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[I tried to make the percent sign above look really spiffy, using an even larger, blurred, lavender shadow text, but after three tries of its not saving correctly, I gave up. If you know how to make such things happen, maybe you can give me a lesson sometime. Anyway, this paragraph has nothing to do with the content of the majority of today's essay.]
I was talking with a friend of mine recently about his job. He said that if he could have a job for which he got paid the same amount he gets now without having to do the part of the job that he finds tedious, he'd love everything about his work. Shortly after that, I was talking with another English teacher about my experience reading AP English Literature and Composition exams for the College Board. (I did that for a lot of years, but I had to stop when I got the dean position at my school.) I told the teacher, who said she thought grading APs would be one of her circles of hell, that every year, I found the first four days of the reading to be the best professional development for teaching writing that I ever experienced, but that the last three days of the week were why they paid me. In my world view, this percentage was worth it.
I decided to consider my full-time job in the same way. I love about 85% of what I do at my school:
- helping my students think about reading, writing, and speaking.
- working with students to help them grow into responsible, thoughtful, caring, adults.
- partnering with other adults to figure out how to support student growth.
- supporting student endeavors in other myriad ways.
There are more, but that list covers a lot of how I spend my time, and I would happily do all of those things for a much lower salary because I find them enjoyable and rewarding.
Of course, to keep a boarding school going, we need people to take responsibility for less enjoyable tasks as well. For the 15% of my work that involves grading essays and driving kids to the hospital in the middle of the night and driving shuttles to the neighboring town (or really, any of the driving), I earn the majority of my paycheck.
I feel fortunate that the aspects of my job I enjoy make up such a high percentage. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't have lasted in this career for three decades. The hopes I have for my daughters and the kiddos I work with is that they too can find remunerative work that offers them 100% joy, but short of that, I hope they'll consider how much of their time they get to spend in ways they like versus how much of the time feels like, well, a job.
Do you have suggestions for how to assess a career for its percentage of tasks a person would enjoy? Are you feeling lucky that you have a high number, or does this post make you consider shifting to a new path? Please share any responses in the comments.
Thank you for this post, Carita! One of the ways I try to help students is to think about their universe of skills and strengths and those they want to develop, the positive feelings they want to generate and experience, and what being valued looks like to them. Then, I urge them to look at their lives in 360. Not every aspect of life, particularly work, will feed all parts of them at all times and that’s when they need to lean into their other identities to make that happen. For example, work might not always provide the ability to collaborate to the extent we’d like. Maybe a pursuit outside of work will afford them those types of experiences and fill the lack. Volunteering, joining a club, serving on a committee could be ways to do that. It’s important to bring creativity to work and personal life so that we see them as parts of a larger whole, not in silos.
Mary, I love this holistic approach to building not just a job but a full life that pushes the enjoyable percentages up and the annoying ones down. (And then, for the annoying, we can keep working on the reframing skills!) Thank you for sharing an expert’s opinion. (For those of you who don’t know Mary, she is a professional career coach and job-counseling teacher. If you want more advice from her, you can hire her to help you boost your positive percentages!)