Though I receive a lot of questions as your work friend, there are a few common
themes. Mostly, people want something different, something more.
اضافة اعلان
They
want more satisfaction or more money or more respect. They want to feel as if
they are making a difference. They want to feel valued or seen or heard. They
want the man in the next cubicle to chew less loudly so they are afforded more
peace. They want to have access to drinking water outside of the bathroom. They
are employed at a family business and are ambitious but there is no room for
advancement for nonfamily members. They work at a very small company without a
formal human resources department so there is no recourse for the many work issues
that arise. They want to have more time for themselves and interests beyond how
they spend their professional lives. They want and want and want and worry that
they will never receive the satisfaction they seek.
Mostly,
people are worried. They have families and mortgages or rent and student loans
and car loans and all the other financial obligations that consume our lives.
They are in their 60s and do not know how to navigate the contemporary job
market, or they are in their 20s and worry they will never be taken seriously.
They are two years away from vested retirement and cannot afford to make a
career change. They are just out of college without a strong resume and cannot
afford to be selective. They have been working for 30 years but never had the
chance to save for retirement. They have a disability but do not want to
disclose that to their employer for fear of reprisal. They want to bring
attention to a terrible wrong but are their family’s breadwinner.
Mostly,
people are trying to figure out how to navigate ever-evolving workplace norms. They
want to work from home forever, or they miss the din of the office and happy
hours with their best work friends, or they want flexibility to enjoy both
working from home and spending time in the office. They want to unionize for
better working conditions, and they want parental leave, and they want to know
they will not be fired for simply being who they are. They want to stop living
paycheck to paycheck but are making minimum wage and cannot see a way past that.
A new year holds opportunity, a fresh start, a time to change. But most of us are returning to the same old jobs where we will deal with the same old frustrations. I love giving advice, but the real challenge in being your work friend is that few people are in positions to realistically make the changes that would improve their professional lives. There is too much at stake.
We all
have different circumstances, but most of us contend with the same stark
reality: We do not have as much control over our professional lives as we want
and need and deserve. A lot of the time, we are stuck. We might be able to
leave a terrible job or a terrible boss, but rarely is there a guarantee that
the new job or new boss will be an improvement. This is not to say that work
and misery are synonymous. The luckiest among us love our jobs and feel valued
and respected and well-compensated. That should be the rule, but in many cases,
alas, it is the exception.
A new
year holds opportunity, a fresh start, a time to change. But most of us are
returning to the same old jobs where we will deal with the same old
frustrations. I love giving advice, but the real challenge in being your work
friend is that few people are in positions to realistically make the changes
that would improve their professional lives. There is too much at stake.
Yes,
you should quit your job. Yes, you should call out the overbearing colleague
who steals your ideas and talks over everyone. Yes, you should go back to
graduate school. Yes, you should make a drastic career change and pursue your
passion. Of course, you should make the risky, terrifying choices with
absolutely no guarantee of success. But what we should do and what we can do
are two different things.
And
still. It is a new year. However challenging change in our professional lives
might feel, we are not just cogs in the machine, trapped in unfortunate
circumstances. In these early days of 2023, I have been thinking a lot about
how who I am and what I do for a living are two very different things. I am a
writer and professor and editor. I love my work, but it is still work. I am,
admittedly, a workaholic. Like many people, I am overextended and
overcommitted. I work far more than I should, even though my time is finite and
apparently, I do need sleep. I am ambitious, yes, but ambition alone is not
responsible for the intensity of my professional life. The older I get, the
more I question why. At the end of my life, will I want to be remembered for
who I was or what I did for a living?
The
pandemic has given us the opportunity to rethink almost everything from where
we live to how we work. Employees in all kinds of industries are organizing
themselves into labor unions to advocate for equitable working conditions.
People are taking the big risks and leaving terrible jobs, and employers are
having to rise to the occasion to recruit and retain talented people.
These
glimmers of progress are incredibly encouraging. As we think about this new
year and what we want our professional lives to look like, we should all take
some time to reflect on who we are and what gives us meaning beyond what we do.
We should think about how to nurture who we are beyond what we do. The greatest
shame would be to reach the end of our lives and have the epitaph read, “They
worked really hard.”
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