Jewish World Review Nov. 17, 2008 / 19 Mar-Cheshvan 5769

An unexpected path to career contentment

By Marty Nemko

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A guy who recently graduated from Michigan State in liberal arts spent six months back at his parents house, doing nothing: sleeping late, hanging out.

He had seen a career counselor but nothing turned him on enough to seriously look for a job.

At Christmas dinner, one of his relatives who worked for a tractor manufacturer said that the company was in hiring mode. His family pressured him to seek out a job there and reluctantly he did.

He got a job installing dashboards in the tractors. He was not exactly thrilled, but it gave him money to take his girlfriend out.

But he was smarter than the average assembly-line worker and when he couldn't get a question answered by a co-worker, he'd go home and google it. So, pretty soon, he became kind of a go-to guy on the factory floor--he'd come to knew a lot about stuff like mitering and glue.

Soon he got promoted and learned more and more about tractor manufacture, and before he knew it, this liberal-arts type felt passionate about, of all things, tractor manufacture.

Fact is, career passion rarely comes from being in a "cool" career. Because so many people are dying for careers in such field as entertainment or fashion, the pay generally stinks and the boss doesn't treat you especially well because he knows he can easily find a replacement for you.

In contrast, in a field such as tractor manufacture, employers are more likely to treat their good employees well because there usually isn't a line of quality people ready to take the job.

Career passion most often comes from being an expert in a field in which few others are expert, having boss and coworkers appreciate you and provide the attendant job security, a reliable, decent paycheck, opportunities to learn, etc. And you're more likely to get those in a non-cool career. Ironically, status and coolness are enemies of contentment.