Satisfaction With Work Is Open To All

Dear Jennifer: Though your answer was basically correct to the woman who disliked her job, there are situations where you can’t change it. I did a job for 30 years which bored me to death at best and I hated at worst. If I listed everything I tried to get off this treadmill it would fill several pages.

The plain FACT, Jennifer, is that only a very minuscule percentage of people are lucky enough to be able to work in a field which is its own reward, like creative artists. For the rest of us it is just “ditch digging” of one kind or another. - Edgar

Dear Jennifer: These are difficult times and I wonder about the wisdom of advising one to discard a well-paying job to follow one’s bliss. I agree with this in spirit, but there is a practical world in which we live and with which we all can perish. I work with boneheads but we as individuals can rise above those who attempt to corner us into ineffectiveness and unimportance. - Mary

Dear Edgar and Mary: I agree with both of you. I advised Kim (12/11) to try to pursue opportunities where she was. I warned her to be sure of her decision and very careful about her planning if she left her job. But I thought it was clear from her letter that she was determined to leave regardless. I gave her ways to find out what she wanted, not ways to “follow her bliss.”

Yes, we have to work. I have been a janitor in a chicken lab (worst job), waitress (eight years), fry cook, house cleaner, salesperson, teacher, researcher, radio host, TV commentator, lecturer and writer. What I learned was that I liked working hard, I didn’t mind cleaning up most things, I liked waiting on most people, I hated makeup, I couldn’t stand dishonesty and I disliked working with “boneheads” or doing things that had no value just for the money.

When I was folding other people’s laundry or flipping burgers, I thought about how I could maximize the parts of a job I liked and minimize the parts I didn’t. The great gift I got from being a researcher at a university was that, for the most part, you can work alone. That’s what I do now. I clean, provide service, sell things and write, but in my own environment and in my own way.

I don’t believe that work satisfaction is available to only a few lucky people. I think it can be created if you know your own preferences, strengths and weaknesses. You have to be careful and you have to plan, but the ability to control your own time is a key element in happiness and worth fighting for.

I believe that whatever your job, you can find satisfaction in doing it well and plan “another life” outside of work. It’s hard but there are enough hours in all of our days to do what we want. We make the choices. - Jennifer

Dear Jennifer James: I recently read in your column the letter that reproached daughters-in-laws for not getting along with mothers-in-law. Well, there are always several sides to a story and I want to tell you that your advocacy of peacemaking because “it’s his mother after all” is ridiculous. Simply because you gave birth to a person or raised them through high school does not give you some inherent right to be a part of their life forever.

(What followed was a description of a mother-in-law from hell.)

I am sick and tired of dealing with this horrible creature. - Disgusted Daughter-in-law.

Dear DD: The week before the column you read I had suggested a daughter give up on pleasing her parents and take care of her marriage instead. All family stories are different and I have many times told readers not to take abuse or put up with tyrants and martyrs. There are some acts that are unforgivable. There are some personalities that mean you harm.

The core of the series of columns on in-laws was the importance of trying to be open and accepting, of putting up with some irritations or frustrations to maintain family ties, of forgiving if you can.

I believe you are wrong about the “inherent right to be a part of their life forever.” There are limits, as I have said, but genetic and childhood memories are powerful connectors. They may be unconscious but they are not to be taken lightly. There will come a day when your children are grown that you will feel the power and the pain of the generational tug. - Jennifer

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jennifer James The Spokesman-Review