What’s in a job?

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As a child, I always thought that my dream job would require me solving problems with my skills and little else. I assumed that I would not have to deal with boring stuff. Money wasn’t a consideration … at least not at first.  As I grew and learned the importance of having a lot of money, I decided that the dream job had to include a very hefty pay pack to be worth it. I realized as I grew older that some boring stuff is included in every job but that was acceptable. I could stick it as long as I had the pay to compensate. It wasn’t until I got out there and saw for myself that there is more drudgery than excitement that I realized my definition of that dream job… well, let’s just say I had some accuracy issues.

After a couple of forays into the corporate world (thanks to industrial experience training and waiting for service) and now in a third job, I have to rethink what a dream job means to me.

• A dream job is no longer about being an engineer in a big firm. The reality is that half the time boredom sets in because it’s more of the same type of work and the other half paperwork takes over. How’s that for exciting?
• I am no longer as anxious about the pay package as what I will do to earn it. The murder of souls starts with the day you have to do what you hate just so you can eat.
• I want to work with people that I (somewhat) like and respect and who are the same with me. I will spend a third of my daylight hours five days a week with them. This is highly essential.
• I would like some time flexibility. I know this is a general thing but for me it’s more personal than that. I’ll leave it there.
• It should hopefully include more than the usual research. No use if someone’s already done ALL the work and besides I have no desire to reinvent the wheel.

Does this list seem like a tall order? I used to think so. But the truth is that this can come in at any time provided the amount of faith needed is present so I’m working on that instead.

 

Related Articles

• 6 Tips for Fighting Boredom. (happiness-project.com)
• Do You Think Life is Boring? (socyberty.com)

New Dog, New tricks

Growing up, I always thought that my life would follow the pattern of all those before me. Graduate from university, serve the nation in Lagos, get a good job, marry and have children, get old and do all the things that old people are expected to do and then die – an old woman full of years.

Later on in the university, I edited that to include getting a masters’ degree (I hoped from a foreign university), getting a great job in a telecoms or an oil company with a great salary and then move on with the rest of the program.

Only after graduation and not getting to serve in Lagos did I think that my choices were leading me to a life of quiet desperation. Sure, I had always paid lip service to the ‘I want to change the world/make a difference/…’ Of course I assumed I would get used to living like that and somehow find satisfaction in it and find the spare time to change the world while at it. But, as I found in my few months of work and see daily in the tweets of others doing what I wanted to do, that isn’t the case. Yes, I may have endured but what is a life spent living for the weekends and public holidays?

Some of these things I still want but I realize now that my choices should be defined by what I need to do and not by what I am expected to do. Popular opinion can no longer determine what my life choices are. I have determined to find new tricks for the new dog. It is my resolution.