Loving Your Job Is a Choice

When I was in high school and college, I had a job that I hated. It was a grocery store located at the edge of Sun City (a retirement city that somehow manages to discriminate on age and still be Fair Housing compliant). Customers were mean. The job was repetitive. The store played a steady stream of Celine Dion.

One day, I complained about my job to one of my closest friends, Brad the Philosopher.

“I hate this job.”

“But could you love it?”

“That’s impossible,” I told him.

“Maybe you’re right, but just for fun, why don’t you list things that make the job meaningful. Not fun. Not enjoyable. We know it sucks, but is it possible that there’s something meaningful built into it.”

“I guess on some abstract level, I get to allow people to have food. I mean, I’m a replaceable cog in a corporate machine, but I guess I contribute to that.”

That was the best I could do. However, that question nagged at me for next few days. The truth is, there were parts of this job that were actually profound. When I stocked the shelves, I got time alone where the boredom would somehow morph into a mental playground and that long, extended time alone became a place where I wrestled with existential questions or thought up ideas for novels. When I dealt with angry customers, I got a glimpse of the different stages of life and I had the chance to decide between judgment and empathy. I could choose kindness even when there was no reciprocation.

One day, while I was stocking the water, a customer asked for help. She needed to know where the lemon juice was and when I told her the aisle number, she told me she couldn’t read the numbers, because her vision was failing. Another customer interrupted me as I walked this woman over to the lemon juice.

Then it hit me. This crappy job was a training ground for life. I could choose to hate it. I could count down the hours. But if I did, I’d be doing that forever. In other words, this job was prep work for parenting and for teaching. Lots of interruptions. Some boredom. Thankless tasks. Tiny stressful moments. But it was also meaningful. And, even if a moment lasted 30 seconds, I knew that I had the power to make or break someone’s day.

Something changed that day. I began to love that job. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t enjoy it all the time. I still griped about it to friends and family. But on a deeper level, I realized that some of the best things in life are unassuming, boring, difficult, and stressful. But they are the things that are also meaningful and deeply human.

The truth is, I lucked out. When I left the job at the grocery store, I worked for an inner-city non-profit and then I spent 12 years as a middle school teacher. I now work as a professor. I have loved these jobs. But I wonder sometimes if the reason I have loved these jobs has less to do with the external factors and more to do with perspective and mindset.

Loving your job is ultimately a choice.