As my fellow writer Margie Pensak mentions in an article in this issue, the average American changes jobs between 10 and 15 times between the ages of 18 and 44, and may change careers between three and seven times. But why? What makes people face the uncertainty of a new job or go to the bother of learning new skills altogether? Mrs. Pensak mentions some of the many reasons, but I thought it might also be interesting to discuss what’s involved in various jobs, including self-employment. What aspects of a job give the worker a feeling of satisfaction? Obviously, this is not a scientific study, just observations from my own experiences and acquaintances.
Feeling Competent
My own job history has shown me that an important aspect of job satisfaction is the feeling of competence, whether you feel you really know what you are doing and can help the people you are trying to help. Even though I was not one of the people that Mrs. Pensak interviewed, I also made a career change in my life. I had studied to become an occupational therapy assistant, but after working for about eight years, I left the field. One of the main reasons was that I didn’t feel well prepared for the work I was doing. After finishing my college classes, I did four months of internships: two months in a rehab unit in a hospital and two months in a nursing home. When I actually got a job, though, it was working with elementary school children in the public school system. During my internships, I worked with patients on daily living skills, like dressing, bathing, and eating. In the school system, I was expected to work on handwriting and fine motor skills. Even though I had the right letters after my name, I felt like a charlatan for much of the time. I was not well prepared to do my job well, and so did not enjoy it.
Feeling Appreciated and Respected
Another important part of job satisfaction is being validated and respected by the people with whom you work. Even a low paying job can be satisfying if one feels appreciated and useful.
Yochanan, a teacher from another city, enjoys teaching but is frustrated because he does not feel respected by the administration of the school. “Everyone knows that the boss is a little unbalanced,” Yochanan says. “The expectations are inconsistent. For example, a method of discipline that was approved yesterday may be wrong today. The teachers feel that the administration does not back them
in their decisions, and they are always afraid they might be fired. I have learned how to work around the system and basically get along, but it is stressful to work in such an atmosphere.”
Dovid, an acquaintance of mine, does specialized office work. He is not happy with his job. “There are many reasons why I don’t like my job,” he says, “but the main one is that I am not respected. I do my job conscientiously but nobody ever compliments me on a job well done. If decisions are made that affect me, nobody asks my opinion. I feel like an object in the office and only keep the job because I need it to support myself. I also don’t get paid very well and don’t get any benefits. I wish I could find a position where my skills were valued, and where they make me feel like a valuable member of the team.” It’s the lack of validation and appreciation which makes Dovid unhappy at work.
Abe, a former employee of a real estate company, left his job after working in the same place for 20 years. “My employer was a controlling person,” he explains. “He did not respect his employees and was verbally and emotionally abusive. I finally got up the courage to leave. I am now self-employed and much happier. Being self-employed has so many advantages. I can come and go as I please, set my own hours and my own priorities, I have nobody to answer to, and I don’t have to deal with anyone’s bad moods.
Many of us might think that being a cleaning lady is a job that doesn’t give one much satisfaction. Yet Cynthia, who has helped me clean my house for the last 20 years, is delighted with her career. Cynthia is 78 years old and started in her 30s. “I always cleaned my own house,” she says, “and I enjoyed cleaning, so when my children grew up and didn’t need me at home anymore, I decided to clean other people’s houses. I still enjoy it, and I have no complaints. People have always treated me nicely.”
Cynthia has spent the last 30 years or so with the same four Jewish families and has not retired yet. She is very familiar with Jewish customs and holidays, and knows the habits of each family regarding various customs. She knows how to clean for Pesach and when to start, even reminding some of her clients that it’s time to get going! She knows the halachos of laundry during Chol Hamoed or the Nine Days, once telling me on Chol Hamoed, “I know it’s okay to wash towels, because you need them,” or “It’s okay to wash these things if I do it by myself without you telling me to do it.”
One of quality that the families appreciate about Cynthia is that she chooses to keep her lips sealed. A cleaning lady is privy to many things that a family might like to keep private, and Cynthia never shares gossip about one family to another. When I asked her why she has that especially good characteristic, she said, “I don’t know, that is just the way I am.”
Cynthia likes her job because she is treated with respect and knows that her work is valued. In fact, recently, all four of her employers got together and surprised her with a small birthday celebration. From Cynthia’s experience, we can conclude that job satisfaction is not always dependent on a high salary.
Believing in What They Do: Teachers, Doctors, Rabbis
“I love my job,” Miriam said, in answer to my query. “I feel very fortunate that the school lets me teach there. I enjoy working with children and teaching them Torah hashkafos. Positive feedback from the parents, and even sometimes from the children, makes me feel really great. Because I am shy, I would never be able to speak in front of adults, but with children I am fine. Although I only work part-time, people would be surprised to hear how much time I work in addition to the hours that I spend in the classroom. Marking papers, thinking about new ways to present the material, and speaking to parents take up most of my afternoon hours.” Miriam enjoys her work because she has a strong belief in Judaism and a desire to share her beliefs with her students.
Sara is a special educator. When I asked her about her job, she, too, was eager to share. “I love the challenge of discovering the underlying issue that is affecting a child’s progress. It is like putting together pieces of a puzzle and finally finding a solution,” Sara said. “By playing specia games, observing the child in social settings, reading stories and discussing them, and formal testing, I can often zero in on exactly what the problem is. Then I write reports with ideas and suggestions for the classroom teacher to address the difficulty. I suggest accommodations and interventions that the teachers and parents can use to work with the child. Comparing the pretests from the beginning of the year and the posttests from the end of the year and seeing how the child has improved gives me great satisfaction.”
Dr. Parks, a local pediatrician, also finds fulfillment in helping people. When I called to interview him at 6:30 p.m., his daughter told me that he wouldn’t be home for another two or three hours. The first question I asked him, therefore, was, “What on earth are you doing at work until 9:30 at night? I know the office closes at 5 p.m.”
“Well,” he said, “I see patients until everyone is taken care of, and then I return phone calls. If I have patients in the hospital or a newborn baby, I usually go see them late at night.” Dr. Parks is in private practice; he has to take care of all the patients himself, although he does have PA students working with him, so he does some teaching as well.
I asked Dr. Parks if he always knows the diagnosis right away. “Some things are very common,” he said, “but you always have to be willing to think outside the box. Many times I am not sure what’s wrong, but I am not afraid to pull out a book and do research or call colleagues. The longer I am in practice, the more comfortable I am to say, ‘I don’t know’ and to search further for the answer. One of the most important jobs of a pediatrician and any doctor, really, is to recognize when you are seeing a true emergency and act on it.
“There is a lot more to being a doctor then recognizing A, B, and C, and then diagnosing D,” Dr. Parks remarked. “I never want to write off your concerns, and I want to help get to the bottom of a problem. For example, sometimes, a parent will mention an important issue – like, “My child is failing in school” – just as she is walking out of the door with a prescription for antibiotics. “What does a pediatrician have to do with a child failing in school,” I asked. “ We can help the parent find out the underlying issue. We can recommend testing for learning disabilities, visual issues, hearing issues or psychological issues. The pediatrician is often the first person to be called and can be a trouble shooter,” he said.
Despite all the hard work that is involved in being a pediatrician, Dr. Parks did not hesitate to declare his love for his job. “It is an amazing feeling when you have the ability to be G-d’s messenger to help children who are sick get better,” he concluded.
Rabbi Michaels, a kiruv rabbi on a college campus, when asked what his job involves, laughed and responded, “I’m trying to figure that out myself.
“In truth,” Rabbi Michaels says, more seriously, “My main job is to excite as many Jews as possible about Judaism. Many people ask how I answer the difficult questions the students ask, but that is not really my problem. My job is the step before that. Most of the students are so apathetic to Judaism that they don’t even care enough to ask a question.”
Rabbi Michaels runs many different classes and programs. In one class, the students braid a challa, smell it baking during the class, and take it home after the class. “In my ad about that class, I told students that they would leave with a hot challa in their hand.” One of the “classes” is for himself, only. Rabbi Michael’s contract stipulates that he must learn two hours a day on his own, because, as he puts it, “We all know a cold stove cannot warm anyone. If you are not growing yourself, you can’t inspire anyone else.”
Rabbi Michaels’ is basically always on the job. “A big part of being a kiruv rabbi is inviting people for Shabbos,” he explains. “It is a balancing act to meet the needs of my kids and my students at a Shabbos meal. One technique I sometimes use is to say to my students, ‘I’ve been raising my kids all week and now I am vacation. It’s your turn now. Tell my children something to inspire them. It makes my students feel great to be the teachers, and my children enjoy listening to them.”
“I have tremendous job satisfaction,” Rabbi Michaels said. He believes in what he is doing: “There is a war out there; the stakes are very high, but the rewards are great. I sometimes feel like an old time prophet. I have to have a thick skin, because many of the students brush me off and are completely apathetic about G-d and their religion. But I know the value of what I have to offer! If I were a successful business man, all I would have to show for it would be more money. But as a kiruv rabbi, my successes last forever. Some of my students have surpassed me at learning Torah and are the parents of religious families of their own.” Teachers, doctors, rabbis, and other idealistic professionals would never be able to do these difficult jobs without believing in their mission and being convinced that they have something of value to offer!
Lack of Success
Sometimes, the conditions of a job cause frustration even if a person likes her job in theory. All the good intentions in the world do not always bring success. I spoke to Lisa, who graduated with a degree in counseling a number of years ago and now works as a substance abuse/mental health counselor for a private non-profit center. Lisa described her eight-hour day as divided between seeing clients for four hours and doing paperwork the remainder of the time. “Almost everything my clients say has to be documented,” said Lisa with a grimace. “I am busy with intake forms for new clients, discharge papers for previous clients, phone calls to clients who did not show up, and consultations with other professionals who are also seeing my clients.”
Lisa works with teenagers, ages 13 through 18, who have gotten into trouble with the law because of drug use. They are given the choice of going to a residential treatment program or living at home while participating in her program. The requirements of the program include attending counseling sessions twice a week, having drug testing twice a week, seeing a probation office once a week, and going to drug court twice a month. In drug court, the judge checks on the teen to see whether he has been attending school, keeping his curfews, and attending his counseling sessions. The counseling sessions include a curriculum which covers anger management, life skills and relapse prevention.
It sounded as though the components of this program should be effective in helping these teens. I expected Lisa to say she loved her job. Unfortunately, that is not true. As Lisa explained, “The results of the program are not very good. The teens are living in their old environment, where the adults around them are also using drugs. The counseling mandated by the courts is not very effective with teenagers. They are not really motivated to change, and it is rare for any of them to actually turn their lives around. It can be discouraging to meet with my clients twice a week for a full year and not see any progress.” Although Lisa does not feel she is accomplishing much, she enjoys the comradeship of her fellow employees, and is happy to have the opportunity to practice her skills and earn a decent salary to support her family.
Just a Lot of Stress
Some jobs, even if they pay well and are challenging, are so demanding that they are simply not enjoyable. Penina, an accountant, finds herself in that position. “I find my job very stressful,” she said. “It is not a good job for a frum woman because of the amount of work that needs to be done in a short amount of time. The whole system is based on billable hours, so I have to account for every minute. I work part-time, and I am always torn between my obligations to my family and to my job. I would not recommend accounting as a good field for a woman who would like to raise a family.”
Everyone’s priorities are different. To some people, a high-stress job that has prestige and a high salary is a good tradeoff. Others feel it is just not worth it. To some people, being treated well is the most important thing. And to others, believing strongly in the ideals of their profession is the most important and satisfying aspect of their job.
Work is such an important part of life that many people will keep on searching and do whatever it takes to find the perfect fit for them.â—†
