What Nobody Told Me About Work & Happiness
In my 20’s I worked in 3 separate jobs, at different times (no overlap) and here’s what I learnt from each.
Job 1 (Medium Pay)
I’ve had an eclectic mix of pay scales and experiences. While Job 1 was a campus placement, and my first real glimpse of the corporate world, I was fairly good at my job for an amateur. A sincere worker for most part, I was lucky enough to have made great friends and have supportive mentors and colleagues. It was a job I didn’t love, but also one that I didn’t hate. The pay wasn’t princely, but also not too bad. Given that I was so new to work-life and most of my friends at the time were still studying or looking for jobs, I didn’t quite seem to understand the value of the job I had. I eventually left it to look for “more” and also because I felt the pressure and stress were not worth it.
Lesson 1- Don’t Buckle Under Pressure. Quitting shouldn’t be your first go-to, instead it should be your last.
Do everything you can to eliminate the pain points, and only when you still can’t seem to get rid of them should you consider leaving. More often than not, just by speaking about a certain pain point, there is a high possibility that your mentors/ managers will atleast TRY to make things better.
Job 2 (Extremely Low Pay)
So this is when I did a year-long stint at an NGO. The office was relatively far from home, and it was the first time in my entire life that I used “the Mumbai local” i.e. rail public transport in the city of Mumbai. My chauffeur driven car would drop me off in the mornings and on my way back I’d take the train. From a work perspective, the work was fairly easy and doable within the stipulated timelines. My pay however, was incredibly low (close to USD 247 per month in hand), and that was obviously too low to sustain any of my wants. As is custom in most Indian business families, the kids pretty much get to save most of their earnings and the father pays the entire cost of living. So the money never really mattered to me anyway, because I was completely provided for. The money would just keep accumulating in my savings.
But there was something about this place- the people, the energy, the attitude. It was like something I had never experienced before (and to this date have not experienced). My immediate manager was literally an Iron Lady, a great communicator and capable of motivating her team to soaring levels. She struck up casual conversations with each of us, asking about our weekends and really taking the time to understand where each of us came from.
Even though their pay was the lowest from all the jobs I’ve worked at — they were by far the most large hearted and caring individuals. If ever anyone called in sick, they’d always make sure to check-in on your health, they would buy gifts for one another on birthdays, celebrate festivals with great fervour and they’d always share their food. What I came to realize was that, these people were just happy people at the core. Happiness and contentment literally oozed out of them. It reached a point where I’d hate to take leave, because I’d miss being around them. But anyway, as most good things come to an end I finished a year with them and decided to move on to a job that probably taught me more and earnt me more.
Lesson 2- It really doesn’t take a whole lot of money to be happy.
Job 3 (Extremely High Pay)
This job was a dream job for me. I always wanted to wear suits and strut into work, strategize and advise a CEO twice my age on which markets to enter. From the outside that is exactly what my job was. But what it really was on a day-to-day basis was something like this- me getting into work, caffeinating, ripping across large volumes of work, pretty much always being highly stressed, and leaving to get home and do some more work. I did like it initially, but as the work kept getting more complex in nature I knew it wasn’t going to be my cup of tea for long. The learning was great and so was the pay, my colleagues were wonderful and it was a very collaborative work environment. Yet, it was like I was doing what I was doing, only because of the prestige factor associated with it, and not because it really made me a happier and a better person deep-down.
Lesson 3- Do what your heart wants you to do. We have a tendency to glamorize everything until we actually experience it, try not to give in to the glamor.
I truly value all of my experiences and I am grateful for each of them. But believe it or not, I was happiest when I was working at the NGO, with the lowest pay. If by sharing this, someone somewhere is able to gain something, get motivated or has shared a similar experience then I’d be happy to have helped them in their journey.
