The biggest drivers of work happiness is your boss, but number two is having a career path that satisfies you. I liked to tell potential hires in interviews that I would make sure that everyone had a career path and the best people got the best work. This kind of things works on several levels.
When you look at university professors, closing the door on their offices and teaching a few classes is their career path. If the world is crumbling around them, I think they will be fine. Not happy maybe, but fine.
I have been looking at my career path of late and am wondering about what I see. What I moved to Southern Illinois to do isn't possible, our main employer is going down the drain, the state government is as corrupt as it can be. What is the future going to bring?
Are you happy with your career path? Do you have a good manager? Are there people around you can learn from? What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you making meaning in your life from your work?
3 comments:
You forgot the reserach. We make very valuable contributions in terms of research. Why even now, I am preparing my paper revealing who really wrote Shakespeare's plays for which the world is waiting with.... oh never mind.
Most professors enjoy the researching aspect of their work much more than the teaching aspect and most of the research is very rigorous and thought out. Unfortunately, most of it, esp in the liberal arts and business, will be read by maybe 500 other people who are looking to see if there is anything in your work they can cite to support their own research.
The career path leading to tenure (which really ought to be abolished)assigns great value to publication and much less value to teaching. If you want tenure (and who wouldn't want a guaranteed job in today's economy) you need 4-6 articles published during a six year period, one of which has to hit a top line journal. Otherwise, you better plan on shopping your resume around becaue you've gone as high as you're going to go at that institution.
No, I'm a "computer person" at SIU outside of SIU's IT dept. I have nowhere to go. I've done amazing things way outside of my job description, I'm the senior tech in my building and yet the lowest paid.
After proving a concept and building with nothing, the concept has repeatadly been taken away from me and "the new person" gets a nice big fat budget to work with and all the things I asked for in the past.
What should I do? My skill set is specialized and I can't just "flip over" to another dept. I don't really know of anywhere else in Southern Illinois I could apply my skills and I don't want to leave here after 17 years.
What to do????
I didn't forget research, give me a break.
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You are a computer person doormat. People get paid based on what will keep them there, once you have proven you are a doormat you don't get raises. I have no where to go? Spare me.
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