Can you share how and why your wife loves her job that she finds it entertaining?
Is it because of the company brand? The pay? the colleagues? the boss? the culture? the nature of the work? the work life balance? the day to day challenges/brain stimulating work ... or something else?
Was this always the case for her since her first job? Or is she more chin-chai and not bothered with other stuff (razor focused on the positives and ignore blissfully the negatives of the job), hence more her personality than the company or work itself?
It's quite rare to find his or her ikigai these days. Most of us work to pay the bills and put food on the table, and just keep our head down, work hard/smart and swallow our pride/play politics in the office.
-Comment by xiaoren
Recent comment by xiaoren on a topic which I never really talked about.
It has been a recurring topic/point.
I've left work, we have a fair total networth, enough to live frugally in SG with an HDB 99% paid up.
My wife could easily leave her work as well.
But she hasn't. Somehow, she loves her work. It's entertainment to her.
And I think many of us struggle with this. Cos it's not common to find someone who absolutely loves their work.
The answer to xiaoren is actually... all of it. Everything that xiaoren mentioned in the comment. I think my wife can relate to.
Is it the company brand?
Yes, my wife has worked in a number of big companies.
But I don't think this is a main point. Big companies generally pay better, with better policies for employee growth.
I would consider this a normal criteria. Many of us want to work for big and good companies.
The pay?
The pay is always important. Her pay has steadily increased throughout the years. Most big companies pay well and will have regular increases in pay as long as the staff is performing well enough.
Also a normal criteria. We all want better pay. If we are good in the work we do and the company is good, they company will not short change the staff, else we will leave if we have options.
The colleagues?
Her colleagues are what I would consider normal. She interacts with them as necessary. Doesn't really have any real issues with them.
Another normal factor. We usually don't have much issues with colleagues. If we have daily quarrels or troubles with colleagues then it's going to really impact the overall job happiness. But most people don't have crazy troubles with colleagues.
The boss?
The boss is a very important criteria for my wife and her job. When she goes for an interview, she is also interviewing the boss. Whether the boss is flexible, is she able to learn from the boss, whether the boss has the skills to do the work, whether the boss allows her to do her work, etc...
She has left a company due to a boss before.
After about a few months in the company, she didn't enjoy working with the boss, so she planned to leave once the year was up as she didn't want to leave the company too quickly as that would not look nice on the resume.
The culture?
The culture is also highly important and related to the boss.
She must be allowed to do things. She has mentioned that she does not work well with bureaucratic companies. She likes to implement projects, changes, improvements. She is unable to work in a company which takes months to approve a project even before a project starts.
To her, she sends and email to the boss outlining what the wants to do, and she expects the boss to tell her to just go and do it.
The nature of the work?
Yes, her work is not administrative or operational. She makes decisions and expects her boss to back her initiatives. The changes she does are seen by the company as cost savings, etc.
As these are visible benefits for the company, her stakeholders appreciate the work she does and hold her in high regard. Which also adds to the job satisfaction.
The work life balance?
I would say, there is sufficient work life balance.
Cos she loves her work. It's hard to determine work life balance.
She could wake up at 5:30am to take calls. Or take calls at 7pm.
She may do some work on weekends. But she's happy to do it.
And yet she also will have sufficient time to go out and relax or watch shows, etc.
She works extended hours, cos she wants to finish the work which she finds challenging, not cos the boss expects it, or the load is unmanageable.
But she also appreciates her weekends and holidays and tries not to get engrossed in work or check her emails.
The day to day challenges/brain stimulating work?
And once again, yes, as her job scope is not administrative or operational, it allows her to effect changes for the company or department.
She finds it challenging and is rewarded for what she does at her work.
She intentionally looks for such work during her job search and knows she will not do well with mundane work.
Was this always the case for her since her first job?
She did some part time work when she was younger which was admin/operational. She knew she would not like it.
When she started her work after graduation, she had a good boss who was a good mentor which built up her skills. It was in a good company with a fairly ok pay.
The culture was good and she was allowed to do a lot of things and learn a lot of things. Her work was never mundane or operational.
I think this was very important as she could be lucky in the first job, thus, she knew what she enjoyed and what to look out for and so she can continue to pursue what she enjoyed for the rest of her career.
Or is she more chin-chai and not bothered with other stuff (razor focused on the positives and ignore blissfully the negatives of the job), hence more her personality than the company or work itself?
As for this... Her enjoyment for the job, the scope, the empowerment, the sense of accomplishment really outshines any negatives.
I've never heard her complain about politics, to her, it seems like it's not there.
But logically, it's quite impossible that it doesn't exist, so maybe it's how she perceives it. Maybe she ignores it? Blissfully ignorant about it? Or maybe she's right on top of the political food chain?
I'm unable to really determine. Cos from what she says, it's not there.
So it's hard to analyze or discuss with her, cos to her doesn't seem like it's there.
She just does her work and implements her initiatives, projects, etc.
So that's it.
It's like... for my wife, whatever most of us dreamed of as a good job, she has been able to find it.
The company, the pay, the ability to do something at work and be appreciated for it.
Good company culture and a good boss who will help with the initiatives, low bureaucracy such that she's allowed to push through her projects.
Low politics, for whatever reason. Either truly doesn't exist, or perceived not to exist, or top of the food chain.
It's not like she hasn't changed jobs for various reasons. She has. Left cos she got bored, things settled down, not much projects to do, her job scope changed to become more operational, left cos didn't work well with boss, left cos the company was too bureaucratic, etc.
But she's never said that she wants to leave cos it was too political.
I suppose it really boils down to, knowing what she wanted, maybe a focused personality to just do the work and ignore the negatives, looking out for a good company, culture, and boss.
Her starting pay wasn't very good. It was fair. But she was willing to work in that company to learn more and get skills which allowed her to progress further in her career.
As compared to me, where I got a much better paying job early in my career, but it was operational and highly political, probably more operational jobs are more political as it's harder to stand out.
But for her, once she got the skills, the jobs which opened up for her were higher level jobs which had visible quantifiable objectives and results, and so maybe, her results allowed her to rise above petty politics.
Or maybe a good first boss, who taught her to take up more projects and responsibilities.
Whereas my first boss told me to do my ops work and not take up other responsibilities as that's "not our job". It wasn't the job of that particular team/department and it's better not to take up more work and have the risk of more mistakes.
Luck? Personality? Or a mix of multiple factors?
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