Satisfaction Not Guaranteed
Most Americans grow up with the idea that they will have a satisfying career, yet for many the reality is that work is anything but fulfilling.
Experts say, however, that anyone, whether they work on a loading dock or in a corner office, can find satisfaction in their job--or at least find another job that is satisfying. The key is not expecting the job to make you happy.
A person needs to find meaning in a job to find satisfaction, said Samuel Culbert, a professor at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and they often have to create that meaning for themselves.
“I think happiness comes after some things that are far more fundamental,” Culbert said. “For example, a job has to be personally meaningful, and some jobs are not. People make them personally meaningful. A job needs to give a person a sense of purpose that he or she is not just a cog in the machinery. Jobs aren’t created with the individual in mind.”
Knowing that he’s creating a future for his family provides that meaning for Guillermo Perez, 32, a loading dock foreman.
“This company has given me the opportunity of my life to do more and keep succeeding,” said Perez, who lives in Covina and works at U.S. Growers Cold Storage in Vernon. At his previous job at an auto parts warehouse, he said he was working only for a paycheck.
“I had mid-level jobs before,” he said. “Now it’s been a challenge to keep succeeding. I have a good life and my wonderful wife and three children understand that I work many hours, but our living comes from this job. We have our first house and now we live in a decent neighborhood. [My family] feels more confident about me and their future lives.”
Three things can influence your job satisfaction, said Anita Blanchard, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte: How significant your job is to other people, how much freedom you have to make decisions, and how many different things you get to do at work.
“People who are negative tend to be more dissatisfied, but one way they can improve their outlook and job satisfaction is to think about the positives of the job and think how it is helping people,” Blanchard said.
And job fit is important.
“Everybody has their own unique interest and it’s most important to find the job that fills your needs,” Blanchard said.
Finding that job doesn’t necessarily mean making huge changes in a career.
For Katrina Elias, 34, now a saleswoman at Beverly Hills Ford, switching from one sales job to another made all the difference in her satisfaction with work.
“I sold radio time to small businesses, but I really believed it didn’t benefit them,” said Elias of North Hollywood. “If you’re a salesperson and don’t believe in the product, it’s a very depressing job. I certainly didn’t think I was helping the small businesses. I thought I was ripping them off.”
As a car saleswoman, Elias said, she “really takes pleasure when a family is excited by the purchase when they drive off. It’s a challenge getting people financed who have special needs, but my job was created to help people buy a car. The magic is believing in your product.”
Seeing your job as a way to help someone is a key way of finding satisfaction, said Sidney Walter, a former UCLA psychology professor who now works as a forensic psychologist for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Unfortunately, many people don’t realize this,” said Walter, who lives in Chico. “I’ve asked thousands of people, ‘What’s the purpose of your job?’ and most will answer, ‘To make money.’ This is true of all types of workers, from lawyers to janitors.”
Walter recommends that people discover and accept the purpose of their jobs.
“It is not for you to earn money,” he said. “It is to serve others. All occupations have the same end purpose--helping others. The teacher to educate, the baseball player to entertain, the shoe clerk to assist, the jailer, vendor, seamstress and spouse to help, assist, to aid others. The basic purpose of all is to help. Until this is recognized and accepted you cannot be happy at your job.”
And if you’re having trouble finding that purpose?
“Know all you possibly can about your occupation,” Walter said. “What it does, what happens after you are through with your part. During World War II, when the airplane riveters found out what their little contribution did toward the end result, and saw the airplane flying in newsreels, their output increased significantly.”
Learning on the job--not just about the job--is another way to create a more meaningful work life, said UCLA’s Culbert.
“A lot of people don’t learn because they fear that if they put themselves in a learning mode, they will do something that’s a mistake and they’ll be criticized or punished for it,” Culbert said. “It’s self protection. We get defensive even if we want to learn because we’re scared, but if you want to have meaning on the job you have to feel it’s OK to learn.”
Meaning, happiness and productivity go beyond pay, Culbert said.
Yet the relationship between work and home cannot be isolated, said Blanchard of the University of North Carolina.
Los Angeles resident Milton Moreno, 27, said he realizes the need for balance in his life.
“When I come home I can’t bring my problems from the job so I have to be two people on the same day with two personalities,” said Moreno, 24, who has been a cashier and delivery person at Owens Market in West Los Angeles for nine years. “I also can’t mix my problems at home with my job or I’ll end up with nothing in the long run. I try to take one day at a time.”
And at a time when workers are being asked to do more, doing less may be one of the quickest ways to job satisfaction.
“When I was working at one of my first jobs in a large corporation, I noticed that the people who did the most work and stayed overtime were asked to do even more and became increasingly unhappy,” Walter said. “Those who did just enough and did it well were accepted as good workers.”
Being a workaholic is the only addiction that’s applauded, said Jonathon Lazear, author of “The Man Who Mistook His Job for a Life,” which chronicles his life as a workaholic.
“Statistics indicate that productivity actually decreases the more overtime one is actively working,” Lazear said. “But we tell ourselves otherwise.”
“There’s more to life than your job,” he said. “Finding balance outside of work will make you a better worker, someone who can bring a fresher perspective to the job.”
