Not the Parent Teacher Organization…
Its Personal Time Off. First time in 8 months I’ve done this and I only took 2 days. I shoulda done a week now that I think about it. I have some personal stuff to get done the next days but I am also counting on writing some blogposts on a few various/sundry topics.
Recently, I’ve posted more about what I would call “coming of age” or “questions of life” posts than technology, anthropology, social issues. The blog here has no real focus and I try to always post a bit of subterfuge in keeping with the overall title of the thing.
Work has been an item of interest of late to me and I’ve spent a deal of time considering it, talking to others, getting a feel for what its all about. After years of being at work’s tit, I still don’t have the great feeling for what I am supposed to accomplish with it. I do know there are different kinds of employment though:
- job – this is something I believe we do to meet a set of goals perhaps over the short-term. the actual work milieu may not be challenging or the challenge may be to make it not challenging. It may be something around survival or something necessary for the family, self, etc. I don’t think its a long-term salvation thing.
- career – I think career is a thing we decide to do when the job becomes inevitably more and we reach a plateau of age. Suddenly challenge means less and stability means more. We’re talking about spending money into 401k plans, planning out that 25 foot RV, looking at our “golden years”. The career may not be challenging in and of itself; but its stable, perhaps is not a startup, and may not be in technology. We do it because we’ve made it fit well in our lifecycle and perhaps the pay is good.
I’ve never really know “career” bliss. I don’t think job bliss really exists since I believe we always look toward that next startup opportunity as the great one and the current one has the high suckage factor. I’ve done my fair share of technology startups and none of them are careers yet for me. Its too dynamic and stressful. No one wants a career of 20 years embroiled with the level of stress and chaos that a startup brings in its first few months of life.
But…
As we get older, do we want more or less? Does the ever-chaotic and changing job lifestyle drain us, make us want a more realistic and predictable world? Age brings certain realizations. One is that no matter what we say about “loving that job”; work really does suck. It will always suck and even careers will in the end. Because the career is about ending. The gold watch, the retirement and RV. Those are ends and beginnings all rolled into one.
