"I've been workin' on the railroad, All the live long day..."
I know so many people who hate their jobs. "Why do you still work there?" I ask. The answers never make sense to me. We spend a third of our lives at work. If we're not doing something that makes us happy, what are the chances we'll be happy in the rest of life? Zero!
If you're wondering, I keep up with the money at my brother's aircraft parts company. I do billing, paying bills, accounts receivable and a lot of other bookkeeping tasks.
So you're next question should be, "How on earth can that make you happy? Sounds dull and boring."
Well, you're right. The task oriented part of any job is dull and boring.
What's exciting about my job is that we've managed to build a world class parts company around a certain airframe. We ship parts all over the planet. It started from nothing, and in just 9 years is one of the leading companies in our circle. We're changing the destiny of our family tree (I don't have kids, but my bro has six.)
I have a role to play here, and have always played since the inception of the company in 2001. I've been a part of every major decision, and am part of the team that keeps this thing going. Every check I write, every payment I process, every sales call I take, every task I do moves the company higher up and farther in. It's an exciting place to be and I am proud of it.
The last company I worked for was a software company that I (supposedly) owned half of. I never could really sell the concepts above to the people who worked there. Most of them hated working there, but didn't know what else they could do that paid so well. Things fell apart six years ago over there, I needed to leave.
If I was to talk to those guys, about all I have to say is $24,101,233. That is my new company's sales number from July 27, 2004 through July 26, 2010. And I would tell them to go find something to do with their lives that makes them happy. (And I'd tell a couple of them to kiss my chocolate-covered-cherry flavored ass).