The Alchemy of an Unhappy Job
Over the past few months I’ve received a steady stream of messages from friends saying they’re unhappy at work. Occasionally it's just a bad day that triggers the text. However, generally there are more serious factors at play. Tight labour markets have led many to stay in jobs they don’t like or take roles that aren’t their preference. My peer group is also at a transitional stage where many of us, having spent the first 10-15 years of our professional lives building one type of life, are reevaluating if that’s the path we want to stay on, especially as other life milestones become more prevalent.
Our relationship with our jobs are fluid and vary enormously. One person’s vocation is another’s idea of hell. Work can range from being a vehicle for fulfilment for some to simply a means for a paycheque for others. Once happy jobs turn sour. Unhappy roles can, although less frequently, become enjoyable. I wanted to explore the different elements that make up our experience with work as a means to understand how they can be mixed together to be more satisfying.
Before diving into it it's worth noting that this analysis assumes a certain luxury of choice beyond the cycle of survival.
Alchemy at Work
Imagine a primitive lab where you are concocting a potion called “work impact” i.e the impact your work has on you. Each day that you work, be that as an employee, a freelancer or founder, you drink the draught. Each day it either fortifies, weakens or has a neutral effect. The effect compounds over time. The potion is made from some of the various liquids you see below. The exact mixture changes regularly. There are 3 types of liquids which may be poured into your beaker (or caldron if that’s your preference):
Poisons: A small dose of these spoils the entirety. Their inclusion always has a negative effect.
Dynamic liquids: The exact make-up of these liquids changes over time, as does our reaction to them. They can be positive and negative forces and change states as circumstances change.
Super enhancers: A rare element that has a very positive effect.
Poisons
There are 2 key elements that when present at work always result in discontentment and often a deeper gnawing at our core.
Toxic environment: Harassment, discrimination, culture of fear, high levels of dysfunction, unethical and illegal behaviour, general mean-spiritedness etc. These environments are unpleasant and often cause high-levels of negative stress within an individual.
Misalignment with personal values: A job that requires you to act in a manner that is counter to your core principles diminishes your sense of self-trust over time. Some people may choose to compartmentalise the actions into a “work” bucket, separating them from their sense of self in their minds, however this can often lead to a practice of numbing which in itself is problematic.
You may be able to tolerate poisons, however, the longer you are exposed to them, the more potent their effect becomes. I know many people who linger with the effects of a bad work environment years after having left it. You cannot change the effect of a poison but its continuous presence can change you into something you don’t want to become.
Dynamic Liquids
These are the tangible and intangible elements that impact your relationship with your job. Their exact nature changes as you change. The relative importance of each varies by individual. Some factors that were once important to you diffuse away. Others that were once satisfactory lose their lustre. Each of these liquids can have a positive, negative or neutral effect.
Material conditions: Salary, working hours, commute, ambiance of the office, unique benefits etc. You may be willing to take a pay cut for some types of work. You may be willing to work long hours for others. Conditions you once tolerated may no longer be acceptable or can improve for the better. Your view of the rewards offered and what you’re being asked to give in return can have an impact on how you perceive a job.
Manager: Your relationship with your manager (if you have one) has an outsized impact on your wellbeing. How good or otherwise someone is as a manager lives on a scale. How you rate them on that scale will vary depending on what you want out of your job. A quick litmus test on assessing if the relationship leans positive or negative is 1) do you respect them, 2) do you trust them and 3) do they help you achieve your goals and ambitions?
Team: Feeling a sense of camaraderie is important to some. Being a lone wolf is a preference for others. How you feel about working with your immediate team and other colleagues you interact with frequently impacts your happiness levels at work. Depending on the size and type of organisation, your views about the prevailing culture and leadership team can have an impact too.
Performance alignment: Working in an environment where high-performance is expected when you just want a chill job is going to lead to unhappiness. Similarly, if operating in a culture which accepts mediocrity but you’re driven towards higher levels of achievement, this will grate on you too. If your job demands more than you want to give, or tolerates lower standards than you’d accept, this will likely cause you some internal friction.
Expectation alignment: Does your job align with what you expect to be doing in your role? What you believe you should be doing or could be doing given your talents? With how you believe work should be? Does it align with your broader expectations of yourself? Of what you feel you should have achieved? Are these expectations aligned with what you actually want for yourself or are they imprints of expectations others have for you? There is so much that could be said on this topic but put simply, a gap between expectation and reality (regardless of if that expectation can become a reality) tends to lead to unhappiness.
Relativity effect: Also known as social comparison theory. We often evaluate our circumstances, including our career success, relative to others. The more enlightened amongst us, who know themselves well and what they want out of life are not as affected by comparisons. Others caught in the whirls of status anxiety can be deeply affected if they perceive that their work is perceived as “less than”.
Gratification: What makes you feel gratified at the end of the week? For some it's getting paid to do a low stress job. For others it's taking on a big challenge or working on something that actually matters. Maybe for you it’s the sense of belonging in a team, developing craftsmanship, knowing you’ve made a difference to someone or building a company for yourself. Gratification is the sense of satisfaction you feel from the process and outcome of your work minus the toil it took (internal politics, pointless bureaucracy, lack of autonomy, late nights etc) to deliver it. To feel gratification, the end result must exceed exertion.
Fit: We are through a combination of nature and nurture a better fit for certain environments and types of work. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push through our comfort zones, nor does it mean we should avoid situations where we are the “first” or “only” kind of person in the room. Sometimes our desires and our “why” force us to confront these scenarios. However, if you find yourself constantly feeling like the odd-person-out in a situation, or that the work you’re doing doesn’t align with your strengths or interests, it is probably not a good fit.
The relative weighting of the 8 elements above will differ by person. Where we find an element is lacking, we can either change it or change our attitude to it. To find our work satisfying, the balance of them all combined needs to tilt towards positive.
Super-Enhancers
There is 1 factor which can combat most negatives (except for the poisons). That is:
Alignment with purpose: Spending 40+ hours a week, and getting paid to live out what we believe to be our purpose is a glorious way to live. It’s not to say that the work won’t be challenging or that there won’t be days where you don’t feel like showing up, but finding your purpose and having that become your life’s work is a supercharged way to enhance satisfaction with work and life overall.
Of course, your purpose may not be aligned with what makes money. That’s fine too. In those cases it’s best to find a job that you can work around and that doesn’t drain you in such a way that it depletes your ability to fulfil your purpose.
Mixing the Potion
Whatever blend you make has the opportunity to be a positive, negative or neutral force. Given how much time we devote to working, the quality of the day-to-day of your job (even if you work for yourself), affects the quality of your life. It is worth finding ways where that work works for you too.