Following my recent crash and burn I've been trying to sort through what happened, why it happened, and how I can improve. One of the key topics that I have hit on is how I have been viewing work. I'm still processing through this, but this discussion on The Refuge helped me start to clarify some of my thoughts. Last night I was responding to the thread and got on a roll about what works best for an INTP in the workplace. A lot of this seems to be me explaining to myself where I went off track...
I see work in two ways. One is a way for me to pay my bills. For that, one job is just as good as the next if the dollars add up. Any extra dollars above what I need to pay my bills is frankly a waste of time. I don't love money or having fancy things so pay is just about keeping the bill collectors off my phone.
The other way I see work (if I am being clear-headed) is as a way for me to challenge myself, to create, to solve problems, and generally do what I want to do. Sure, my employer has a job description for me and expectations and all that, however what I really work for is my secret agenda and I use their money to do it. Now I'm not talking about stealing from them. What I mean is that I see it as an old fashioned bargain. They want something (labor to make them money by doing certain tasks) and I want something (to do what I like to do). We strike a bargain - they pay me and I do the work they need done. However, the reason I work is for me, not for them and not for money. I want to be intellectually challenged. I want to solve hard problems. I want to create order out of disorder. I want to learn new things. I want to be creative. I want to make discoveries. I want to be an INTP. So I work for me, not for them. I sell them some of the fruit of my labor, but the rest of it is for my pleasure. They know this and they're happy to get what they get.
I think of it like a young man in a small farming town. What if he's forced to become a farmer but what he truly loves is being a mechanical engineer? He might be forced to be a sod buster due to economics and education, but guess what he's going to end up doing? If he's on the ball and does what he wants then he ends up making a better tractor or designing a better thresher. He knows he has to sell vegetables to pay the bills, but what he really works at is what he wants and loves to do. Soon he designs a way of sorting vegetables, so he doesn't have to do that tedious job anymore, which will let him spend more time designing machinery and improving things. Then he goes to his next challenge. Sure his customers still think of him as a farmer and still expect him to produce vegetables. He does that and they pay him for it (and he pays those stinking bill collectors), but what they think and expect doesn't define what he is, what he wants, and ultimately what he does. He is a mechanical engineer.
I once read a psychologist who talked about going into a factory. It was a dreary environment - one of those places where workers are little more than machines with slightly more dexterity and a lot less job security. It was a mind numbing environment that epitomized the industrial revolution. Well, there was one guy there who was one of the happiest people the psychologist had ever seen. He got to work a bit early every day, set out his tools just so, and eagerly waited for the whistle and the first bucket of parts to arrive. His job was to put parts together in a certain way to make a product. He would make the same product day after day. When that whistle blew and the parts hit his bench he smiled happily and charged into his work. At the end of the shift he would carefully clean his workbench, put his tools away and walk out of the plant whistling while everyone else was dragging. How in the world could the guy be happy? The psychologist spoke to the foreman and asked about the man. Was he a slacker? Is that why he was happy? Was he a new guy? Was he a moron? Was he wealthy and just did this to feel like one of the people? The foreman responded that no, the guy wasn't a layabout, had been with the company for years, and he wasn't wealthy. In fact he was the top performer and constantly produced more than anyone else. So the psychologist went and spoke to the man to find out what the deal was. He found that the guy had designed his job into a personal agenda. He knew that he was stuck in that factory since it was the only game in town, but he was a guy who was competitive and loved challenging himself. So he started seeing how many pieces he could make in a shift. Eventually he realized that he couldn't improve his count unless he reduced his number of motions, set all the pieces in a particular way, kept all the tools in exactly the right spot, and stayed perfectly focused on what he was doing. Day after day he challenged himself to do better in that mundane job and refined his work, his tools, and his environment. Everyone else around him was miserable (including the foreman) but this guy had found a way to do what he wanted and he was happy. It wasn't a job anymore.
That's why I asked you what it is you want. I don't like going to a job either. It's pointless except for paying the power bill. However, if I can go do what I want to do and strike a bargain with someone else to get them to pay for it then it's not pointless anymore and it's not a job. It becomes an enjoyable activity for me even though once in a while I may have to drag my cart of vegetables to the market. If I set up my job that way then I don't have to be significant to the world, I don't have to be a rising star, I don't have to even like the people around me. It doesn't matter, because I am doing what I want to do. It just takes some thought to realize what that is and a little creativity to figure out a way to do what I want in the framework of my situation. I have to reassess every once in a while since things change, but the overriding question that I have to keep coming back to is simple - what is it I really enjoy and want to do and how can I do it right now?
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