Is it too much to ask to be inspired and charged at work every single day? When someone asks me what I want to do in life, when I don’t say travelling, photography and being a bartender I say I want to be inspired and enthusiastic at work every day of my life. And that about sums up the height of my ambition! Which of course leaves me with the onerous task of finding a job that fulfills that criterion.
And have I tried or what?
Four years of working and six jobs later, I am still looking. And I am’nt any wiser than when I started. Sure, I have a long list of jobs I will never do again (only three of those six jobs I did even figure in my resume!) but I am no closer to finding the job that I makes me spring out of bed and get to work by 9.30 and industriously stay at my desk long enough to even feign being tired. As a fresher I figured this malaise was part of being plankton in the organizational food chain. But an impressive post grad degree and an even more impressive move up the ladder in the most impressive of all corporate houses has done very li’l to change what has now become status quo. I quietly pad into my cabin at what I call a sane hour to get to work - 10.45 a.m and switch off my cabin light and shut my laptop at 7.45 p.m sharp (the half an hour preceding this appointed time is spent switching off the light and shutting down my laptop)
Now, most corporate aspirants reading this might wonder what I do for a living that involves so li’l work and exactly who employs the likes of me. Suffice to say that in an office full of busy buzzing people (half of whom are only jus buzzing) I have a job that lets me work half a day while I spend one quarter of the remaining half writing articles like this and the other quarter switching off lights and laptops among a host of other such fruitless pursuits. But that is not everyday.
Some days at work are wonderfully rewarding, challenging even; when I get here at 9.30 a.m (and even the security guys look at me in askance) and proceed to then buzz around the office, issuing instructions, looking into work done, taking ‘command’ decisions in my li’l department, planning for the week/month ahead…and generally feeling like if efficiency had a human face it would look quite like mine. And then there are days when I have this mental picture of the work that needs to be done gathered in one big pile that eventually starts to resemble a fluffy mountain of paper with a comfortable plateau on top. And in my mind’s eye, I am sitting right there on that plateau, typing away on my computer about stuff that has nothing to do with what I am sitting on!
Appraisals, gentle admonishing, the promise of higher rewards…nothing, quiete nothing has the effect of making me the corporate energizer bunny on red bull…raring to go and not stopping at anything. Before you think that what I need is an energy rich meal and a tablet of revital, let me assure you that this has nothing to do with my physical state. Ask me to jump and I will ask how high, drive a hundred and sixty five kms and back jus’ to have lunch in a French place I jus discovered in the neighboring union territory, but ask me to work with sustained commitment and consistency and I will fail miserably, while looking at you with an expression of scornful condescension that says “that’s for those born before 1980's!”
You see, I believe that it is not jus’ me alone who is afflicted with this. While I might be an extreme case, I have seen scores of other not so vocal but equally miserable co-sufferers.
How else would you explain why a generation full of people who descended from fathers and grandfathers who derive their sense of identity from the company they ‘served’ for thirty odd years cant seem to stay on a job for more than 2 or 3 years? My father walks ram rod straight, is a stickler for time, eats with a fork, spoon and knife and can still beat a 19 year old at a game of squash. An army officer for 21 years of his life, its not his job anymore but an identity he cannot hang up when he hung up his olive green uniform.
If you have ever seen that light of recognition and filial pride in the eyes of those men who have spent their lives as an anonymous exec in a gargantuan organization, you’ll know what I’m talking about? While I envy the sense of belonging that they seem to have for an organization, I cannot help but wonder what is it in our DNA that has mutated to the extent that we don’t identify leave alone aspire to know such single minded devotion to a job.
We listen to the same kinda music for years and wear the same pair of jeans for as long as they fit us and even carry a torch for the same person for decades but mention that kind of single mindedness in relation to a job and our sensibilities take a U-turn. In a life full of choices and a world full of opportunity, to borrow a line from Don Mc Lean, '...are we all in one place, a whole generation lost in space, with no time left to start again? ...' And jus’ when I am about to answer with an emphatic ‘yes!’ I see the odd 27 year old designing low cost tents for tsunami victims or a grad student studying the effects and alternative cures for Alzheimers and then I know that it is not a generation thing. Like most other things in our lives, its an individual thing.
No doubt it is harder for us. We are spoilt for choice. Unlike our ancestors (both alive and posthumous) most of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from (at least for a few weeks); and when the wolves of necessity and hunger are not knocking on our doors, we can afford to experiment until we find the jobs that give us satisfaction, intellectual stimulation and enough challenge to keep us coming back to work even on those rainy days when all you want to do is curl up on sofa in front of a tv or with a book and some coffee.
But, how many of us are looking, experimenting, searching? Not many that I know of. Most of us seem content to stay on in jobs that are secure, situations that are familiar and pay checks that are fat only to crib to any sympathetic ear how bored, unfulfilled and downright pathetic our jobs are and how given time, opportunity and the right opening we would transform into the most creative, world altering and dynamic people we know.
So, note to myself here is, quit cribbing. Continue looking. Everyday, tirelessly with the same unwavering faith I reserve only for my mother, that I will find the job that gives me all that I am looking for. And truly believe that I deserve nothing but the very best!
And have I tried or what?
Four years of working and six jobs later, I am still looking. And I am’nt any wiser than when I started. Sure, I have a long list of jobs I will never do again (only three of those six jobs I did even figure in my resume!) but I am no closer to finding the job that I makes me spring out of bed and get to work by 9.30 and industriously stay at my desk long enough to even feign being tired. As a fresher I figured this malaise was part of being plankton in the organizational food chain. But an impressive post grad degree and an even more impressive move up the ladder in the most impressive of all corporate houses has done very li’l to change what has now become status quo. I quietly pad into my cabin at what I call a sane hour to get to work - 10.45 a.m and switch off my cabin light and shut my laptop at 7.45 p.m sharp (the half an hour preceding this appointed time is spent switching off the light and shutting down my laptop)
Now, most corporate aspirants reading this might wonder what I do for a living that involves so li’l work and exactly who employs the likes of me. Suffice to say that in an office full of busy buzzing people (half of whom are only jus buzzing) I have a job that lets me work half a day while I spend one quarter of the remaining half writing articles like this and the other quarter switching off lights and laptops among a host of other such fruitless pursuits. But that is not everyday.
Some days at work are wonderfully rewarding, challenging even; when I get here at 9.30 a.m (and even the security guys look at me in askance) and proceed to then buzz around the office, issuing instructions, looking into work done, taking ‘command’ decisions in my li’l department, planning for the week/month ahead…and generally feeling like if efficiency had a human face it would look quite like mine. And then there are days when I have this mental picture of the work that needs to be done gathered in one big pile that eventually starts to resemble a fluffy mountain of paper with a comfortable plateau on top. And in my mind’s eye, I am sitting right there on that plateau, typing away on my computer about stuff that has nothing to do with what I am sitting on!
Appraisals, gentle admonishing, the promise of higher rewards…nothing, quiete nothing has the effect of making me the corporate energizer bunny on red bull…raring to go and not stopping at anything. Before you think that what I need is an energy rich meal and a tablet of revital, let me assure you that this has nothing to do with my physical state. Ask me to jump and I will ask how high, drive a hundred and sixty five kms and back jus’ to have lunch in a French place I jus discovered in the neighboring union territory, but ask me to work with sustained commitment and consistency and I will fail miserably, while looking at you with an expression of scornful condescension that says “that’s for those born before 1980's!”
You see, I believe that it is not jus’ me alone who is afflicted with this. While I might be an extreme case, I have seen scores of other not so vocal but equally miserable co-sufferers.
How else would you explain why a generation full of people who descended from fathers and grandfathers who derive their sense of identity from the company they ‘served’ for thirty odd years cant seem to stay on a job for more than 2 or 3 years? My father walks ram rod straight, is a stickler for time, eats with a fork, spoon and knife and can still beat a 19 year old at a game of squash. An army officer for 21 years of his life, its not his job anymore but an identity he cannot hang up when he hung up his olive green uniform.
If you have ever seen that light of recognition and filial pride in the eyes of those men who have spent their lives as an anonymous exec in a gargantuan organization, you’ll know what I’m talking about? While I envy the sense of belonging that they seem to have for an organization, I cannot help but wonder what is it in our DNA that has mutated to the extent that we don’t identify leave alone aspire to know such single minded devotion to a job.
We listen to the same kinda music for years and wear the same pair of jeans for as long as they fit us and even carry a torch for the same person for decades but mention that kind of single mindedness in relation to a job and our sensibilities take a U-turn. In a life full of choices and a world full of opportunity, to borrow a line from Don Mc Lean, '...are we all in one place, a whole generation lost in space, with no time left to start again? ...' And jus’ when I am about to answer with an emphatic ‘yes!’ I see the odd 27 year old designing low cost tents for tsunami victims or a grad student studying the effects and alternative cures for Alzheimers and then I know that it is not a generation thing. Like most other things in our lives, its an individual thing.
No doubt it is harder for us. We are spoilt for choice. Unlike our ancestors (both alive and posthumous) most of us don’t have to worry about where our next meal is coming from (at least for a few weeks); and when the wolves of necessity and hunger are not knocking on our doors, we can afford to experiment until we find the jobs that give us satisfaction, intellectual stimulation and enough challenge to keep us coming back to work even on those rainy days when all you want to do is curl up on sofa in front of a tv or with a book and some coffee.
But, how many of us are looking, experimenting, searching? Not many that I know of. Most of us seem content to stay on in jobs that are secure, situations that are familiar and pay checks that are fat only to crib to any sympathetic ear how bored, unfulfilled and downright pathetic our jobs are and how given time, opportunity and the right opening we would transform into the most creative, world altering and dynamic people we know.
So, note to myself here is, quit cribbing. Continue looking. Everyday, tirelessly with the same unwavering faith I reserve only for my mother, that I will find the job that gives me all that I am looking for. And truly believe that I deserve nothing but the very best!
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