Sold Everything ...

I guess somewhere just underneath the surface of my psyche all those discussions had been simmering because something definitely lit them up tonight ...

I have this friend who is very stable and practical, with a very strong work ethic. She is able to be ambitious without being cocky, intuitive without being egotistical. Someone who I thought was well satisfied with her job - maybe on the lookout for other opportunities but not necessarily unhappy with her work.

Turns out - I was wrong.

Hence, here I sit, in the dark at 3 AM, updating the blog. (I haven’t been this inspired since … well, probably since I was last insomniac and couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to post next.)

Just recently, this friend has taken a job with a different company because she was dissatisfied at her old place of employment. She didn’t feel respected - for a number of reasons, which I won’t list here, but all of which are valid and not sensationalized at all.

I have another friend who is also thinking about leaving her job because she doesn’t feel appreciated, like the work she is doing is never good enough. When she tries to express how she feels to her managers, they remain static on the issue.

Another friend left her employer a few months ago because of severe personality clashes. It was an inability on all sides to work constructively to get things done.

These are all responsible people - professionals who genuinely want to do well in their jobs, be enthusiastic about the tasks they carry out and enjoy what they do for a living. But all of them have either left or are looking to leave because they feel so unhappy, insecure or unfulfilled. It riles me up, to be acquainted with these wonderful people who want nothing more than to be happy doing what they do but, for whatever reason, that happiness always seems to be out of reach.

So what I want to know is this: why is job satisfaction so important to us? What exactly is its definition? Is it different for everyone? Why is it so seemingly elusive? And why is it something we’ve been made to believe is so necessary? After all, no job can be absolutely perfect.

Funnily enough, this song, by Coldplay - which has been playing in my head for days - fits the bill on what this is all about:

When you try your best, but you don't succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep …
If you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth.

I’m thinking that so-called ‘job satisfaction’ might just be a particularly narrow view that most of us have. People strive for success in their jobs, they want to climb the ladder - and for what? A hernia at the age of 36? Missed birthdays or weddings because of a client meeting? No one to share any of it with because they didn’t have time to have a social life? I mean, there’s a reason why internet and speed dating have become popular … it’s because everyone is too preoccupied thinking that their jobs are all very busy and important.

I know that what I write here is nothing you haven’t heard before. There are plenty of cautionary tales out there warning people about 'quality of life' and how to not 'take anything for granted' or, I don’t know. Any other relevant cliché which could be applied here, really. Take your pick.

My stable, ambitious, strong-work-ethic friend said to me that, if there’s anything she’s realized in her career experience, it’s that a job should not define you. She’s spent her career striving to be the best at what she does, working as hard as she can to achieve goals she’s set only to question, after nearly a decade, what it was all for.

It made me think that, perhaps I didn’t need to stress so badly over the things I’ve found so challenging in this past year. On my epitaph, do I really want it to say something like, “She sold stuff that was bought and processed, bought stuff that was sold and processed - and processed stuff that was sold, bought and processed. And man, could she ever proof read!”? Um ... no.

Let’s face it. In my line of work, the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen is to seriously fuck something up on a project and either lose a client or get fired - maybe both. At the end of the day, if I screw something up royally or make a seriously bad decision I am not going to end up killing someone, or create mass pandemonium or start the next world war. And thank God for that.

I am not saying that we should become a generation of underachievers. But surely some perspective on what a person does for a living can be attained - can’t it?

I’m going to give it a shot, publicly, right now, here in e-space. I am going to make peace with myself on what I choose to do for a living. Here goes …

"To my mind, no longer will I recognize what I do as defining who I am. And as long as my decisions do not affect the safety of another person, state or nation, I will no longer equate my job with anything of any real consequence."