Baby A is done with his sophomore year and will be a junior in about 3 months. I guess that got him thinking about his future, so he asked me how do you choose a job/career that will make you happy? And then he added, are you happy with what you do? That becomes a complicated question, if I have to give a short answer, I would say no. I go in and do the same repetitive samples every other week or so. We just keep doing qualifications so our customers can have faith that their process, be it making semiconductors or solutions/chemicals are as clean as they need to be in regard to metal contaminants. Thinking in this way, there is very little enrichment and personal growth, and it would be a very easy way to justify quitting after 2-3 months. The reality is that what I do allows me to live a comfortable life, I do a job some would consider technical enough to require higher compensation than the average person, so I sleep well at night knowing I am providing an above average lifestyle for those I love, it makes the sacrifice of me doing something that is mind numbingly boring easier to accept.
So then what can I give as advice to my boys? I told him same as I remember telling Boy, do something you enjoy doing. Boy always seemed to like to tinker and build things. He would always take my tools, take things apart, and this continued into high school when he joined the robots team and then the rockets team. Naturally, it seemed like engineering was the right choice and I think it is, but he has what I think is a perfect job for him at a big area company that provides machinery for our industry and he says he is trusted with assembling racks of electronics worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and tools for customers and now he wants to say his job is meh. So, I don't know what advice to give.
As far as I know, nobody is really happy doing their job. Wife likes the end result of helping the kids in her school by providing whatever resources are out there, but don't tell me she likes the day in and day out of sitting in meetings with dolts or having to jump through hoops writing the grants that bring the money into the schools, which is the real work that she gets paid for. My lawyer brother loves his lifestyle and is compensated very nicely but hates the actual work part of meeting with clients and getting yelled at by judges. I am pretty sure my dad didn't love being in a truck 5-6 days out of the week away from home most of his working life. I put my mom in the same boat as Wife, she may have loved the interacting with the kids as a counselor but there was a lot of paperwork that was part of her job and it never seemed to end.
I think in the end, we do the job so we can enjoy life away from work. Work provides the fuel for the life we want to have. Few people get to live the life of celebrities, for the majority of us we simply get to enjoy life as much as we can based on the lifestyle our finances allow. Make a decent salary and you'll probably live a decent life. I know that sounds shallow, but if you want more, feel free to donate your time to charities, but I still say volunteering doesn't pay, but that is the beauty of America, you can do what you want.
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