Tag: Jobs

  • Love What You Do

    I had a conversation about work and working yesterday with a friend of mine who used to be my boss a couple of years ago. It was a video chat, as my friend lives on one side of the country and I’m on the other. Part of the conversation was to catch up, the other was a semi-interview as my friend was doing a little research on the jobs and careers that people choose.

    As we talked, I admitted that I have never had a job that made me excited to get up in the morning. I never rolled out of bed ready to greet the day and tackle work. I have had jobs that I enjoyed, but to be honest, what I have really enjoyed about working is the people I have worked with. I have made some really great friends, and I sure have laughed hard with a great many people. That is what I think of when I share the good memories of being employed.

    I can never get past the thought that my time is being purchased by someone, or an organization, for the purpose of making them more money. Sometimes it is a very equitable exchange, well balanced, thus not causing any friction. Other times, I have felt like I am being taken advantage of, and I don’t want to be there.

    My friend did ask me, what do I think would be the one job that would make me excited to get up in the morning, and I answered, none; I don’t think it exists.

    I do believe there are some people out there that do in fact, find that perfect job or career, and they are sure excited to go to work every day. My mom was a nurse, she always wanted to be a nurse, and she loved being a nurse. I know teachers that are like that, and small business owners – that is totally true, they love what they do.

    But the rest of us?

    What gets us excited in the morning are our kids, or our spouse, or our garden, or sports team, or travelling, or creating art, or whatever. I believe that there is a large group of us who feel and believe that working does not and will not make us happy. Working is a necessary evil to get us to the things that make us happy. Be honest, this isn’t a revolutionary thought. We all know this to be true. Most of us don’t like working no matter what job we have.

    When I finished my conversation with my friend, I started thinking, where did this idea come from that we should be joyous and contented with our employment? That if you are not loving what you are doing, then you somehow have messed up in life. That one’s being has to be related to their labor.

    I think it might be rooted in the question we were asked as kids; What do you want to be when you grow up?

    (But before you go! I need you to validate my labors, simply by liking this post, commenting on it, or even sharing it. It will help keep the unemployment rate below 4%.)

  • It’s Labor Day

    I feel like I have achieved some sort of accomplishment for making it to Labor Day. Then I’m reminded of the Chris Rock joke, that you can’t be proud of something that you’re supposed to do. Like make it to Labor Day, or not go to jail.

    So, in my achievement/not achievement morning that I am having with my wife on the couch as we watch “The Price is Right,” I am thinking about how we got to the end of June, and I thought that this Summer would never get started or end for that matter. Yet here we are. The wife goes back to work tomorrow, and the kid is in school by Thursday.

    For me, I have to start looking for a job. Or at least, I have to start exploring ways to bring money in to help out the family. Won’t lie, I’m not looking forward to it. Part of it is that I have been out of work for so long, I have a little anxiety about returning. Also, I have this nagging feeling that I have started entering the realm of being just a little too old for certain jobs. And then there is what set of skills do I have? What I can do really only applies to theatre and non-profit arts groups.

    I talked about this with the wife last night, and we are in agreement that though another income stream would help the family, there is no rush for me to go out and take the first job that comes my way. I can take my time and find the right fit. That does help me relax a little.

    But, alas, for today is the end of Summer in our house. We most likely will do nothing but watch TV, and let the kid do what ever she wants. We will give ourselves one final day to relax.

  • What I Allow to Define Me

    Lately, I started to observe something about myself; When I meet someone new, the question of “What do you do?” comes up, and I say, “I used to be in theatre, and arts administration.”

    Now, I haven’t had an arts admin job in two years, and I haven’t worked in theatre for three and a half years, and though I did use the pass tense, I still use these jobs to define me, to explain who I am. Maybe, subconsciously, I think I’m going back to these fields, but I am no longer sure that I will.

    I am self-conscious of where I find myself now, and I am not sure how to describe it to others. I am a stay at home parent, and I have trouble saying it out loud. Part of it is that I feel like I defaulted into this position, and the other part is that it doesn’t cover the whole picture. I am a stay at home dad because I became unemployed over COVID, and I started taking care of the kid, and her remote schooling because my wife was working remotely and she needed to focus on that. What started as a temporary fix, until I found another job, evolved into where we are today.

    I am happier than I have been in a long time. Sure, I still have stresses and worries about the future, but what I have noticed lately is that I no longer dread getting up in the morning. I don’t hate the day before it begins. I don’t fear going to bed, because what the next day will bring. I see now that I had lived so much of the past ten years like that; angry and frustrated at every place that I worked.

    I do have to take some responsibility here. Yes, the jobs were toxic, but I also made the choice to go to work there, day after day. Maybe I thought I could change the people and places that I worked at. Maybe I thought I couldn’t find a better job. The bottom line is that I actively made the choice, for a long time, not to find a way out.

    The only thing that kept me from imploding was the theatre work that I did over those ten years, and the friends I made from it. And the overwhelming majority of the work was in puppetry. Every time I got a job, I would throw myself into it, just commit and do it. It was rewarding, confirmed the reason I moved to NYC, and also validated my existence, at least on an artistic level.

    And here I am, years removed from both, and still I present these titles to people, as if they are relevant to who I currently am.

  • Selfish with My Time

    This past Friday, I mentioned that I had seen a listing for a theatre job that I was interested in, but wasn’t sure if I should apply for. I was going to take the weekend and think about it, but most likely, I was going to submit a resume no matter what, because what do I have to lose.

    Well… I totally forgot about the job. I mean, we did have a busy weekend with Friday movie night, and a birthday party on Saturday afternoon, and then there was the Super Bowl, and by the time Monday came around, we were back in the swing of the week.

    Then this morning, as the wife and I were walking back from the gym (you read that right) she asked me if I sent in my resume for that job. Thus, why I can say I forgot about the job as that was the first time I had thought about it in three days. First, I might not be real “into” the job if I forgot about it. Second, and I told my wife this, I really don’t want to give up my time with our daughter. I don’t like being in debt and feeling stuck, but I’m only going to get one chance have this time with her, and I don’t want to give it away to people who don’t deserve it.