I recently had coffee with a woman I'd just met. (We were introduced by a mutual friend.) She has just started a new job with a big local company and as soon as we sat down she went on a complaining rant:
There is too much office politics!
Too many meetings!
Too many rules and guidelines!
No freedom to do your own thing!
If you've worked for a large company -- and I have -- it was a pretty common list of complaints, all of which I could definitely relate to from my past experience. But as I listened to her, I had this eureka moment and I HAD to share it here:
As a do-everything-myself-entrepreneur, I secretely envied many of the things she was complaining about!
I miss having colleagues to distract me from my work sometimes.
I miss having meetings -- the good kind, the productive kind -- and the free lunches that often came with them.
I'd love for someone else to come up with some guidelines instead of it being all my responsibility.
I love the freedom to create and to come up with ideas and implement them, but it's exhausting and I miss having someone tell me what to do once in a while.
Moral of the story? Stop complaining about your job for a bit and make a list of three things you really like about it. (Good food at meetings counts, by the way.) The grass might always seem greener -- and I admit that it often does to me -- but your job might be very appealing to someone else at the same time.
About the Author:
I am the co-founder of Work It, Mom!, a freshly minted entrepreneur, and an amateur writer.
