are people really looking for this level of purpose in their jobs? my job is so i can pay for the things i actually want to do. if the things i wanted to do were free i wouldn’t be working.
That doesn’t prevent your work from having meaning. Over the years I’ve had the full range, from purely physical mindless labor to earn a paycheck, to projects that meant so much to me I once responded to a salary requirement with “Hell I’d basically do this for a ham sandwhich”.
It took a lot of effort, time, training, and sheer stubbornness on my part, but here I am in middle age, having finally found a work life balance that is just about perfect.
The work I do is interesting, challenging, unique, and has benifit for the entire company and more importantly, my fellow employees.
I could make more by taking different job, but the added stress, hours, and lack of meaning to me doesn’t make it worth it.
I could find a more fulfilling job, but likely at a pay cut that would lower my standard of living too much.
The important part to me is, I look forward to my work. I’ll work in the evening or on weekends a bit just because I’ve thought up a solution and the problem solving is fun for me.
Even when I have to do the shit parts of my job, it never wears on me since it’s part of a greater whole. While making money is obviously important, and a big part of why I have a job at all, just making money can’t be all of it.
Getting home at the end of the day from backbreaking labor, doing work that feels shady, takes advantage of people, or supports an industry that I don’t agree with, leaves me feeling a sense of dread about going back the next day. I can’t enjoy the time that is mine as much when I know I have to go back to that tomorrow.
As with all things this can be taken to extremes, but I think it’s great that young people care about the wider implications of their work, and the value it brings to them.
This can only lead to better working environments, and hopefully, more ethically minded buisnesses.
Yeah, the fact is there are just some jobs that need to exist but don’t have a great sense of purpose. Very few peoples “purpose in life” is garbage disposal, but we’d be screwed if everyone gave up sanitation to seek out art or stem fields. If it pays the bills and the workplace culture is good, I’m fine with sacrificing “purpose” in my job so I can bettwr achieve purpose outside of it.
Frankly the crappy jobs nobody wants to do should be the ones that pay the best and offer the most benefits.
Construction, farming, salon workers, landscaping, garbage collection, cleaning, hospice care, meat packing, the people that cleaning port-a-potty’s and airport bathrooms. The crappy menial jobs where companies hire immigrants who speak little to no English and are paid $14.50 an hour.
My family stayed at a hotel during a house cleanup for a month. The hotel cleaning people spoke no English and immediately pulled out the phone to translate. I felt absolutely awful that I could not communicate with them. I felt bad that they had to cleanup after us. We ended hand the person who took our towels and changed the bed at least $10 a day as tip.
When I go to a nail salon to get a pedicure I give at least a 30% tip, closer to 50% as they have to deal with my disgusting feet.
When landscapers come I give them cold water.
My grandmother (lives in Toronto) had a care worker come to her house daily for over a year when she needed help putting on her blood pressure socks. The care giver was an immigrant from Jamaica. She was paid $19 per hour. Her rent skyrocketed during covid and she and her 4 roommates couldn’t afford to live. My grandmother grew up in a small town in Canada where all the money made was used to bring over any family that survived the holocaust. She said she knew what it was like to not to have so my grandmother gave her a few thousand dollars.
My dad is also an immigrant who grew up broke. He said to one of his buddies he tipped extra because an extra $5 would mean a lot more to someone else than him. I don’t know how he is today though (he’s a male Karen/ demands everything and usually it works out/ immigrat poverty mindset). What I do know is he had a business trip to Aparth South Africa once and the clients were pissed off that he had the audacity to pour his on Diet Coke instead of the “servant”.
are people really looking for this level of purpose in their jobs? my job is so i can pay for the things i actually want to do. if the things i wanted to do were free i wouldn’t be working.
That doesn’t prevent your work from having meaning. Over the years I’ve had the full range, from purely physical mindless labor to earn a paycheck, to projects that meant so much to me I once responded to a salary requirement with “Hell I’d basically do this for a ham sandwhich”.
It took a lot of effort, time, training, and sheer stubbornness on my part, but here I am in middle age, having finally found a work life balance that is just about perfect.
The work I do is interesting, challenging, unique, and has benifit for the entire company and more importantly, my fellow employees.
I could make more by taking different job, but the added stress, hours, and lack of meaning to me doesn’t make it worth it.
I could find a more fulfilling job, but likely at a pay cut that would lower my standard of living too much.
The important part to me is, I look forward to my work. I’ll work in the evening or on weekends a bit just because I’ve thought up a solution and the problem solving is fun for me.
Even when I have to do the shit parts of my job, it never wears on me since it’s part of a greater whole. While making money is obviously important, and a big part of why I have a job at all, just making money can’t be all of it.
Getting home at the end of the day from backbreaking labor, doing work that feels shady, takes advantage of people, or supports an industry that I don’t agree with, leaves me feeling a sense of dread about going back the next day. I can’t enjoy the time that is mine as much when I know I have to go back to that tomorrow.
As with all things this can be taken to extremes, but I think it’s great that young people care about the wider implications of their work, and the value it brings to them.
This can only lead to better working environments, and hopefully, more ethically minded buisnesses.
I’m sorry man that’s reallocated sad
Eddit: Really
i get what you mean but it depends what you’re chasing. current goal is to get my gf a visa and get married so we can live together permanently.
Yeah, the fact is there are just some jobs that need to exist but don’t have a great sense of purpose. Very few peoples “purpose in life” is garbage disposal, but we’d be screwed if everyone gave up sanitation to seek out art or stem fields. If it pays the bills and the workplace culture is good, I’m fine with sacrificing “purpose” in my job so I can bettwr achieve purpose outside of it.
Frankly the crappy jobs nobody wants to do should be the ones that pay the best and offer the most benefits.
Construction, farming, salon workers, landscaping, garbage collection, cleaning, hospice care, meat packing, the people that cleaning port-a-potty’s and airport bathrooms. The crappy menial jobs where companies hire immigrants who speak little to no English and are paid $14.50 an hour.
My family stayed at a hotel during a house cleanup for a month. The hotel cleaning people spoke no English and immediately pulled out the phone to translate. I felt absolutely awful that I could not communicate with them. I felt bad that they had to cleanup after us. We ended hand the person who took our towels and changed the bed at least $10 a day as tip.
When I go to a nail salon to get a pedicure I give at least a 30% tip, closer to 50% as they have to deal with my disgusting feet.
When landscapers come I give them cold water.
My grandmother (lives in Toronto) had a care worker come to her house daily for over a year when she needed help putting on her blood pressure socks. The care giver was an immigrant from Jamaica. She was paid $19 per hour. Her rent skyrocketed during covid and she and her 4 roommates couldn’t afford to live. My grandmother grew up in a small town in Canada where all the money made was used to bring over any family that survived the holocaust. She said she knew what it was like to not to have so my grandmother gave her a few thousand dollars.
My dad is also an immigrant who grew up broke. He said to one of his buddies he tipped extra because an extra $5 would mean a lot more to someone else than him. I don’t know how he is today though (he’s a male Karen/ demands everything and usually it works out/ immigrat poverty mindset). What I do know is he had a business trip to Aparth South Africa once and the clients were pissed off that he had the audacity to pour his on Diet Coke instead of the “servant”.