The ideal job

Tom,  at TrueTalk Blog, expanded on my Electronic Arts post to show the other side of the job dilemma. Where my post on EA showed the "joys" of working for an electronic sweat shop, his post, Hourmania, discussed the far more common trap of losing ones life and family to the seductive lure of an apparently ideal job.

He describes a work situation which most creative people would sell their soul for:

    I work with some of the most talented designers in the world. They're boundlessly creative, hugely energetic, and work harder than anyone I've ever seen. Unlike the EA story, No one is driving them to do so. They drive themselves. Their standards continually escalate, and the work gets better still.

I worked in that kind of environment more than once. These were the most intensely rewarding positions I have ever held. These were also the times when I did the greatest damage to my personal relationships outside of work.

Tom puts his finger on the problem:

    We have to get past this "work/life balance" rhetoric and think more deeply about our expectations of ourselves. We have to be able to come up with an answer to when "enough" is "enough."

There is no pat answer for this one, but I see a number of young people making more intelligent choices than I did. For example, I see two-career families where one family member puts a career on hold in order to raise a pre-school age child. This is their alternative to paying for full-time child care. They are taking a long-term view of what is important and I think that is the key.

I think that taking the "main chance" is appropriate when that dream job comes along, but both the worker and the family need to set a time limit and a purpose for the immersion in the dream job.

If you think of the opportunity as a career/financial booster with a finite window of opportunity, it might work out best for all concerned.

The dedication can be intense, but like going to college or back for an advanced degree, the primary focus should be on what comes afterwards.

Employment today is temporary. Like it or not, you are an employee at will.  You can be let go for cause or no cause. There is only one long-term solution.

Every job you take should be part of a plan to equip you for full self-employment at some later point in life.

When one is post-retirement age as I am, there are few positions available even for the most highly skilled professionals. The internet shakeup of 2001 spilled hundreds of thousands of experienced workers into the ranks of unemployed. Many of the over-fifty group are still looking for work. The only solution for most others was to work for themselves.

Pensions are a thing of the past and Social Security may be a mirage, but a skilled person with business acumen and a nest egg can always generate income. The ideal jobs are those that prepare you for long-term job security as your own boss.

What do you think? I welcome your thoughts on this.

UPDATE: I have written another post, the ideal job - part 2, to provide some help in recognizing an ideal job.

Comments

[Kim Berggren]

I wish it were not so, but you are right. As a 50-year-old tech worker in a large corporation, I am increasingly aware of my vulnerable position. Often I feel like I am standing on a trap door—-and my employer can pull the lever any time. When it opens, I will be in a free-fall. I feel my only choice is to prepare for self-employment. Unfortunately, not everyone has the skills to build a business on their own. Here is an opportunity for someone to start a business helping workers to prepare for starting their own.

[Tom Guarriello]

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I decided to take a chance on ourselves. It turned out to be the best bet we ever made on every possible scale. But that doesn't mean it's been easy...we've had many anxious moments, but many more moments of real satisfaction at doing what we were meant to do.

Happy to have you link to my writing, David. Thanks.

[Dave]

This is precious commentary!

I have always strived to look at the big picture. But in contemplation of the mission and quest that has sat perched upon my nose for the last eight years - I certainly haven't.

Although you try to enjoy and learn from the journey of searching for the ideal job, you tend to get caught up with the immediacy of where you are at.

In Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Peter Drucker devotes a chapter to The Second Half of Your Life. I think it wonderfully reinforces your comment about preparing for self employment!

[Bren]

This is a great post, David. I can't really articulate the ways that this resonates with me. In my family of 30-somethings and toddlers, I took a pretty significant pay cut in order to have commute to work that I do on foot. My wife has been working half-time, but won't be working at all next year, for precisely the reason you describe.

Good stuff and it's nice to have big decisions validated by the voice of experience. :-)

[Rosa]

Aloha David, how I wish all our youth could read -- trust in, and believe -- your post, and to use Bren's word, how it resonates with so many of us. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20-20, but foresight is far, far better.

One of the traps my husband and I fell into along this same road was convincing ourselves that the "easier" path of working for another employer for so long would also be easier on our family, cutting down our stress with financial risk, overly long hours when it's only you and you can't clock out, etc. And while those certainly can be factors, I now wish we kept looking for more options and worked our way to self-employment more gradually versus going cold turkey. For as you so intuitively pointed out, along the way, thinking to stop at that "enough" with the dreamy employers we sought and did find, seemed to disappear from our actions altogether.

My own Talking Story is on holiday ho'omaha (hiatus) right now, but I'll be linking to you in my next e-letter to my Ho'ohana Community to share your post soon. Mahalo for staring this collective wisdom.
Happy Holidays.