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Every survey of employees I have heard people reference rate money below #1 as the biggest motivator or what makes employees’ the “happiest”.  I know that some would disagree and that’s fine.  I am as rapacious as the next guy and go to work to make money.  However, I don’t understand how people work at jobs they hate.  I respect that people have families and bills to pay, but long term how can any person be miserable for so long in a job they don’t like or don’t feel accomplished in?

I guess I now know what it might be like to go to a support group and realize that there are others out there who feel like I do.  I was touched by this article I read in the Wall Street Journal.  The title was “A Modern Conundrum: When Work’s Invisible, So are its satisfactions.” written by Jared Sanberg.  The link to the whole article can be found by clicking  Cubicle Culture - WSJ.com.  Several times through out my career I have moments of existential crisis.  I think most people want to be able to see their value and feel that they have left something positive in/to the world.  I often wonder, if I die today, would anyone in a hundred or thousand years ever know I existed and did I do anything to add value to humanity.  I’m not saying that I have to cure cancer to feel a sense of success, but at a minimum I want to give back to humanity at least as much as I have taken.  I truly relate to this in part the article:

In the information age, so much is worked on in a day at the office but so little gets done. In the past, people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible, or from delivering goods that are often metaphorical. You can’t even leave your mark on a document in increasingly paperless offices. It can be even harder trying to measure it all. That may explain why to-do listers write down tasks they’ve already completed just to be able to cross them off.

I actually do add things to my to-do list so I can just mark them off. I do feel good when I mark something completed. (It also allows me to keep a written record of what I do week to week) 

The team does have some metrics (KPIs) that measure our accomplishments but its hard to see how the company is doing any good in the world. I believe we do make products that make people’s travel process easier but seeing their impact to the end customer is hard.  I think when companies want to improve productivity and want employee buy in on the mission, they must find something for the employees to get behind.  The mission statements are usually a bunch of BS bingo and considered a joke at most places. It can be powerful if used correctly.  Saying that ABC company wants to be leader of XYZ industry and make $999 Billion dollars by 2010 isn’t very emotional to me.  Though if my salary is tied to revenue, I might get teary eyed thinking about my bonus. :)  Seriously, if I’m GE medical and we make defibrillators, then a mission statement of saving a million lives a year with our devices is an awesome mission to create.  I know I would want to contribute and work hard to help save a million lives a year.  Working late seems more trivial when lives could be at stake. I think meeting those people and know the good that is done by devices like that, that’s how IT people working in the “intangible” products get to see their work. 

The goal is to help each company find out how they contribute to something emotional and provide the easiest way to see the effects of everyone’s work.  All of us out there, we work for companies and have to help them find those things, so we can bring meaning, success, and fulfilment to our coworkers.  Until that’s true everywhere, including at my company, I will take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone out there, and others feel the way I do.  For now, that’s enough to help me keep digging for the emotional meanings in my world.

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