Recently a PF blogger held forth on a perennially popular topic, how to achieve happiness on the job. Sorry—I failed to bookmark the post and so can’t offer a link, but I’m sure some of you will recall reading it.
Coincidentally, shortly after that post went up, a friend whose research interest is the Latina experience in higher education (she tracks the progress of first-generation Hispanic women Ph.D.’s who stay in academia) told me about an article focussing on a particularly trying period that afflicted a campus where I used to work. Revisiting those events depressed me, but then, foolishly, instead of blowing it off I unearthed some ancient documents and e-mails that pretty much confirmed the article’s reports, a truly depressing exercise.
It’s hard to understand how any of us who worked in that place survived with our marbles intact. Matter of fact, several did not.
That one should quit one’s job and go somewhere else when one is unhappy is easier said than done, especially for academics. Jobs in higher education do not come along often, especially if your degree is in the liberal arts. Competition is fierce, even for poorly paid positions at podunk schools. It took me years—literally—to get out of that place. I applied for job after job, both in and out of education. At one point, I seriously thought of quitting and starting a housecleaning business.
Finally I got an offer for a tenure-track position. Given my three books in print and sterling teaching record, the department promised me a shot at tenure within three years. But: the job was in South Carolina, whose citizens occupied themselves by defending their right to fly a Confederate flag over the state capitol. It entailed a $10,000 cut in pay. The college provided a $2,000 moving allowance; three moving companies gave estimates in the $8,000 range to transport me across the continent.
The prospect of taking a massive pay cut and then forking up $6,000 to move, in middle age, to a part of the country where I knew no one and where the prevailing culture’s values would conflict with mine looked worse than staying where I was.
Yesterday I spent the better part of the day and evening with another friend whose job truly does make her miserable. The operation where she works is so badly managed that the atmosphere has become toxic, and it’s hard to understand how its malignant supervisor has escaped notice from the higher-ups. My friend has decided to leave—wisely, I think. Even though she feels this is not the best time financially, her husband has a good job that is unlikely to go away and that will support them both. Eventually she probably will find something else, after she’s had time to recover psychologically and physically from the grinding experience she’s gone through.
She has put up with a great deal of suffering for a very long time, partly because of financial considerations, partly because (like any target of abuse) she has imagined her unhappiness is somehow her own fault, and partly because she doesn’t quit things lightly.
My take on this is that work is not called “work,” a job is not called a “job” because earning a living is intended to be fun. The whole idea that we can expect to enjoy our jobs may be utterly misguided. If work were fun, we would call it “partying,” not “working.” Clearly, some jobs are less onerous than others. And some people delude themselves that they are having great fun on their jobs. But most don’t.
It strikes me that “job happiness” is a contradiction in terms.You have to put bread on your table. You can’t always just quit because your job sucks.
How to deal with this? Several possibilities come to mind.
1. Find a way to become self-employed, so at least you have only one boss: yourself. Start a side job and quietly develop it into something that can support you, even if you have to cut your standard of living until you can get the business running. A friend of mine made a good living as a cross-country truck driver, but he imagined he should have a life. His coworkers scoffed when he quit his job to start a lawn business. Within a year, he said, he was earning more than he’d made driving big rigs and enjoying life a great deal more.
2. Or seek employment at outfits that do not actively abuse their workers.
3. Restrict the job to the workplace. Leave it behind when you walk out the door, and walk out the door on time. Do not work overtime, and do not take a job where you are expected to devote your entire being to your occupation. Draw a distinct line between “occupation” and “life,” and jealously guard your life.
4. In an unhappy job, do as little work as possible without risking dismissal. Perform the work you must do competently, but do no more than necessary. Take all your vacation time, engineering every three-day and four-day weekend you can manage. Keep a low profile, and get out of the place as soon as you can.
5. If at all possible, move to another job once every few years. Jobs that seem wonderful when you start soon grow old. The challenge of starting with a new company or building a new enterprise at least injects a little interest into the chore of earning a living.
6. Move up or move down. If what you’re doing looks like a dead end, find a way to tunnel out. To move up, take out a loan and go back to school; get training in something that will take you in a new direction. Or consider taking a lesser job, one whose sole purpose is to put bread on the table without requiring that you donate your soul to the devil. One man with a fine higher education, for example, discovered that his entire outlook on life brightened after hequit a career and took a job as a forklift operator.
7. Retire at the earliest possible moment. When your mortgage and your car are paid off, it is amazing how little you need to live on. Get out of debt; build a pile of savings; learn to live frugally; get yourself under an inexpensive, paid-off roof; divest your life of clutter (physical and spiritual); and quit working.
It’s important to build a divide between you and your job. You are not your job! Your value as a human being is not determined by what you do for a living or by how much you earn.Gettingthat concept into your head—and truly believing it—is the real basis for happiness on the job.
good advice
I completely agree, especially with #3.
In some respects I can appreciate where you are coming from. Everyone has had the experience of working at a job that drained them physically and emotionally but stayed due to a false sense of security. I like the fact that you talk about starting your own business, in my opinion this is the best way to utilize your passions and talents and be compensated what you are worth. I completely disagree with #4. Do as little as possible to avoid getting canned but to keep your job? If you want to go absolutely nowhere in life. Do that. You will kill your reputation and become someone that other people that you work with have little respect for. If you hate the job that much, quit. A pillar of our economy is value creation. Create value by utilizing your talents. If the answer to how that is done is not readily apparent, get creative and figure it out. Don’t expect someone to hand you the job you have always wanted.
I like option 7.
That’s my dream and it’s getting closer.
Management was abusive at my last job and it was ruining my life and affecting my family.
I finally got fed up and quit, which I don’t recommend for anyone right now.
Luckily, I found a great new job and life is wonderful again.
Keep the faith and pursue your dreams.
Fair enough. Unfortunately I know a couple of people who think they can do the minimum and are entitled to keep their job by doing the minimum. As for working for an employer who is abusive, I don’t know if I would put up with or have put up with that for more than a few days. No amount of money or any of my possessions is worth that.
Brandon,
I put up with it for two years, because I support a family of four on my paycheck.
I dreamed about walking out dozens of times, but I stuck it out for the sake of of my family.
Finally, I typed up a leter of resignation and pulled the trigger.
It’s a liberating experience, but it may not be the most prudent financial decision.