Tag: work

A day off today between a twelve hour shift yesterday and another one tomorrow. In my old job this would have depressed me greatly but these days I couldn’t feel better about it. Such is the profound magnitude and good fortune to have work that you love. Work that is somehow an extension or expression of who and what you are. And often we don’t know who and what we are until the work allows us to express ourselves. A chicken and egg situation but such is life.

Today will be spent contemplatively, outside in nature, inside with coffee and perhaps an invigorating run down by the river later. But mostly in gratitude for, well, everything really. 

I rarely write about my work and I have no idea why. It seems I am simply not moved to.

That said it appears, today, that I am moved to say something, in relation to a previous post which mentioned imposter syndrome.

To cut an exceedingly long and boring story short, I worked for many years in publishing and marketing as a graphic and web designer.

Although earning decent money and able to provide for my family I found myself empty inside and miserable most of the time. According to the late anthropologist David Graeber I had a ‘bullshit job’.

Imposter syndrome was in full effect. I was a chancer and a fraud and I entertained a persistent inner dialogue of cruel and merciless self criticism and judgement. So far so normal.

And then the pandemic struck. Redundancy followed. I was at a loss at what to do. My wife who knew me better than I knew myself at the time, said I should get a job as a Support Worker in social care. I literally had no idea what she was talking about.

Cut to four years later and I find myself working long anti-social hours, harder than I ever have, on minimum wage, and challenged daily mentally, physically and psychologically/ emotionally. I leave every single shift exhausted, stimulated, drained, rewarded, energised, satisfied, fulfilled and grateful. And I have never been happier.

If I had to hazard a guess as to why? it probably has something to do with the fact that it is work that demands the integrated combination of head, hand and heart. I also think it’s significant that it is work that has nothing to do with competitiveness, business, making money or selling anything. At work I inhabit a world free from the commercial imperative. I never sit in front of a computer. Email, spreadsheets, PowerPoints, lunch breaks, meetings, offices, desks are now nothing more than vague memories and the stuff of nightmares.

The daily preoccupation with profit, reach, statistics, branding, sales, marketing, jargon, promotion, competition, clicks, reports, presentations and strategies etc. has been replaced with concerns about human dignity, privacy, safety, mental and physical health, care, empathy, independence, choice, opportunity, support and encouragement.

I am not saying this is better or more important work than any other. Far from it. Horses for courses. Simply that when one finds, belatedly in my case, work that is most closely aligned with who one is, then any sense of being an imposter doesn’t arise.

In short, I thought I was something I wasn’t and paid the price. Now that I do what most closely aligns with who and what I am, I couldn’t feel more whole, rewarded, alive and grateful.

Exhausted at the end of another twelve hour shift. Exhausted but still somehow feeling very alive, energised, fulfilled and rewarded. It’s at moments like this I feel particularly grateful to be so lucky to have work that I love that provides me with so much more than any amount of money could.

A tiring but fun day at work. That pretty much sums up support work for me. I come off every shift tired, sometimes exhausted, but always, always fulfilled, stimulated, rewarded and strangely energised somehow.