People always ask why I left my last job (my one and only full-time adult job) and why can’t I find full-time employment like there is something wrong with me. Let me tell you (I tell myself this often) there is nothing wrong with me and plenty of Canadian and Americas agree with me. Can you believe 53% of Americans and around 1.3 million Canadians in 2002 were NOT satisfied with their jobs for a variety of reasons (Statistics Canada, Government of Canada and Market Watch http://www.marketwatch.com/story/majority-of-americans-dislike-their-jobs-survey-show). So there! I am tired of explaining to friends, friends of friends, parents (not just mine) why I left my “great job” so for the record here it is the anticipated explanation.
I left my previous job because I had no longer had any enthusiasm for the job and I did not feel that I was contributing to the world etc in meaningful way. Ok let’s be honest here I started to hate it and what and/or who I was becoming. Believe it or not but I want a job that has purpose and contributes in some way to the world even if it is just in some small way. I know – who knew a child of the greedy eighties could feel this way? It was quite a realization for me when I woke up one day last year and discovered this revelation myself.
I have had a variety of jobs over the years such as daffodil picker (this one was particularly colourful), factory worker, office worker, boat cleaner and biologist (a job my expensive receipts aka degrees had “prepared” me for). I consider myself well rounded in the world of work and wasn’t exactly prepared for the slap of realization when I realized that I hated what every graduate hopes to achieve a full-time permanent job (whatever permanent means these days) with benefits. I still remember how relieved I was when I got the job offer. I believe actually I know my parents were more excited about my job than I was. I could hear my dad’s huge sigh of relief...thank god a full-time job, a permanent address, those university degrees have finally paid off.
Yip they paid off alright for a whole year. Just long enough for me to pay off all my graduate student debt and realize that the glory of the job I had been chasing was not so shiny. Don’t get me wrong the job was a great opportunity for someone just not this someone. My co-workers were and are still great. I got to live in a pretty great place, meet new people and discover that on my rather pitiful single person salary if I worked for another couple of years I could maybe even afford a house... in crack alley. My dream of owning my own home based on my single salary was quickly burst. My annual salary equated to 22% of the annual salary actually needed to be able to afford a house, not in crack alley. So with no home ownership in my future and lack of accomplishment in my job I woke up one morning and decided that resignation was my one and only mental sanity option.
I typed up my letter of resignation and handed it in. It was such a relief. I felt a million times better about myself. So here I am almost one year later with debt mounting, the occasional contract (i.e. pay check) still feeling good about my decision to resign and still on the quest to find “the job”. The job that will offer me satisfaction, a sense of well being and at the very least allow me to afford my own apartment. In the last year I have discovered that I don’t care how much money I make if I am not satisfied with myself or my job at the end of the day the job is not worth the sacrifice, myself. I am worthy of a job that I personally find satisfying, challenging and meaningful with a purpose. For me, job satisfaction defiantly is not at the end of the pay check. Here’s to all of you out there waiting for your wakeup call, for those of you who have already had it and to those who have found “the job” celebrate it and yourself.
Food for Thought
Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you’ll have more success that you could possibly have imagined. – Roger Cara
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