DAY 66 - GETTING PAID FOR WATCHING VIDEOS

Sometimes being a Contractor is a tough job. For the past year it required me to travel hundreds of thousands of miles and live out of a suitcase – sometimes not even making it home for the weekend. It’s usually high pressure. There are often crazy deadlines and very late nights.

   Today was not one of those days. I spent the entire day watching videos on YouTube. Stuff like Seinfeld and Dilbert. And, yes – it was all work related. I’ve been hired to “liven” up some of their Customer Service Trainings – and when I recommended a few video clips I got a great response from my client. Tomorrow will likely involve tennis balls, popsicle sticks, and bubbles (the kind you blow with little kids at the beach).

   Admittedly, my ideas are “out of the box” – sometimes wayyyyy outside that box – but that’s one of the reasons I love my job. I get to be creative. I get to play. I get to help other people get better at doing their jobs. And sometimes I get to watch cartoons and blow bubbles.

   I do consider myself very fortunate that I have had a career that I have truly enjoyed. And for the most part I have had jobs with companies that I truly believed in, doing jobs that usually didn’t feel so much like work. I worked for 4 years in the Family History Dept of the LDS Church and was the last step before names went to the temple.  I worked for the interior design company that did Primary Children’s Hospital when it was built.  I spent 7 years at Franklin Covey which really gave me a tremendous foundation for this career that I now have.

   And as I continue with my current Job Hunt, that is a priority for me – finding a job at a company that I love. It’s not always that easy, but I’ve known too many people that weren’t happy doing their jobs to want to be in that situation. My ex just looked at his jobs as a necessary evil – and never stayed at any of them very long. The one (out of the 10 while we were married) that he did like, he was with for almost 4 years. Most of the rest were maybe a year or two, tops.

   As a manager, there have been times that I told employees that they should start looking for something new. Not that I was kicking them out, but that I could tell that their heart wasn’t in it anymore. One in particular is still a really good friend – and is in a much better job, one that has turned into a great career for her.

   I may not always get to watch cartoons and blow bubbles, but when you love your job it doesn't matter so much quite what you are doing – because you are just enjoying the doing of it.