There is good in the work that we do

"Now you say that the answer's within ourselves

And that time is a wish come true

And no matter how troubled the toiling seems

There is good in the work that we do."

- Bill Staines, "Philosopher's Song"

Unless you're born into considerable wealth, or maybe you win the Powerball or something, you are likely going to spend half or more of your life working for a living.

This is traditionally seen as somewhat of a curse, even in a Judeo-Christian society in which a strong work ethic is celebrated. It likely has some connection to God's words to Adam in Genesis 3:19 - "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

How you view work also depends heavily on how much you like your job, of course. I happen to like my job quite a bit. I get to work with good people and do some interesting (interesting to me, anyway) stuff.

But if I had my druthers – and maybe your druthers, too – would I choose to continue working as a communications director for an advanced materials manufacturing company?

Of course not. I would do things about which I'm more passionate and from which I derive some higher level of satisfaction and enjoyment.

But it turns out reading World War I books and PA announcing and all the other things I like to do in my spare time don't generate much of an income. And income is what we need to put food on the table and pay our bills.

So off to work we go, usually five days a week.

That doesn't mean work has to be seen as a bad thing, though. Hard work does build character, as cliche as that sounds. It's the primary way many of us contribute to society. And it builds structure and satisfaction into our lives in ways that might otherwise be lacking.

Whatever your personal definition of "work" (inside or outside the home, full or part time, you're a student, etc.), this Labor Day is a good time to celebrate yourself. You put in a lot of time and effort, and you should feel good about that.

I hope you take a moment today to step back and appreciate all you've accomplished along the way in your career, and all you will accomplish. Even if you see work as a necessary evil, there is something good there that makes you better for having done it.

Happy Labor Day, my fellow laborers.

(NOTE: For a somewhat different perspective on this topic, check out this excellent blog post by my friend Peter Vertes.)

The pressure we put on young people to make definitive career choices

 

When I graduated from college in 1992, I had what I thought was a pretty clear career path.

I had been working full time as a sports writer for The News-Herald in Willoughby, Ohio, since the previous November. I started four years earlier as a sports clerk at the paper (and subsequently spent a year at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Lake-Geauga Bureau), and figured journalism was what I would do for the next 40+ years.

As a sports guy, my thought was that eventually I would take over a professional beat at a local paper (Browns, Indians, or Cavs), travel with the team I covered, and maybe someday even become a columnist. I loved what I was doing, and that was the obvious way forward.

Except, as is almost always the case, the path had some unforeseen twists and turns.

For one thing, Terry and I started having kids. Covering sports is, as you might imagine, a night job. Games take place in the evening. The paper is put together then, as well. It was clear that, if I remained a sports writer, I was going to miss out on a whole lot of kids activities.

There's also the little matter of salary. Well, the matter itself was not little, but the salary certainly was. I needed to make more money.

Those were the two factors that drove me to leave the newspaper biz in 1996 and get into technical writing and editing, and eventually move into corporate communications, where I enjoyed better hours and better pay.

It all worked out for the best.

The point is, I could not have known what was going to happen when I was in my early 20s. No one can.

That's why I never understand why kids are forced to make potentially life-changing career decisions at the ages of 18, 19, 20, etc. Through no fault of their own, they can't begin to imagine what life will be like when they're in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, let alone how they're going to make their living then.

People change. The job market changes. Technology changes. Sometimes in ways we can predict, most often not.

So if you're 20 years old and worried about the fact that you don't seem to have a life plan like some of your friends, may I offer you some advice?

Take a deep breath and relax. You're just fine. I understand the need to gain some sort of focus so that you begin to prepare yourself for the world of work appropriately, but as you do it, take it all with a grain of salt.

Your life is going to evolve. There are certain skills and work habits that will help you no matter what vocation you choose, but when it comes to specialized knowledge, understand that you'll never stop learning.

Nor should you.

What you choose to do now may not be what you choose to do in 10 years. Or 20. Or 30. Or maybe it will be.

The point is, your life will not be ruined if you eventually deviate from whatever career path you select here at the outset.

That's OK.

And so are you.

All of the jobs I've had since age 15 and the pros and cons of each

Hey kids, trying to figure out what to do with your life? Can't decide which career to pursue? Well, here's a handy list of possibilities, all of which I've done in my life and most of which at least provided a living wage so that my family didn't starve. Which is a plus.


Dishwasher in an Italian restaurant (1985)
PRO: Free food.
CON: It turns out there are a LOT of dishes to wash in an Italian restaurant.

Wendy's employee (1986)
PRO: Free food (whether or not it was supposed to be free).
CON: Drunks who came through the drive-thru at 2:35 a.m. after the bars closed and thought they were hilarious when they ordered a Big Mac.

Newspaper sports department clerk (1988-90)
PRO: The thrill of deadline, helping to put out an award-winning sports section every night and getting paid for it while still in college.
CON: No free food.

Newspaper sports writer (1991-96)
PRO: See the "PRO" entry under "Newspaper sports department clerk" above.
CON: When they ask how much money you make, people can hear in your voice the implied quotes when you talk about your "salary."

Health insurance plan document writer (1996-97)
PRO: Each day would eventually end.
CON: Each day would inevitably begin.
(NOTE: In all fairness, this was with a very solid, reputable organization. It just wasn't a job that fit me especially well.)

Managing editor for a urology-themed trade newspaper (1997-99)
PRO: Urologists are hilarious. Seriously, some of the funniest people I ever worked with.
CON: Almost everything you write and talk about in the course of a normal work day involves penises, prostates and assorted old person problems.

Hospital public relations guy (1999-2002)
PRO: Being in the operating room and getting to tell stories about amazing research and clinical care at one of the finest academic medical institutions in the world.
CON: Lots of blood, some of it not your own.

Public relations agency account executive/vice president (2002-06)
PRO: Travel to many cool places.
CON: Travel to many cool places while your kids are little and your poor, pregnant wife is stuck at home.

Community foundation public affairs representative (2006-11)
PRO: Some of the nicest, coolest, most talented colleagues I've ever had.
CON: It's amazing how much people hate you when all you're trying to do is give away money.

Tech-oriented nonprofit marketing and communications VP (2011-13)
PRO: Broadband access is fascinating.
CON: Startlingly few people care about broadband access.

Unemployed guy (2013)
PRO: No work!
CON: No paycheck!

Blender company director of communications (2013-present)
PRO: There's always food here.
CON: There's always food here.

What should we be telling our kids about the world of work?

My oldest child, Elissa, is becoming an adult, and she doesn't always like it.

Something with which you adults can identify, right? Grownup-hood has its privileges, but man, it's a lot harder than you imagined when you were little and wanted to be an adult.

One source of her frustration, I think, is trying to imagine how she's going to earn a living when she gets out of school (in less than eight months) and actually has to, you know, work. Not that she doesn't work now, but school work is different from "work work."

Elissa is majoring in marketing – a fine choice, by my reckoning, and one that allows her to combine her natural creativity with an expanding set of business skills.

Marketing is a white-collar profession that generally happens in an office setting (unless you're marketing a brothel or a meth lab or something, in which case it happens in something other than an office setting).

Office work happens to suit me. I generally like it. But not everybody does.

For some people, working in an office is akin to being water boarded. They just can't do it. Which is fine. There are plenty of other work environments from which to choose.

But if you enter a profession in which you're bound to spend some portion of your career in a cubicle, you're inevitably going to have days when you want to run screaming from the office. It happens to everyone. It's not natural to be cooped up under glaring white track lights for 10 hours a day.

Which leads us to the essential dichotomy facing every young person about to enter the world of work: On one hand, they're told that they should choose a profession they love, and that no one can live a satisfying life unless they're doing something about which they're really passionate. And on the other hand, there's the undeniable reality that work is not always pleasant.

It just isn't. Neither you nor I jump out of bed every single morning thinking, "YES, it's Wednesday! I get to go into work! Again!"

But hopefully the reverse isn't true, either. Ideally, you're not waking up in a state of depression every day dreading the fact that you have to go and toil at a job you absolutely hate. Maybe (very) occasionally, but certainly not regularly.

The reality is that the vast majority of us are shooting for something in the middle. You'll be working for a long, long time, and you have to look at it as a truly big picture. On balance, you should feel fairly satisfied with what you're doing with your career. And by "satisfied" I don't mean you're doing cartwheels out of sheer joy every day, but rather you're engaged, relatively happy and can go home in the evening feeling pretty good about yourself and what you accomplished.

That's not at all a bad way to approach your work life, but it does seem to pale in comparison to the unrealistic "love what you do" mandate, doesn't it? I happen to be someone who is blessed to do something they like. Not everyone is. But overall, you should aim to be somewhere on the upper half of the Work Attitude Scale.

Does that make sense? I hope it does, because I've never quite figured out how to describe this to my children in a way that's inspiring yet realistic. Maybe I'll just tell them to read this post and let me know if they have any questions.

Is 'loving' your job overrated? Or even realistic?

Today begins my eighth week of employment at Vitamix (makers of the best darned blenders in the world, I'll have you know).

I'm at that stage at which everyone asks, "So, how do you like your new job?" To which I almost invariably reply, "I love it."

Which is true. Or at least it's true insofar as I really do enjoy working there.

But do I "love" it? I don't think so. "Love" is a very strong word. There is an extremely limited number of people and things in the world that I genuinely "love."

In that sense, then, I have never had a job that I loved.

Especially if, by "love," you mean that the job completes or defines me in some way. I don't want to be defined by my work.

The real question may actually be, "If financial circumstances didn't force you to work, would you still keep your job?"

And the answer to that, for me, is an emphatic "no." This is nothing at against the wonderful Vita-Mix Corp. (for some reason we add the hyphen when referring to the company's full, legal name). It's just that I've never had a job I would have done for free or if I had been independently wealthy.

Now, I don't claim that my experience and perspective are in any way universal. There are undoubtedly people who "love" their jobs by any definition of the word.

But what percentage of the population do they really comprise? 5%? 10%? 20%? I can't believe it's any more than that.

You hear all the time that if you love what you do, it will never seem like "work." And I have to tell you, my job at Vitamix is a great one. It's challenging, engaging, interesting, and ever-changing. And Vitamix itself is probably the best place I've ever worked in terms of benefits, recognition, interesting people, and adherence to goals and values in which I strongly believe.

But again, I "work" there. It's a job. And if I won $50 million in the lottery today, you can be sure I would turn in my notice tomorrow.

Do others not feel this way? I'm certainly willing to believe some don't, but that's my perspective.

I would be interested in hearing yours.