The idea of an ideal job
A couple of weeks ago someone asked me to describe my ideal job.
It was then that I realised that in the everyday worries of getting the job done, I have never stepped back to think what it is really that I want to do over a lifetime.
I am guessing many people are like me. As Ashok recently said, “we are biding time”.
But I would like to believe that there is a certain joy in enjoying the work at hand: That some kind of nirvana exists in the “here and now”.
Nevertheless, here’s the copy I wrote to describe my ideal job…
In a world of ever deepening super-specialities, I am an encyclopaedist.
I am at my best when I am catalysing building activity across functions like content, engineering and business.
I am the happiest when I have hit upon insights in my projects that could not have arisen without pulling back of the focus from the everyday bustle of individual specialities.
My ideal job would demand that I dedicate my waking hours to building life-altering products and services in media and communications.
I am the kind of person who would love to roll up his sleeves and jump into the interdepartmental no-man’s-land; to oversee the building of inventions.
I would give an arm and a leg to do a job that allows me to participate throughout the creative process: From weeding through the ideas garden, to drawing the grand architecture, to ensuring usability, to cracking engineering solutions, to testing, to deployment, to marketing.
Also, I think technology is closer to business than to science. So my skin crawls whenever I come across the phrase “science and technology”. To my mind this is an anomaly. If people working with technology do not have as much respect for businessmen as they have for scientists they are doomed. Successful inventions, more importantly, life-altering inventions are the agents of economics.
That is why my ideal job will allow me to participate very closely in the business thought process of the organisation. I regard business to be the one single function, more than anything else, which will eventually help me build great stuff.
It was then that I realised that in the everyday worries of getting the job done, I have never stepped back to think what it is really that I want to do over a lifetime.
I am guessing many people are like me. As Ashok recently said, “we are biding time”.
But I would like to believe that there is a certain joy in enjoying the work at hand: That some kind of nirvana exists in the “here and now”.
Nevertheless, here’s the copy I wrote to describe my ideal job…
In a world of ever deepening super-specialities, I am an encyclopaedist.
I am at my best when I am catalysing building activity across functions like content, engineering and business.
I am the happiest when I have hit upon insights in my projects that could not have arisen without pulling back of the focus from the everyday bustle of individual specialities.
My ideal job would demand that I dedicate my waking hours to building life-altering products and services in media and communications.
I am the kind of person who would love to roll up his sleeves and jump into the interdepartmental no-man’s-land; to oversee the building of inventions.
I would give an arm and a leg to do a job that allows me to participate throughout the creative process: From weeding through the ideas garden, to drawing the grand architecture, to ensuring usability, to cracking engineering solutions, to testing, to deployment, to marketing.
Also, I think technology is closer to business than to science. So my skin crawls whenever I come across the phrase “science and technology”. To my mind this is an anomaly. If people working with technology do not have as much respect for businessmen as they have for scientists they are doomed. Successful inventions, more importantly, life-altering inventions are the agents of economics.
That is why my ideal job will allow me to participate very closely in the business thought process of the organisation. I regard business to be the one single function, more than anything else, which will eventually help me build great stuff.
posted by Zaki at 5:40 pm
3 comments
