If you had to rate how you feel about your job on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being that you would do it even if you didn’t get paid), how would you rate your work satisfaction? A study released by Statistics Canada showed that 8 percent of workers were less than satisfied with their work. People working in administrative or clerical jobs were among the most unhappy. While 8 percent may not sound like that much, that translates into 2.5 million Canadians (out of a population of 32 million) who are unhappy on the job. I suspect that the numbers in the United States would be similar.
There are times when many of us have to accept and work in jobs that we feel less than enthusiastic about, due to financial necessity, lack of available opportunities or other factors. But I couldn’t help wondering how many people of that 8 percent might be able to find work that they like better if they had the right assistance, encouragement and opportunity.
I’ve always believed that no one needs to or should work in a job they hate over the long term. Spending years of your life in a job you hate is no way to live. While work is certainly not everything in life, if you’ve ever been in a job you dislike, you know how much stress and unhappiness it caused you. These feelings likely affected every other aspect of your life. Although we may have to temporarily accept a position we don’t enjoy for various reasons, we are fortunate to live in a society and a time when the career possibilities available to us are virtually unlimited. In the end, we do have the freedom to choose where, when and how we work.
I have been very fortunate for most of my career to do work that I love. Today most of what I do would get a rating of 9 or 10 on that scale I mentioned earlier. Work can be a joy if you’re in a job that fits with your skills, interests and values. While no job is ever perfect, if your work satisfaction rating leaves a lot of room for improvement, I encourage you to consider what you can do or change to make things better. While it may require you to make some tough decisions and take some risks, in the long run it’s worth thinking about.
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Tags: job satisfaction
