Oh My, I Hate My Job

PART I: Me

Lack of understanding has to be one of the biggest reasons why, sometimes, I hate my job. How about you?

Of course most complain about those around them, but that’s not the full picture. If you can’t understand them, do you think they’re understanding you?

Oof, a punch to the gut. Yes, there are other people out there who know me as well as I know them…practically not at all.

Here’s a quick and dirty gauge I’ve found to be more understanding. I know I’m close to understanding a person when their actions finally make sense to me, when I say, “Okay, I can see doing that in this situation.”

If I cannot, then I’m missing something.

Now that something may not be “data.” It may be that my priorities are different than theirs. That does happen, quite a bit. I’m at a different station in life than they are, therefore what I deem eminently important they may consider a nice luxury, but not a necessity.

I have a friend who’s completely changed his diet recently, as of this new year. Now, from this little bit of information, do I understand him? He gets salads a lot, he talks to himself a bit too much when making his decisions…especially when there’s a good burger on the menu. He doesn’t join in eating cookies, pies, or sweets when we have desserts. But he’s a healthy guy not even close to being overweight.

I can approach it this way, since I can’t understand his behavior. Frankly, it annoys me a little, I admit. He’s been going on like this since the beginning of the year, perhaps this is just one of those new year’s resolutions. Is he being a show off keeping that thing going now into the summer?

Or I can approach things from understanding. In this case, I can just ask him why the sudden change.

I did just that.

Turns out, he’s had two close family members diagnosed with cancer within months of each other…his grandmother and his father. He’s decided he’s going to take care of himself starting now, rather than suffer later. He knows there’s no guarantees, but since food is something you put in your body three or more times a day, everyday, it’s a good leverage point to start from.

“Oh, that makes sense. I can see doing that.”

The thing is, you don’t always get a chance to know why people do the things they do. There’s always some “reason”, and it’s their reason, not mine.

Does my understanding of the situation mean I too will follow suit? Nope. But I do know I’m not annoyed when he deliberates over lunch. And that’s eliminated one more annoyance from my life. Less stress.

So what’s this look like in my job?

I give myself a second when someone does something monumentally stupid. You know those moments when you see it or they say something and you immediately want to react with, “I hate my job, these people are idiot.” Well, now I try to laugh and then wonder, “Hmmm, what don’t I know that that would have made sense?”

It’s getting into a state of wonder sometimes that gets me out of stress filled exasperation.

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