Unpacking the “Day Job”

Say you’re a car manufacturer. Every year, you must decide between investing in future innovations, such as self-driving software, and finding ways to squeeze new revenue out of existing technologies and materials. Too much fanciful R&D spending, and this year’s profit plummets. Too much emphasis on tweaking existing product lines, and you get ... See more

“Yes, I’m ambitious,” a friend told me recently, “but climbing the corporate ladder does not interest me like it used to. A title, a bump in pay—it’s not satisfying. What I need to feel successful and fulfilled is completely different.  Am I doing something that brings satisfaction? Do I feel like I’m learning? Do I feel like I’m contributing

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I was just there at The Firm as a stopover, to get the skills, I would have said at the time; this was not really me, I would have said, but it was a thin defense. How quickly I was becoming an icky person in these small, important moments. This is to say nothing of the actual impact of the work I was doing, which, I believe, was marginally useful ... See more

No matter what path we are on we feel the pressure to always be doing and orienting ourselves in ways that might help us in our careers. It convinces us we need to ship, produce, have an impact, and make money, or we are a failure.