasnt satisfied in every way, or so I thought. Then a job came along that fit the criteria for my personal abilities and psychological interests. Although it was a different career path entirely it had a relatively good pay package to go with it, and didn't require the amount of time I was putting into my other line of work. I took it. But appearances are deceptive. That was when I began to find out the real meaning of boredom. For a workaholic like me that is hell, pure and simple. And I really didnt know whether to just get up and go, or to stay.
So my girlfriend had a similar problem; she has what everyone called a good job but she is so dissatisfied it's hard for her to get up in the morning-literally! She can't resign because she needs to maintain a decent looking resume, and she can't stay because she has no idea what the hell she is doing there. Her question to me was, ' how am I to know if I am in the right job? What is the right job?'. Now I couldn't give her an answer because for me the choice is emotional not practical. But I happened to stumble on an old copy of a magazine, O, where that topic was well treated. As a matter of fact it was addressed by Suzy Welch, the wife of Jack Welch, the author of 'Straight from the guts' and 'Winning' -one of my favourite books which I read constantly. (Yes, it's with me Tony, and I dare you to come and take it back. Speaking of taking it back, a friend of mine was telling me about some books she was reading, one of which had such an exotic title I had to ask what it was about. She had no idea. I then asked why she bought it and she said she didn't. She stole it from the house of a friend's boyfriend, as punishment for his keeping her waiting for a long time. Some punishment, huh? But again I digress. )
Suzy Welch realised that a great many of us would have this problem and gave 5 guidelines in form of questions that we could ask to help solve that problem. (Caveat: As I have already said, I am not in the habit of solving problems and there are only that many copies of O in my house, so please, the next question will have to go to an agony aunt.) The first of these questions is: Does this job allow me to be with people like me? You could be an introvert, or an extrovert, out-going, with varied interests. Hanging out around passive, conservative types would never work for you.
Does this job make me smarter? I have/ had a friend who I felt could endure any working condition. She worked with the meanest bosses, stayed longer than anyone else, and contributed more than everyone else. Now make no mistake, she wasn't a hanger-on on the job, infact she is something of a celebrity in our field. So I asked her how she could work under the circumstances in which she did. She said she always gave herself a time limit (two years) and if she was learning anything new in that time she would stay. So there you have it.
Does this job open the door to future jobs? If you are in the job market, ensure that the job you are doing will aid you in getting others.
Does this job represent a compromise for mine or my family's sake? After all said and done, some jobs have to be taken (or dropped) for personal reasons. You may need to be nearer an invalid relative or more available for your children. Only you can make that decision.
Does this job - the stuff that I do everyday- touch my heart and feed my soul? For me, this is the most important part of any job. You have to like what you do. It helps the long days, it helps your self esteem , it helps your benevolence. That was where i was stuck in the scenario above, and I believe that was where my friend was stuck.
This is for her. I hope she finds her way through. For me, I didnt resign. I just used my leisure to pursue the job that made me happy. Of course it was hard combining the two, but I was happy and exhausted; and to my workaholic self that's pure heaven.
How ya living?
Chili
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