How time flies, it's been 1.5 years since I graduated from NIE and teaching full-time. As the months pass, I have been taking up more and more projects, testing the limits of my capabilities. Getting married and in the process of settling down took up a fair share of my weekends too. And I started part-time masters in Physics and just got my results for my 1st semester today. You won't know how much you can achieve without loading yourself to your limit. Have I reached my limit? I don't know yet. Do you know your's (limit)?
Recently I came across a book titled [The 3 Signs of a Miserable Job]. I spent 5 minutes browsing it while Sucre was shopping and it seem interesting. So I bought [A Short History of Nearly Everything] because I don't think my job is miserable. If you think you have a miserable life, maybe this is a book for you to help yourself out. Buy one for your manager. Some snippets from Amazon.com
I think there are more than 3 signs for a miserable job. I believe there should be 4. Using Keirsey's temperament theory, I believe that we are affected to some extent by each of the 4 signs but we will be affected to varying degrees depending on our temperament.The first is anonymity, which is the feeling that employees get when they realize that their manager has little interest in them a human being and that they know little about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.
The second sign is irrelevance, which takes root when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others. Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone’s life--a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor--in one way or another.
The third sign is something I call "immeasurement," which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. Employees who have no means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, must rely on the subjective opinions of others, usually their managers’, to gauge their progress or contribution.
The first sign seems to be individuals who values the human touch. They function best with loads of love and attention. It takes more than a social lunch to establish such links and it seems clear that Idealist will be the most miserable if they feel neglected as an individual.
The second sign describes individuals who wants to do good deeds. To feel that what they are doing are worth doing. For example, they feel good to know that they contribute to the company by monitoring and ensuring the productivity of a factory as a supervisor. These individuals are clearly Guardians
The third sign describes individuals who yearn for success. They are those who are pre-occupied with numbers, grades etc. They need to know how well they are performing as they want to be successful in whatever they are doing, which sometimes takes the fun out of the process. These individuals are Rationals.
My guess is that the author is an Idealist himself based on 2 observations. One is from the introduction he wrote in the book which suggest that he fits the profile of an Idealist. Two is the fact that he missed out the area for Artisans, the 4th temperament, the 'blind spot' of the Idealist.
The fourth sign for a miserable job would be a dead-end job. Artisans seeks new adventures and the worst thing that could happen for them is to do the same thing over and over and over and over again for eternity. Artisans may give up a dead-end job with job security to look for greener pastures that would energize them.
Unfortunately, Artisans are the last person among the 4 temperaments who would read such books so it might not seem to matter in some sense.
The MBTI (Myer Briggs Type Indicator) tests where senior high students would be taking in 2008 will tell what temperament you belong to. But beware, what Keirsey proposed in his theory is not the same as what Myer Briggs did when they devise the MBTI test.
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