Why ‘job’ is a dirty word
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The small business owner succumbs to the beauty of the park bench
Have you heard that old expression, ‘never put off until tomorrow, what you can do today’? Smug and annoying as it may be, it is still a wise tenet for modern times. While I would prefer to imagine that the phrase relates to eating chocolate (it could go off if I leave it too long) or seeing friends (nicer than work), I fear it does actually refer to work.
Jobs. What a vile word. It’s no surprise that the word ‘job’ has been commandeered for scatological purposes. Biblically, Job had a rough old time of it. The word is doomed. If we want to go out and have a great time, jobs get in the way. If we want to lie in as small business owners, trying to locate the luxury that was promised when we left the corporate environment, a job strikes and makes us get up at five.
No matter how much we love our work (and let’s face it, most of us picked our profession because we love what we do. Either that or we wanted to be incredibly rich. In which case stop complaining), it will never be quite as nice as doing nothing. Or doing nothing with someone else. We are all inherently lazy, which is why we struggle with the interminable things to do list and curse the fact that the sun is out, when we have to be inside working away.
I am a lazy person trapped within a stupidly busy body. My mind is craving a long lie in, followed by a leisurely saunter around the park with the dogs and a nice afternoon nap. Perhaps a film or two mid-afternoon, a take-away meal and bottle of wine, and then bed. My body pings my eyes open at six in the morning and propels me downstairs to the laptop.
Getting real about jobs
There’s no question about it – if you want your business to succeed you need to do work. Not just work in a kind of nine to five ‘Had a nice day in the office, darling?’ kind of way, but in a gut-wrenchingly stressed, never-ending, ‘I’m sorry I had to cancel the holiday again dear’ kind of way. The kind of work that makes you stay up all night to make sure your customers are happy, and makes you lose sleep if they aren’t.
There is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the seemingly endless stream of work which we have, as small business owners. Here are some of the highlights of what we do:
- Taking pride in our work, knowing that we are among the best there is at our trade
- That frisson of joy which comes whenever we get positive feedback from a client
- The smug beauty of knowing we answer to ourselves when it comes to work
- The truth that we can actually take time out sometimes. Honestly. Just not yet
- Paid invoices. Wow!
- The quiet admission that yes, we do actually love, love, love what we do.
So with all that done, sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves why we do indeed knuckle down each day and plough through our list of things to do. Running your own business is a natural high, and we’re always looking for the next fix.
I’m self employed and, as you say, it’s not the cake walk a lot of people think that it is. You work much longer and harder and you’re fully invested both financially and emotionally, so if something goes wrong it hits you HARD.
If you’re not ready for twelve hour (+) work days, seven days a week, you should probably think twice before opening your own business.
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When a word is put on a pedestal and inspected I often search in a dictionary to see what matiz it gives. Let’s see: an eponymous protagonist of an Old Testament book, and a reference to endurance. That was for Job. If I do a search for job, it says a piece of work especially a small and discrete piece done as part of one’s regular profession (since when are jobs small!?). So what is the etymology? It says uncertain but may be related to what a horse and cart can carry at one time. Boring.
I agree with much of what you say, but not that work will never be quite as nice as doing nothing. Sometimes, honestly, I cannot wait to leap from bed in the morning and continue to work on a project if it motivates me and stimulates my mind. Some days I wonder about choosing a job where I have no need to think, but I imagine I would become bored after a few days. I would have to find things to occupy myself, my mind. So surely with jobs it’s a case of finding the type of work one would do if one does not have to work? I have that at the moment, in a way, except some of my job is good and some bad. Some days I cannot wait to start, other days I cannot wait to go home. But really, I think we would all get bored with having nothing to make our minds think.
For me, the highlights are a job well done. Seeing something that I’ve created being used and fulfilling its purpose. Having a happy customer. Really, it is the mental satisfaction of a job well done.
I saw this article bookmarked and really liked what I read. I will definately bookmark it as well and check the other posts when I get home.