Sometimes I love my job. Sometimes I get so fed up with it that I start browsing for job vacancies on the net, in the newspaper or anywhere available. I bet that I'm not the only person who faces this. It's just that not everyone manage to get comfortable in their career niche that they feel content doing it. I have to admit that it's like a love-hate relationship that you can't simply brush it aside. To live, we need a lot of things and of course, I don't want to sound shallow but let's face the fact. The ka-ching factor is considered as a necessity. Even instant noodles cost RM0.45 per packet. But first, to get it we need to work - unless of course you manage to snag a wealthy widow/widower/rich guy/rich woman, etc but that's beside the point.
One thing that I remembered most about career is of course, the line that I heard from Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2 where she was persuading Lauryn Hill's character to get back singing. The line was (not that accurate though) - If when you wake up from your sleep, all you can think about is singing, that means you are meant to sing. Motivational sentence, correct? As for me... let me give that a thought. On Monday mornings my thought was - Monday already? And most of the time when work is piling on my always cluttery desk all I could think was - what else could I put in my design? So does that mean that this is my calling? Since secondary school all I did was thinking up some cool ideas I could put in my English essays (that's my other word for constant daydreaming). For now, my itch to write another fiction is there but I lack the motivation to start typing my brains out.
My brother asked me once when I was about to go to work - "Don't you get bored going to work everyday?" The thought certainly cross my mind more than once. I was wondering how anyone could hold a job for more than 30 years. That's the average years for those who work in the government sector. As an example, my mak. She started working when she was 18 and retired few months ago with the same job. Same goes for my abah. That's roughly 38 years straight. I am amazed at that feat and here I am having an up and down feelings on my job. The journey is merely just begun for me.
I was having a long talk with one of my previous supervisors while I was doing internship in MBJB few days back. We were talking about the attitude of some of the officers that was stuck in their comfort zone too long that they become less pro-active. His words were actually branded in my mind - "Don't get too comfortable with what you have. Try to get as much, even if it's not in your field of work. Just remember that there are thousand of people out there waiting to get your job." Creepy but true. There are lots and lots of unemployed graduates out there waiting for their chance. But that doesn't mean that you have to stay put and not moving at all for the fear that you don't have talent in other area. That was actually a nudge to look for a better future and career. You won't know your true capability until you take the next step, right?
Some might feel that they are stuck to their job because that is the only thing that they know how to do, some might have no where to go due to family business, some might have too many options that they don't know which path to choose and some may not have any choice at all. The world is big and I'm very sure there are more conflicts than what I have stated. Not everyone could be Bill Gates, and not everyone even with the guidance book from the real-estate mogul Donald Trump or Robert T. Kiyosaki of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame could apply the whole book and get what they want.
My mak asked me once after I graduated on what I want to work as. Jokingly I told her, a full-time housewife. Straight away she told me - in her teasing tone of course - that if she knew that was my ambition she would marry me straight off after I finish secondary school. Knowing my mak, in her opinion, women should have her own career path and dream, earn for herself and able to help her husband when the financial cost becomes more than he could take. Being fully dependent on someone else for every aspect of life is not what she picture life would be. And of course like any parents she would love her children to have more than she has.
There, my 2 cents worth about career. When mood strikes, I feel like signing up for KPLI, be a teacher and have loads of holiday, and again when it strikes, I can't picture myself anywhere but my current job. We'll just see in the future now won't we?
