Career Or Job?

I met Wendy years ago when I took a job as a restaurant manager. For me, the management position was a job. It wasn’t my career as I hadn’t prepared myself to become a restaurant manager. Heck, I’d never even worked in a restaurant prior. But I had eaten in plenty of restaurants. I had a good sense of what customer service at the restaurant level entailed. Make the plates look good and the meal would be good. Make the experience good and the restaurant was good.

Presentation is everything in a restaurant – from the way the wait staff presents itself, to the décor to the presentation of the meal on a plate. Make it visually appealing and it will be good.

Up to that point, I had been in radio some sixteen years but had been downsized from my job as morning show host. My career had ended. And for a variety of reasons I didn’t want to leave the geographical area to search out another radio station to work at. So I found myself looking for a job. My career was in radio. The restaurant was a job.

Wendy is one of the people I worked with. She was a cook – and not really a very good one. Wendy became involved in restaurants as a last resort. She was under-educated. She had few transferable skills. She was willing to work long hours for pay just over minimum wage (minimum wage is another way of saying: if we could pay you less we would.). Wendy overcooked most food she prepared. She didn’t really take pride in her work because it was just a job – not a career.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Is what you do each day your job or your career? What difference would you experience each work day if you began to view your job as your career? The work you do each day doesn’t mean that you are stuck in your career for life. It simply means that you have made a series of decisions over your lifetime that has put you exactly where you are today. And if you got to where you are by your series of decisions, then this must be the career you have chosen for yourself – for right now.

Accountability of your life-choices is key in finding satisfaction in your work. You will find your satisfaction levels increase as well as your engagement level. It’s easier to take pride in what you do when you feel as though the work you do is a career. If you view your work as simply a job, you won’t give any more than enough effort to not get fired.

In the same way you can test-drive a car before you buy it and be saddled with five years of payments, you can test-drive a career before you commit to five or more years of employment. The trick, when test-driving a career, is to get out of it (if you don’t like it) before you begin to despise the work. If you despise the work and grumble about it, your lousy attitude will follow you to your next “job.”

Unless someone shows up at your house each morning and points a gun at your head, you are NOT forced to be there. If you go “willingly” (by choice) to work each day, then start thinking of your employment as your career choice at this moment. Do whatever you need to do to advance yourself within your career. The more valuable you become, the more valuable you will be perceived. Those who are valued by their employers always seem to fare better than those who aren’t. Change your attitude from “job” to “career” and watch your results change.