Loving What You Do
Because I am an HR nerd, in my daily travels, I often ask people about their jobs. I ask: what’s it like to work here? Do you like what you do? Is it hard to get a job here?
Sorry if this is too much information for the male readers, but today I went for my annual mammogram. Although it felt awkward to be having a conversation given what was transpiring with my bodily parts, I asked the technician about her job. “Do you do mammograms all day long?” I inquired.
She said she usually does, and I followed up by asking how she enjoys her work.
With a huge smile, she quickly answered, “I love it. I’m in the business of saving lives. You can’t ask for a better job than that.”
Wow. Great answer. She could have responded, “Well, it pays the bills” or “Oh, it gets really monotonous and tedious doing X Rays all day long,” or “I feel bad causing women physical discomfort.”
But no, she loves her job and she interprets it in a way that allows her the greatest sense of meaning and gratification.
How do you interpret and explain what you do?
photo by strangelibrarian
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Krista,
I think from that deep down place, I chose my profession to make a positive difference in children’s lives.
Linda
I’m with you on that, Linda. I work with adults but the motivation is the same. I will never accept a job that doesn’t include a definite and very direct link to making a difference.
Thanks for your comment!
Let me ask everyone who loves their job to help out their kids. I just grew up thinking all adults basically loved their jobs – I mean why wouldn’t they, they got to chose, not like me forced to go to school, eat my peas… I am very happy I expect to be happy in my job. But I was in for a rude awakening in my first few jobs finding out how hard it is to find a job you love. And find so many (by far a majority) that were obviously unhappy with their job and a very very few that loved it. My father http://williamghunter.net/ set me up to be disappointed
John Hunter´s last [type] ..USA Spends Record 25 Tillion- 8-086 per person 176 of GDP on Health Care in 2009r
Good point, John. Some people think that we should be able to be happy and find meaning/purpose in any job we take. I haven’t personally found that to be the case. IMHO, there are better/worse and more meaningful/less meaningful jobs for most people.
I had a lot of fun in college, believe it or not, while doing some very tedious work in the dishroom and on the maintenance crew. Ten years later I had a very “nice” job as a contractor in a Federal agency and couldn’t stand it; it was bureaucratic and slow and I was surrounded by surly people just doing their time until retirement. Honestly, I would have preferred to go back to washing dishes and cleaning toilets. But of course the pay was a little better…. Anyway, I got out of that gig as soon as I could and moved on to something that was a better fit, even if the salary was lower.
And I’ve never regretted it.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by William Tincup, Krista OgburnFrancis. Krista OgburnFrancis said: There are so many ways to define our jobs. How do you? New at aliveHR. http://tinyurl.com/4rqemlm. Finding meaning & purpose. #HR [...]