Hate Your Job. Love Your Work.

by on February 14, 2012 in Working

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Ask my wife and she’ll gladly tell you I’m not a huge fan of this particular holiday. It drives me nuts the cost of flowers and chocolates gets jacked up 1000%. And why do we need February 14 to show our affection to someone or experience romance? Shouldn’t this happen a little more often than just one day a year? Sorry. Got caught up on my soapbox…now back to my point.

Two of the most popular posts from Bailey WorkPlay have been Don’t Like to Work and What You Can Do About It Part 1 and Part 2. Why? Because folks find them when using this very popular search phrase: don’t like to work. I’ve been curious about this negative relationship toward work for a while. It’s one of the key reasons why I’m writing The Alchemy of Soulful Work. I want to know why people hate their jobs and work…and what we can do to change that.

Returning to the title of this post, I believe it’s entirely possible to hate your job and love your work. That’s because I see job and work as two distinct concepts with their own meanings and connotations. You can love the work you can do as an engineer but hate the politics that get in the way of you doing your job. You can also love the volunteer work you do rescuing dogs but despise your organizational job that pays the bills.

I think it’s essential that we start to see job and work as not synonymous. We need to expand our vocabulary of concepts to more adequately describe who we are as fulfilled human beings.

How do you think of job and work in your life? Do they have the same value or can you hold them separately? I’m curious to hear your insight.

Photo credit: 8lettersuk via Flickr

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Our Identity at Work

by on February 9, 2012 in Working

Today I traded in my Honda Ridgeline truck for a smaller Ford Focus. It was a decision made not because I was dissatisfied with my truck (I happened to love it) but as a cost saving move. I now have a much smaller monthly payment and will spend roughly 50% less at the gas pump.

As I write this, I’m experiencing an assortment of emotions. I’m excited to have been able to find a zippy little hatchback with all the equipment and add-ons I wanted (moonroof, it must have a moonroof). I’m also excited to cut my car costs almost in half. But damn it if there’s not a sense of sadness and loss, too. Initially I thought it was because of my affection for the truck but honestly it’s just a machine to me. It gets me where I need to go. Hell, I never really even used the bed to haul anything. No, there must be something else going on here.

It hit me that what’s happening here is a shift in identity. Over the past few years, I’ve relished the identity of being a truck owner, particularly one in Texas. There’s just something about it. Maybe it’s the feeling I fit in with my neighbors or I never have to worry about road conditions. Maybe it’s that I ride higher to the road so I get better visibility. Or maybe – just maybe – it’s just that I feel like a badass when driving next to a small car…and now I’m one of those small car drivers.

So yes, there’s a change in how I see myself and how I think others see me. In other words: identity.

Identity is an interesting concept. I’m reminded of how it also impacts our professional life and what happens when we experience shifts in identity. How an identity of “unemployment” changes how we see ourselves when we were formerly employed (and vice versa). How an identity of “manager” changes how we think of ourselves when we take on that role for the first, second, even tenth time. How a colossal screw-up changes our identity within a company that may not tolerate that sort of thing.

But don’t we also find a certain kind of satisfaction, of pride when identifying ourselves by our profession? And perhaps some embarrassment if we’re unhappy with our work or in a profession that isn’t considered prestigious by our culture?

Take some time to think about how you identify – both good and bad – with your work. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Photo credit: Cult Gigolo via Flickr

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Are You Building Pyramids or Sand Castles?

by on February 1, 2012 in Inspiration

I had lunch with an old friend the other day. As we sat down to our table, I could sense something was wrong. He’s usually the one cracking jokes and giving me a hard time about one of my favorite sports teams doing something embarrassing like losing in spectacular fashion. But this time there just wasn’t that same spark. After ordering our drinks, I looked him in the eye and said, “Okay, spill it. What’s going on with you?” It didn’t take much cojoling to learn that he was doing hand-to-hand combat with the gremlin known as Professional Existential Crisis. This particular gremlin likes to ask, in a persistent, nagging way, if what you’re currently working on matters in the grand scheme of things.

The truth is that we’re not always going to be creating pyramids that will stand for millennia. Sometimes our work will result in sand castles that will be erased by the next tide. But what happens when we feel like all we’re accomplishing is ephemeral, without any lasting value to the world?

With this in mind, I appreciate what Umair Haque wrote about this in his post, Create a Meaningful Life through Meaningful Work. He asks three questions that get to the heart of whether our work is granting lasting value:

  1. Does it stand the test of time?
  2. Does it stand the test of excellence?
  3. Does it stand the test of you?

Further in the post, Haque writes:

I’d like to challenge you to consider the questions of mattering in a slightly more sophisticated, humane, considered way. It’s one thing to work on stuff that seems sexy because it’s socially cool and financially rewarding. But fulfillment doesn’t come much from money or cool-power — all the money in the world can’t buy you a searing sense of accomplishment.

So what about you? Is your work contributing to a “searing sense of accomplishment?” If not, what’s one step you can take today to move in that direction.

Photo credit: Darren Krape via Flickr

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Challenge Yourself: Keep a Dare Journal

by on January 10, 2012 in Inspiration

Triple Dog Dare from A Christmas StoryI’m fascinated by risk. I’ve taken my fair share of big-time risks in my life: started two business ventures, moved from Washington DC to Austin TX without a job, got married when I was only 21 (to a wonderful, beautiful woman who I know I’ll spend the rest of my days with). And I take countless smaller risks every day (driving on Texas roads isn’t exactly an act for the faint of heart). Yet, I still find myself not tackling some tasks I know will move me further toward my professional goals…because there are risks involved.

Sound familiar?

Here’s my strategy for conquering this challenge head-on: keep a Dare Journal. Every day, I start my Dare Journal with this statement: “Chris, today I dare you to…” Some days, the dares are relatively small. For example, the dare might be to contact one individual in my network for lunch. Other days, the dares may push me toward bigger challenges outside of my comfort zone. I already know that one huge dare is to write this book by the end of 2012. If you’re not sure what the dare should be, ask someone else to pose it (extra points if they “triple dog dare” you).

The key is to just start. If you’re already feeling anxious about it, don’t be afraid to start small. The important thing is to realize that living without risk isn’t really going to get you where you want to go.

Now I dare you to keep your Dare Journal going for the rest of the year.

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People Before Tools: Creating a Better Remote Working System

by on January 3, 2012 in Organizations

Stop whining and start hiring remote workers. This is David Heinemeier Hansson’s advice to companies in need of tapping into a wider talent pool. And on the surface, it’s fantastic advice. It’s becoming increasingly obvious the world is highly interconnected. Technology makes communication and collaboration nearly instantaneous so geography is no longer a barrier to getting things done. But if this is so, then why in the world haven’t most businesses caught on to this? Why do company execs make trips to places like Silicon Valley to try to attract workers to their home towns? For the reason that Hansson fails to mention: most companies have absolutely no idea how to operate effectively with a remote workforce. 
 
If it were only so easy to just wake up one day and proclaim: “My talent problems are solved. I’ll hire the best from anywhere in the world! And I’ll give them all the collaborative tools they need. What could possibly go wrong?” 
 
I can’t argue with Hansson’s and 37 Signal’s success. But I’ll wager it took him and his business far more than a day to get current on remote working practices (which is his simplistic advice for getting started). And I’ll bet their structures and cultures needed to support remote working didn’t take shape over night (likely they were baked in from the beginning). And therein lies – in no small part – as to why most companies still operate with a primarily local workforce:  
 
 

Remote working means significant change (read: disruption) to business.

 
I’m a great advocate for hiring remotely. I even think it’s a worthy idea to allow a local workforce to work wherever they’re most comfortable and productive. We don’t need to be sitting in our assigned seats at the office any longer to produce great results. Times have truly changed and I think this is what Hansson was getting to in his blogpost. But none of this can be possible without changes within the organization to create more flexible work systems. That means changes to not just how things get done, but how people think and interact socially at all levels of the business. 
 
In your experience, what has worked and what hasn’t worked to create a successful remote working system?

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It’s All Invented…So Have Fun with It

by on December 17, 2011 in Books

One of my all-time favorite books is The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander. It’s one of my top go-to resources as I prepare to write The Alchemy of Soulful Work.

The first chapter centers on the notion that we perceive all that happens around us in very individual ways and then interpret them accordingly. Reality and truth are then very subjective. Once we understand and accept this notion, we have an incredible capacity to act in fresh and powerful ways. They call it “It’s All Invented” and go on to suggest since we have the ability to create new stories, we might as well create ones that enhance the quality of our lives and the lives of those around us.

So, what stories are we creating right now? Do they involve us as the lead character who lives a life of drudgery, misfortune, or bitterness? Maybe it’s just a character who sleepily walks through life hoping for something better to come along, hoping that we’ll be saved from what seems like a dead-end job.

What if – instead – we decided to create a new story today, one that involves passion, excitement, laughter, [go ahead, fill in the blank]?

Remember, it’s all invented so have some fun with it. What do you think?

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