WWDD? (What Would Dewey Do?)
You know why I love my job? Well, okay, sure, there are lots of reasons, not least of which is that I get to read books and then talk about them with other people who love to read.
But really, I've come to discover, one reason I love my job so much is that I'm good at it.
I've had other jobs before, sure. We all have. I've liked some more than others, of course. I loved the bookstore job. The other retail-type jobs I've had have been varying degrees of fun balanced with awful...the fun was my coworkers, the awful was the customers, lol! But it's really the career I had previous to this career to which I must compare my current situation. I was an editor. But not a fun editor like you think....I didn't get to read and mark-up novels or short stories or anything fun like that. No, no. I had to work with technical crap. I was editing for formatting rather than style. I was trying to catch tiny formatting errors in legal materials and medical documents. I was editing fucking test questions for fucking neurologist certification exams. It was dry, and boring, and I hated it...and I wasn't much good at it, either. I don't have much of an eye for minutiae like that...I'm not detail-oriented and I know it. And since I wasn't good at it, or interested enough in the work to really try to improve, I hated it, which made me care less about it, which made me more careless when it came to catching those errors, which made me hate it....well, you get the point. Self-defeating cycle, really.
But I'm GOOD at this job, no bragging. It combines customer service...which I'm good at...with reading and literary criticism...which I'm also good at.
And there is no better feeling in the (workplace) world than that of competence. You feel strong and self-assured and as though you've actually found the place you're meant to be. COMPETENCE.
But really, I've come to discover, one reason I love my job so much is that I'm good at it.
I've had other jobs before, sure. We all have. I've liked some more than others, of course. I loved the bookstore job. The other retail-type jobs I've had have been varying degrees of fun balanced with awful...the fun was my coworkers, the awful was the customers, lol! But it's really the career I had previous to this career to which I must compare my current situation. I was an editor. But not a fun editor like you think....I didn't get to read and mark-up novels or short stories or anything fun like that. No, no. I had to work with technical crap. I was editing for formatting rather than style. I was trying to catch tiny formatting errors in legal materials and medical documents. I was editing fucking test questions for fucking neurologist certification exams. It was dry, and boring, and I hated it...and I wasn't much good at it, either. I don't have much of an eye for minutiae like that...I'm not detail-oriented and I know it. And since I wasn't good at it, or interested enough in the work to really try to improve, I hated it, which made me care less about it, which made me more careless when it came to catching those errors, which made me hate it....well, you get the point. Self-defeating cycle, really.
But I'm GOOD at this job, no bragging. It combines customer service...which I'm good at...with reading and literary criticism...which I'm also good at.
And there is no better feeling in the (workplace) world than that of competence. You feel strong and self-assured and as though you've actually found the place you're meant to be. COMPETENCE.