I've taken for granted that doing work I'm passionate about will also make me more productive and effective. I hear variations on this idea all the time (most recently in a talk by Seth Godin, as described in my last post).
I was pleasantly surprised, then, to stumble on a contradictory TED talk by Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel's popular show Dirty Jobs. If you haven't seen the show, Mike Rowe travels the country spending a day in the life of someone doing hands-on manual labor, respectfully highlighting the humorous side of unglamorous and often unseen jobs that are nonetheless very necessary.
Mike Rowe claims that the admonishment to 'follow your passion' was the worst career advice he ever got. In 4 years of taping the show, he has seen people do well personally and financially by taking on jobs that no one else wants to do. He speaks to the dignity and value of work that is not high profile or creative, but which makes the "big ideas" feasible to implement and scale. We celebrate the innovation of the iPhone, for example, while forgetting the people and effort required to produce iPhones in volume at high quality, or deliver them to stores. We devalue manual work and steer young people away from skilled trades, such as plumbing or welding.
As an IT professional, I see that strategy, design and new "greenfield" development with the latest technology is often seen as the most exciting and prestigious. We rarely celebrate the challenging work required to maintain and support existing systems that allow core business processes to function, thoroughly test new changes, or promptly resolve issues to get end users back to work. Its a good reminder to me to appreciate all the important work that others do to make my work easier, and find meaning even in the mundane aspects of my job that have impact "behind the scenes".
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11NTC: Reporters Are People Too
11 months ago
Hi A! long time reader; first time commenter. ;)
ReplyDeleteI agree w/ Mike Rowe (and I love his show). I left a good job to follow my passion - and while I was in the "passion" job I realized that my real and true passion? its to have time and energy left at the end of the day to spend with my family; and to work in a certain kind of environment. and after a couple other criteria like that, THEN my passion is to bring new audiences to the arts, and to have the arts open up new ways of thinking for its audience. but that passion comes after so many others, that I'm happy fulfilling it as a hobby.
Great points Amy! I found this post interesting and insightful… especially since I’m an IT professional working on those mundane tasks you referred to: integrating large “enterprise” IT systems together, finding ways to monitor they are working properly, etc. I don’t often work on exciting greenfield development projects like the iPhone.
ReplyDeleteHowever, one thing that keeps me going is the fact that even these mundane, back office IT applications are very difficult to build and maintain – in fact they are often much more difficult to work on than new, innovative green field apps. After all, it’s always easier to throw things away and start from scratch without having to carry along the baggage from the past. So I find that while working on one of the dirty jobs of the IT world, I still use cutting edge technologies and ideas. I like to try to be innovative even while working on the IT equivalent of tarring a roof!
Thanks for the comments. I imagine this is a dilemma for technologists working in international development, too. Cutting edge, sophisticated technology may not be the most beneficial, or even an option, in many developing country situations. Simple, durable, flexible, affordable, maintainable...all trump 'cool'. As in corporate IT, the challenge and innovation comes out of the need to work within tough constraints.
ReplyDeleteVery insightful post. Thanks for sharing this Amy. I agree with Mike. And I completely second Pat's thoughts and comments about innovating even while working on those mundane and dirty tasks. I am working on couple of apps designing from scratch but often have to take up engagements where I need to clean up and fix legacy issues and framework glitches. But still I am passionate to innovate even in these tasks by pumping in fresh designs, automating, simplifying, improving performance, UI etc etc. And its all fun.
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