Yesterday, we in the U.S. marked Labor Day (which the rest of the world marks on May 1, but of course, we have to be different… )
In this country, it’s the unofficial end of summer, a long weekend (longer for me since I took half of last week off, which was terrific, since my brother and his girlfriend were visiting from the U.K. Today is also his birthday, so happy birthday, baby brother!), the time for several sales (though, really, is any time not a time for a sale these days?)
… in general, it marks or, rather, we use it to mark, a turning point in the year.
Image: Shreyans Bhansali via Flickr, CC 2.0
One of the things I did this Labor Day weekend was look for someone to help with the housework. You know that almost six months ago, I went back into fulltime employment. So much what I used to be able to take care of on my own, in between client calls, etc., now had to be taken care of after we got home/on the weekend. Which made for exhausted evenings and chore-filled weekends.
And a life spent only doing chores is no life at all. IMHO.
Candidate Ms. Perfect
I started looking for some help a few months ago, and found someone who was perfect.
In fact, she was too perfect. She’d worked for a local government agency for several years. Once the recession hit, she was laid off and, after trying (for several months) to find a position commensurate with her skills and experience, turned to cleaning houses.
When I first “interviewed” her, she sounded almost apologetic about the fact that she enjoyed keeping peoples’ houses clean. And I remember saying (or words to the effect): “That’s pretty cool, if you get satisfaction from taking care of people.”
Because, really, what greater satisfaction is there than knowing you literally made someone’s life better? ]
You and I – in the PR/social media line of work – know it most immediately when we work with nonprofit organizations. But most of the time, even though we do have an impact on peoples’ lives, we don’t really see the impact we’re having.
Ms. Perfect was with us for a couple of months… until she heard that she’d gotten a position she’d applied for last December. Which was much more in line with her skills and experience, so she was giving up her housekeeping business and going back to a “job.”
Tears rolled (though she never saw them)… but how could I possibly argue with her? After all, in her position, wouldn’t I do the same thing?
Since then
We tried working with someone else who didn’t work out… not because she wasn’t a nice person (she is) but because this wasn’t her career, and perhaps it wasn’t even a job. It was simply labor.
Right now we are working with someone for whom, it seems, this is both a good “job” as well as a career. It’s too soon to tell, but if that is indeed the case, then this might be the one that “sticks.”
The point
of my sharing all this is this:
We can either
have a “job”… where we don’t really care what we do, as long as it pays the bills, but we do it, consistently, day in and day out; or
have a “career”… where, regardless of whether we have a “job” or not, there is something, one thing, or maybe multiple things that connect to each other, that we build on, over time, and that builds our reputation and expertise in a particular field; or
have neither. We neither have a job, nor a career, so what we end up doing is basically labor – even though we may not call (or want to call) it as such. For our family, friends, or strangers (in which case it’s usually paid). But there is little, if any, personal satisfaction in it.
I’m not belittling “labor.” Nor am I belittling choosing a “job” over a “career.”
All that I’m saying is that there is a difference between the three... and similarities as well. For example, a “job” might be part of a “career,” but when it’s not, it’s probably more along the lines of “labor.”
And how we choose to approach these differences… and similarities… will often be the precursor to whether or not we feel fulfilled. Because, after all, where we “work” and what we do is typically how we spend half our days, and most of our waking moments.
And that’s an awful lot of time to be unhappy. Or simply “labor” for no real reason.
I know times are tough… and they may not get dramatically better dramatically soon.
But we owe it to ourselves to ask – and answer – the question: is it a job, career, or labor that we are after?
And we’d better be comfortable, over the long haul, with the answer.
So: do you have a job, a career, or something else? Please share, as well as why you’ve chosen to do what you have. I would really love to know. And there is no judging here. Only sharing and honest feedback.
@voxoptima Thanks so much for the share!
At the moment you could say that I am in between work and career but actively pushing towards career type work.
My end goal is career because if I am going to spend this kind of time doing something there might as well be a higher purpose involved in it.
@thejoshuawilner Or, like @bdorman264 says, you might as well have some fun along the way, right?
Very interesting post @shonali as you pointed out circumstances often dictate the answer. Most people have jobs when it comes to brain type work. Not because they don’t want what they do to be a career but in the US private industry broke the bonds of employment starting with Reagan and the union busting. With wages not growing and no loyalty from management that often makes out while the job holders don’t and who get fired on a dime they stop being passionate about what they do. But that is ok because often you can just jump jobs to make more vs staying in one place a long time.
Labor is different. I often meet people who don’t want brain type jobs. They just want to work and make money and not have to think. And that is ok. Less people competing with us career and job people.
@HowieG Look at you, clearing out the competition. ;P Smarty pants!
I remember one of my husband’s uncles, before he passed away, talked a couple of times of a friend of his, a former banker, I believe, who went into his “second career” as a UPS driver. Apparently he enjoyed it immensely, because he got to meet new people, was always out and about, and didn’t have to deal with the stress of the banker’s life.
I always wonder if I could be happy doing something like that – say I moved out of PR/social completely, and got a job working at, say, Home Depot – I mean, I’d learn to build stuff, it would keep me active, and so on. Or would I miss being part of the PR world too much… I don’t know.
Job vs career, hmmmmm……as you can imagine, most people don’t see themselves getting into insurance as a career. Usually, most people just ‘happen’ into it because they couldn’t find anything else. However, I can attest it can be a great career field and insurance ‘sales’ is only the tip of the iceberg. The support field that goes along with this covers just about any kind of job you might want.
The point is, I see too many people hitting the door at 5 pm and don’t get in their way. They just grind it out day after day and I wonder if they are having any fun. The front line service side of insurance can be very demanding and it takes a ‘special’ person to be able to juggle all the balls in the air that the job requires.
It comes down to attitude; most jobs are going to require some hard work or get you out of your comfort zone. But what I try to tell my kids is, what is the career track there? It might not be glamorous, but what are the successful people in this industry doing and what is the path to get there?
I know the current generation wants instant gratification and results, but somebody has to be willing to roll up their sleeves, huh?
@bdorman264 your job is in insurance. Your career is in blogging. Can’t fool me. And labor? Going to rays games and playing golf.
@HowieG Hey, I’m in sales; we may doze but we never close…..always working, working, working………..
@bdorman264 You know, I never thought I’d have a “career” in PR. I kinda fell into it, and it’s ended up being “what I do”… and turned into a career. If anything, my dream was to be an actress (you already know all that stuff). I imagine that happens a lot to people, right? They start off thinking they want to be/do one thing, and then what they actually end up with – and are happy doing – is completely different.
And YES to rolling up of sleeves. That is something that I will say for most PR pros I’ve met – we are very hard workers (of course you have the ones who are not, but you have those anywhere). @HowieG