Question Number Seven

This week has pretty much flown by. Work is what I like to refer to as incidentally busy. As a corporation we’re starting the run toward the end of the year, which means there are a lot of incidental little things that need to be taken care of, not the least of which is the performance review cycle. As a manager, in addition to my own self-evaluation I have to write evaluations for all my employees. That is often a challenge and the company’s performance review mechanism is something I struggle with. I don’t like it. I don’t think there is enough variance in it to effectively and formally review the performance of employees. It is an argument that I will never win of course, but it is one that I have had on many occasions. That segues neatly into the question of the day.

Are you doing what you believe in or are you settling for what you are doing?

I often refer to the last fourteen years of my professional life as my accidental career. I was working as a contractor while in graduate school with the intention of pursuing a PhD in Criminology and further intentions of teaching – then I was assigned to The Evil Corporation on a short term contract and fourteen years later, here I am, deep in the middle of an accidental career, having temporarily set aside aspirations to higher education.

So, to a degree, there was a settling – however, in my case, it was a settling into something that I love to do (solve problems, resolve difficult issues, manage personal, do the impossible, the usual). I love what I do and that is not something I have been able to say in other jobs and careers I’ve had. Even my bad days are often good – and for me the bad days always involve people and clashing against the bureaucratic tendency to be, well, bureaucratic. Don’t get me wrong – I believe in rules, I understand the purpose of defined and disciplined process – as long as they serve an actual purpose. So, for me at least, the answer to the question is I am doing what I believe in, almost entirely by accident.