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Career or Job?
Posted: 9:35 am
August 3rd, 2009
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IT Business

Happy Monday!

Enjoying the beautiful Las Vegas after going to sleep on the west coast schedule and waking up on the east coast schedule. My brain is shot so I figured I’d offer you some of the idle cycles of my brain and the random stuff I tend to notice.

One of my ADD puzzles has always been checking out what others are doing on a flight. Let’s face it, being locked in 24” of waist and 18” of leg room leaves you with a rather limited set of things you could be doing.

To me, and you’re welcome to disagree, a career is something you live and breathe. It doesn’t take a lunch break or a weekend off, even if you aren’t doing anything directly related to your job or role, you are aware of it on some level.

Flights tend to fall into three groups: 1) Spend the entire time praying that the wings don’t fall off, 2) How do I make this thing go faster, sleep? and 3) Let me get something done.

So we’re flying to Las Vegas. I’m a row behind my staff. One is looking out the window. Other is reading Harry Potter. One is transcribing his whiteboard with the new project goals from the iPhone picture snapped earlier that morning.

Which one of us has a career and who is collecting a paycheck?

I know guys who have written entire books on flights. I often see business people working on spreadsheets, templates, etc. This “free time” is the time to sharpen your skills.

So mirror match time: How you spend your idle cycles is a reflection of what you enjoy in life. Perhaps you should find a way to get paid for doing that.

For me, I am very thankful to be paid for what I’d do for free anyhow.

10 Comments

Andy Parkes |

This is something I wish my wife (of all people!) would understand

The amount of times she’s asked me why i’m not home as it’s after 5pm

I have to remind her that the office closes at 5pm but my hours are from when i wake up until I go to bed!



vlad |

Andy,

Do yourself a favor and build a home office. My home life has improved a lot since I started leaving work on time or early most days and just resumed whenever possible on the couch, bed, etc.

And considering you’ve got kids, you probably don’t want to miss out on that either.

-Vlad



Chris Knight |

Amen to both the post and your comment, esp the last line of your post.



An Average Geek Ch. 1 | Free Adult Stories |

[...] Vlad Mazek – Vladville Blog » Blog Archive » Career or Job? [...]



SK |

Wondering if the other two on the plane gave their 2 weeks notice when they saw this?



vlad |

Not yet, we’ll see. But hey, if you had an option of being happy AND getting paid for it, would you skip it in a heartbeat? Doubt it.

-Vlad



JohnK |

I like what I do so the extra hours are not a pain… I had the pleasure of working from home when the kids were little… they grow up fast – don’t miss it!

John



Eric |

Gotta say, glad I don’t work for you.



vlad |

Believe me, the feeling is mutual :) And there is nothing wrong with that, folks simply have different expectations and there is probably a perfect job/role for everyone out there.

And for the more enterprising assholes among us, there is nothing like starting your own business.

-Vlad



Stuart Crawford |

Here I am volunteering at my church’s “Inn from the Cold” 6 hours from Midnight to 6 AM…security duty, MacBook has been on all night, working on stuff for Bulletproof…

Yep, who is the worker and who is the business owner, brother?

Stuart Crawford
Calgary, AB
http://stuart.calgarybloggers.ca








 

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