When someone says to you “what do you do for a living”. What do you say? Or to be more correct – what do you think? Is your first thought that you would rather be doing anything other than answering that question? Or perhaps you quickly skim over the question, avoiding answering it properly, any way you can.
It seems to be a question which is normal for people to ask as it seems to be the one question which helps us define in our minds what a person is like and if we will be able to relate to them.
When my children visit a new friend at their home one of the first questions I ask them – apart from if they had a good time, is “what does little Johnny’s Daddy do?”. The answer is invariably “I don’t know Mummy, but they have an Xbox 360.” Kids don’t really care what we do for a living.
Why do I care what my child’s friends parents do for a living? Because even I judge a person on the level they have attained in their job. It is for this reason that it has taken me a long time to feel pride in my own job as a writer. The problem I have is that it is hard for me to explain what I do and how I make money. Most people don’t understand it and I assume (perhaps rightly) that they think I am a bit of a bum or that I rely on my husband for enough income.
The point I am trying to get to is that we all need to feel pride in what we do for a living. It is a really difficult state to get to. If we have worked our way up the hierarchy at work we feel the need to point this out. You might say “Oh, I am a receptionist, but I also have control over a number of client accounts.” Nobody knows what this actually means but most of us feel the need to embellish our achievements at our job.
How would it feel if your job was actually exactly what you always wanted it to be and that you loved it more than anything? Imagine how that might feel. It would definitely put you in the top 1% of all workers because I don’t know a single person (apart from me and my husband) who is completely happy with what they do.
Think about the people you are aware of who seem to love what they do. I believe that most of them are likely to be either at the top of their profession or they are self employed or a business owner. What we appear to need in order to love our jobs is autonomy and a sense that what we are doing is achieving something for ourselves and our families.
Professionals are a sub group of workers who achieve work satisfaction. Doctors or lawyers are a good example. They spend many years in training and they often have to work at a very low level before they are able to show their true potential. Yet when they get to the point where they are using their skills, they are able to appreciate what got them there. They are handsomely rewarded for their efforts and have a great deal of autonomy in their position.
Many of us can say that we worked in our job for as many years as any professional and just as hard, yet we will never achieve that level of job satisfaction.
To have pride in the job we do is almost a basic human right and something which any good boss will be aware of. To get the best from workers it is essential to put in place fair remuneration, incentives for hard work and a sense that a person’s hard work is actually achieving something for them and not just for the company they work for.
As a writer you will get job satisfaction, daily feedback, plenty of variety and, hopefully decent pay (this is entirely up to you). Best of all you are in charge and in control. It is a nice way to work and something so few of us get to do. Isn’t it worth the hard work it takes to get there?