Job Search & Career Blog

Happy at work ? Are you doing what you like doing ?

January 3rd, 2008

That is a defining question for just about everybody, at some point in their working lives.

It does matter.

It matters because being ‘happy’ at work goes beyond the job. It applies to people’s lives.

The feelings about the work do affect the job, too. Recent research indicates that people working in their preferred fields are far more productive, and far less stressed. Not too surprising, maybe, but bear in mind people can work for decades in jobs they don’t like.

It takes its toll, and it also reduces opportunities for people who might have the chance to do the work they prefer. Talents are unforgiving things. If not used, they will remind you of their existence. That leads to some pretty tough emotional states.

There’s another aspect which is sometimes obvious, often not. Those who don’t like their work spread the disease. An unenthusiastic person may have a good reason for being unenthusiastic. That’s not a lot of help when they bring down everyone around them to their level.

(Note: also that this effect is noticed by managers and other staff who haven’t gone sour on their own jobs. They don’t like it, either. Be warned that doing this is potentially fatal for a job.)

A few classic phrases:

‘This place, you know….’

‘I wanted to be an architect… now I’m a cleaner working in a shoebox…’

‘They’ll never change how they do business. I’ve been here for years…’

Note that all these statements are basically negative. There’s just no positive element in those perspectives. ‘This place’ is a derogatory statement. The cleaner has been sidelined from his/her own preferences. The business statement is familiar with the work, but apathetic.

Any enthusiasm can be said to be long gone. The situations have been accepted, grudgingly, but more importantly, they haven’t been managed.

That’s the big personal risk. Stagnation. Getting ‘set in your ways’ can be a synonym for burying yourself. The risk is that you abandon your own ideas and your plans.

Going with the flow is the surest way of drowning.

If you don’t like your work, do something about the situation, before you get trapped. Don’t wait for 30 years to find out you could have been doing something much more rewarding.

Danger signs:

• Boredom. Being bored is a sign of lack of initiative, wasting time, and lack of any effort to find opportunities. It’s also a potential killer. People can get into bad habits when bored, and they can do themselves a lot of damage. Alcoholism is easier when you’ve got enough time on your hands.
• Anger. If you’re feeling frustrated, angry all the time, try to pin down why. There will be reasons, and some will be good ones. Do something about getting out of that environment. Leave the problems behind. Find something that does make you happier.
• Apathy. Lack of interest means your brain’s gone to sleep. The world isn’t really a boring place. Jobs can be dull, but life doesn’t have to be. Find some outside interests, and outlets for yourself. You can literally suffocate your whole life if you don’t take an interest in it.
• Laziness. The surest way to failure. Nothing says ‘Forget it!’ to friends employers and colleagues like someone who’s just not trying. You may loathe the work, the place, and the whole idea of the job. But you’re the one stuck with the lack of results. Years of nothing can go by quickly enough. Find a use for yourself where you can achieve something, for your own sake.
• Bad relationships. This is tricky. Few people go to work specifically to win a popularity contest, but generally workplace relationships are neutral rather than hostile. It may be that you have subconsciously reacted to a job you don’t like by taking it out on others. That’s not always the case, but it happens regularly. Those people aren’t the problem, it’s your relationship with your job that’s causing the grief.

The choice is yours. If you’ve reached a point in your life where the job stinks, you’re sick of everything, and you have reached the end of your patience, you’ve left it far too long.

Get moving, or suffer.

Get some new interests into your daily life, a new job, new relationships, new skills, new hobbies. Don’t allow yourself to just sit and rot.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 am and is filed under Career. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply