Find meaning in work - Can all kinds of occupations be rewarding? How does our approach to what we do matter?
Just as school kids have Monday morning
blues, many adults also reluctantly trudge to work at the start of each week.
Work, for many people, is something that has to be done mainly to put bread on
the table. But given a choice, most people would opt to do something else. We
often believe that a different occupation would give us more satisfaction. But
economic necessities compel us to stick with a job we don’t quite enjoy. We
also believe that mundane and low status positions can’t provide us with
fulfilment. However, research suggests that all kinds of occupations can be
intrinsically rewarding. What matters is our approach to the work we do.
In a paper published in Journal of
Personality Research, psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues
describe people’s relationship to their work using three categories. People who
view their work as a job focus primarily on the material benefits that their
employment brings. The job is seen as a means of earning income, but nothing
more. If the person had sufficient wealth, he would not consider this line of
work, which is seen as a chore. In contrast, those who see their work as a
career, look beyond their salaries and are interested in climbing the
hierarchies within their organisation. They derive satisfaction and experience
higher self-esteem as they make advances in the occupational structure.
Promotions are seen as stepping stones to success, and people are motivated to
ascend the ranks. The third group involves those with a calling. For this
group, their work is an integral part of themselves. The primary motivator is
not financial gains or career growth, but the fulfilment that the work itself
brings. People feel their work is benefiting the world and are driven by a
purpose larger than themselves.
Wrzesniewski and her colleagues found that
this tripartite distinction of Job-Career-Calling applies to professions across
the board. Even though we may believe that nurturing professions such as
teaching or nursing may lend themselves more readily as callings, people can
find intrinsic satisfaction in all forms of employment. Thus, secretaries,
sales people and factory workers can view their work as a calling if they love
what they do and feel that they are making a positive difference to the world.
In a study that involved 135 employees,
Wrzesniewski and her team found an almost equal split between the three groups:
44, 43 and 48 people viewed their work primarily as a job, career or calling
respectively. Further, when they looked at specific occupations, they found
that administrative assistants were the largest group in their sample.
Interestingly, within this group, 9, 7 and 8 people viewed their work as a job,
career or calling. The fact that the same job elicits different perceptions in
different people suggests that the inherent demands of a job may have less of
an impact than our perception of it.
This point is poignantly illustrated by an
anecdote that psychologists C.R. Snyder and Shane Lopez recount in their book, Positive
Psychology. When Snyder was hospitalised at the University of Kansas
Medical Centre for a major surgery, he remembers an orderly who worked from midnight
to 8 am everyday. It was during this time that Snyder was most uncomfortable as
the effect of his pain medication usually wore off by then. While talking to
the orderly, who used to fluff his pillow, he learned that she was an immigrant
from Iran. Moreover, she said she loved her job, which was to ensure that
patients recovering from surgeries were comfortable during the wee hours of the
morning. When Snyder was in agonising pain, she would try to soothe his nerves
by telling him that his family would be at his side in the morning. She also
went the extra mile and brought a bunch of fresh flowers which she would place
in a vase by her patients’ bedside. Snyder learnt that she picked them up from
a local grocery store that used to otherwise throw away the unsold cut flowers.
For Snyder, the beauty of the flowers was enhanced by the orderly’s devotion to
her job. Thus, we see an example of how a relatively low-paying job can be
transformed into a calling by a person who sees inherent worth in what she does.
Psychiatrist and blogger Dr. Samantha
Boardman gives another example in The Huffington Post that captures the
effect of the difference in perception between the three groups. When asked to
describe what he is doing, a labourer may say that he is either laying bricks,
building a wall or a cathedral. While the day-to-day labour is the same in each
case, the worker’s views impacts how he feels about his work.
Thus, before deciding whether we really
dislike our job, perhaps we should introspect and reflect on our attitudes and
assumptions regarding our employment. Can we find meaning in what we do?
Remember that even the most mundane jobs serve a purpose. It is up to us to
find it.
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
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