A job – on the other hand – looks at the worker as a commodity. For example, when the economy is bad, companies will lay off workers and/or enact hiring freezes. The only purpose of a job is to keep a company/enterprise in business; if companies could run themselves, there would be no need for jobs. That is the difference between jobs and careers.

I come from a career-oriented family. My father, brother, and I have been about our work. My work is the axis of my life. I have had two businesses for the last twenty-five years. One career is in property management and the other career is a tailoring business. But, I have been on my own for the last thirty years. My children stayed with their father in the country when I moved back to the city. Building things is very important to me. It is a source of challenge, education, network connection, and personal reward. It has never been about the money. It is about how far I can go in my endeavors.

As I look at Ann Romney, her focus is her family. For Hillary Clinton it is about her career. To me the word “career” is defined by what is most important to you. Maybe it is your family, but it also may be your work. 4-2012

So I agree with the author to some degree. But just doing the best you can at a job is not enough to define a career. You must want to grow in related or unrelated jobs.

Unfortunately after a severe downsizing where I was I took a job that I thought would be great, but then had to resign from a job because of “integrity issues” or lack thereof within the organization.

I was able to do this because I had an emergency fund and knew that I could survive for a good while without a job if I needed to. I know…pretty much everyone would say don’t leave a job until you find the next, but the job was “sucking the life out of me” so I knew what I needed to do.

I can’t say it’s been easy. I think I was thinking in terms of “career” so being unemployed is really hard, but I’ve been able to wait it out finding a place that has integrity and works toward the things I value. Things are still being nailed down, but I should be starting soon.

Anyway – this job upcoming came through networking, which is possible, because I work hard!

@K.R.
“I think the job v career question has a tendency to encourage laziness or even entitlement. “I’m more important because this is my *career* the kid making minimum wage who files for me is just in a *job*”

So true! When I was a manager of a convenience store, I would have some white collar customers (not many, but a few) that I could tell were looking down on me because I worked in a convenience store; especially if they didn’t know I was the manager. This was also true when I talked to people when I told them what I did for a living. I would laugh, because at that time, I probably made more after bonuses than most of them (and probably enjoyed my work more).

As someone who has had to work two jobs before to make ends meet, I always tried to treat the part time job with the same regard as the full time job. Why? Because I needed the money, otherwise I wouldn’t be there. I would be just as screwed if I got fired from that job as my full time job; either way I wouldn’t be able to pay the bills. In that regard, both jobs were equally important. In many instances, I enjoyed the part time job more than the full time job because it was free from the pressures of worrying about advancement, raises or office politics. I could just be myself and have fun. The only problem was that like some others upthread have said about their jobs, I was often pressured to work more hours than I wanted to, as I outperformed many of my co-workers that didn’t have the same mindset.

@Funny About Money’s question:

“In a job where you’re not paid equitably, how much effort really should you put in?”

To me, the answer is that you should put in as much effort that is required to do the job, no more no less. Often times, people confuse giving 100% and exceeding expectations. Giving 100% doesn’t necessarily mean working through vacations or working 18-hour days, but merely doing what is required of the job (giving 100% while you are there), as Funny sort of said later in her comment.

I try to think of any job I take as a verbal contract between me and my employer. I do work which they pay me for. Regardless of how much or how little I get paid, I agreed to the contract. Bottom line, if I think your pay isn’t fair, then I would be finding a job that pays better or shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. But until either of us decides to end this contract and as long as the paychecks clear the bank, I owe it to them to fulfill my end of the bargain, regardless of how well I believe I am compensated.

While parts of it might sound like I disagree where she was going with the question, I agree totally. She was stressing out about her job and did something about it. Funny About Money couldn’t be more right when she said:

“When I decided to cut the stress level, I realized that we conflate our “careers” with our selves. A career is a job. A job exists to put food on the table and a roof over your head. It is not our self.

When you delete the distinction between “career” and “job” and you build a distinction between what you do and who you are, you gain a whole new perspective on the world of work”

Ultimately, as important as you think you may be to your company, chances are they existed before you and will do so without you. It’s just a job, even if it’s a “career”.

Recognize when the fastest track out of a job doesn’t have anything to do with your job. I think that’s what Trent was trying to get at.

Even if you hate your job and are miserable in it, you should give it your best shot — even while you are looking for something else.

But Funny About Money’s comment also hit home in that the extra initiative has rarely paid off in concrete terms. Often, it has meant getting more work placed on my shoulders for no additional benefits. I think you’re on the money when you talk about balance: doing enough to respect yourself and the people your job serves, but not to the detriment of your family and your other passions.

I agree with your thoughts. We need to try our hardest to do great work. I understand where Trent is coming from and I know that I’ve been there, but when I became engaged with the job I always enjoyed myself so much more. It became more than just a paycheck. That’s what working happy is all about. Enjoying each step of the journey toward financial freedom.

Every job I’ve ever had has taught me SOMETHING.

And I’ve never thought it’s okay to “do the minimum without annoying the boss,” except in a situation which was somewhat similar to your insurance-sales situation. (I didn’t want to be REALLY good at ripping people off).

It might seem like half-assing a job would never matter, but I’ve found it’s a relatively small world, and you never know who your current boss might know someone in your next, better, job.

I think the perception and definition of “job” versus “career” may be based in class background as much as one’s personal value system.

Some people are intimidated and/or put off by “Career” as it sounds too daunting or foreign and only identify with “job” while your perception that “the distinction between a job and a career is artificial” shows that you are very comfortable identifying with the word “career.”

I also think it boils down to having pride in what you do. Even when I have had shitty managers (like at another job where I was sexually harassed by a man), I still take pride in knowing that I do a good job. Why? Because I know I can and I expect good stuff out of myself.

My sister in law is a good example of this. She is a radiographer, studied very hard to become one, and refers to herself as a ‘career woman’ all the time. Yet she passes up chances for more training, and while she talks about wanting to be promoted, she doesn’t actually make any effort to pursue oppurtunities that come up. She just wants it to fall in her lap. So because she’s not making an effort to improve, I would say she has a job rather than a career.

Me, I have had a job for many years and am now moving into actively making it a career again. It’s difficult, but it feels good too.

In a job where you’re not paid equitably, how much effort really should you put in?

In a job where employees are occasionally seen to get the shaft for organizational reasons having nothing to do with their performance, how much loyalty do you owe the employer?

Why are we working, anyway?

I spent many years of my academic career running myself ragged and indeed being congratulated in every annual review for the excellent work I did. Didn’t make my pay any better; didn’t make my workload any saner. Didn’t make me any safer from the arbitrary firing that happened to one of my colleagues in the same job class.

Then I escaped teaching by moving to a low-level administrative position, where I again ran myself ragged to do excellent work. Though the 12-month administrative job was better paid than teaching (what isn’t?), all the hard work did nothing to make my pay any better; didn’t change the risk level of my exempt position; didn’t make my employer any fairer to me or anyone else.

Over time I got very tired and very stressed. And I got very mad when the local paper published everyone’s salaries and I discovered a guy who does half the work I do running a related program earns $30,000 more than I do — on a nine-month contract. Then I looked around me and realized that mediocrity is the standard of the business world: I was the only one who was working her buns off around there, and I was receiving no real reward for doing so. No one even noticed!

When I decided to cut the stress level, I realized that we conflate our “careers” with our selves. A career is a job. A job exists to put food on the table and a roof over your head. It is not our self.

When you delete the distinction between “career” and “job” and you build a distinction between what you do and who you are, you gain a whole new perspective on the world of work.

I now do the best I can on my job — within limits. I do only what is expected and no more. I do not put in 14- to 18-hour days, I do not work on weekends, and when I go on vacation I do not answer my e-mail or the phone. Amazingly, the work gets done on time and it gets done pretty well. My unit continues to earn rave reviews from our clients. And my last annual review — after 18 months of putting in as little work as humanly possible — was the best I’ve had in all the 15 years I’ve worked at that place!

It’s true that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing well. But apparently it’s acceptable to do a job well enough and then stop.

However, I do feel you contradicted yourself a little in the final paragraph. There are many, and I include myself amonst them, who would say that answering a telephone day in, day out would qualify as a “shitty job” and, in your opinion, shitty jobs deserve nothing more than the bare minimum. But didn’t you just say one should give one’s all in everything?

Balance is very important in life. I just think it’s a good policy to put your best effort into the things that you do. For me, anyhow, it’s more rewarding…

Oy! Been there! Still there!(made me laugh anyway). I stick around though because my current job gives me advantages important to *me* (but maybe not to others). I don’t mind the lack of reward too much because of the freedom, flexibility and general ‘put up with-ness” they offer me. Let’s just say I haven’t been on time in years….*cough*…