Nature, Uncategorized, work

Not a Good Fit

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Many years ago I had a 3-week job in May planting trees in Superior National Forest. This year I am in the midst of a 4 ½ week job scoring standardized tests. Can you guess which job is a better fit for my personality?

The current job is basically sitting and staring at the computer. All the time. Besides breaks and lunch, there is absolutely no need to get up and move or look at something besides a screen unless you want to stretch or go to the restroom. I keep thinking about the tree-planting job and wishing I could do something like that instead of what I’m doing now (although my body would probably have a harder time planting trees all day for three weeks than it did when I was 18). I told a co-worker about the tree-planting job and she said something about not having to think very hard at that job. And I thought to myself: you may think it wasn’t that stimulating mentally, but my thoughts were free because I could think anything I wanted instead of focusing only on 3rd grade English essays – and what can be better than all that fresh air and exercise? This current job is slow torture for someone like me.

What things do you do that are not a good fit for your personality? Or that are a good fit?

 

67 thoughts on “Not a Good Fit”

  1. I’ve come to a place in life where I pretty much live in the “what I’m good at world”. For example, I am not a great big picture person. I detest sitting on committees where the point is to deal w/ big picture ideas. I’m much better at “doing”. So any time there is an opportunity to be part of a “big picture” group, I pass. But if it’s a project with concrete things that need doing, sign me up!

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    1. I will bet our work skills are just opposite of each other. I am the big picture person who can see the future. Details are my nightmare. See story below.

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    3. I’m on a committee regarding a ‘big picture’. Yeah, just give me a job to do; I’m not as good as the ‘idea person’… but I can get things done.
      However I joined this committee because I wanted to support the organization and I felt this was important.
      Sometimes, being on a committee is just a good way to get information sooner.

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      1. today i went to the dfl town hall meeting put on by my two state senators in the city i live in. i told the guy who won last go round in the district that i would like to work with him because after getting involved in the local little of political wannabes i couldnt stand it. they are petty and self serving and the odd dems are a thing i get tired of beholding.
        i remember seeing rt rybek deal with all the odd people who would show up at his conferences and thinking he had more saint in him than i did and i knew i would never be a politician with all the required restraint involved. i told my guy i would like to work with him to help the cause and stay the hell out of committees. he smiled and said yes. i am looking forward to it.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    The worst job I ever had was as an auto parts clerk in a small store. I was supposed to inventory the stock. For someone who is distractible and has a bit of a learning disability, it was a nightmare. It was probably even worse for the owner, who found the inventory all messed up.

    But I was young and cute and wearing mini-skirts, so the the mechanics loved to come in to flirt and look at my legs. Sales went up. Accuracy went down. Unfortunately, mechanics were really not my kind of guys. I left the job before the boss fired me and made a note to my self to never work in that world again.

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    1. You’re probably right – inventorying stock sounds like a fine project to me! Getting everything sorted and organized and counted? I’m in.

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  3. I need a job in which I do various things all day. My current job is like that. I give tests, then do therapy in my office,, then paper work, then up to another floor to the play therapy room, then to meetings with staff, maybe then to Head Start or a school. I would get board doing the same thing all day.

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  5. The only fit I ever had as a job was as a pastor.
    Teaching English was in some ways a poor fit, but I made it a strength by seeing writing and literature and language from the students’ point of view and not from the prototypical English teachers’ point of view. I hated being around English teachers in groups, except for an amazing 8 day workshop at Carleton with 30 English teachers from all over the Midwest.
    I have never found a social group in which I fit very well.
    Details, like checkbook management are a poor fit but I have recently taken that on. Trying to built a routine. So far working.
    Care-giving, well, I am learning.

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      2. 66 years of marriage celebrated this day on the trail.
        my uncle paul would tell people that he and my aunt mara had enjoyed 21 years of happy married life together. mara would say “but paul we have been married 26 years” and he would reply. “there were some tough stretches in there.”

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  8. The last time I was employed full time at a company was the best fit and the worst fit of any of my jobs. When I started there, it was as an associate creative director, which at this place meant I managed a group of 6-8 people, oversaw their work, gave them their reviews, hired and fired when necessary. We had our own set of clients for whom we did creative “collateral” work, which means we designed packaging, sales brochures, etc.—just about anything that wasn’t media-placed advertising. We also participated in the design and production of book series. In addition to managing the group, I served as the account executive for our set of clients and was also expected to search out new clients. I was fairly good at interpreting the client’s wishes and relaying that back to my staff. I was terrible at cold-calling new clients. I was good at managing my staff as long as it was on my terms, by which I mean I regarded as part of my role to protect my team from impulsive interference by upper management so they could do their job. I made it my responsibility, since I now was privy to the salaries of my team members to push upper management for equitable pay (when I first assumed my position, the female members of my staff, who were among my most productive, were paid significantly less than the males). Unfortunately, though unsurprisingly, upper management wanted me to be their hammer—a remote extension of their will and impulse. Eventually, the company set up a more formal system of account executives and merged all the creatives so that I was able to more or less gracefully slide into new roles.

    Those new roles were where I found my ideal fit. For a number of years, I was able to be a sort of jack-of-all-trades, taking on projects that fell outside of the other creatives’ channels. I wrote and produced radio commercials and television commercials. I designed and produced books. I built props for the in-house photo studio. I wrote and designed a series of catalogs and instruction manuals. I participated in new product development and new product naming sessions. I produced finished illustrations for some projects. It was sort of exhilarating having the freedom to vary my workday like that. For once I felt like I was using my whole self.

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    1. I like that phrase: “using my whole self.” I have been a misfit for several jobs, and only once did I find a job for which I was a great fit. That job, in fact, was a perfect fit. I worked hard and was buoyed by the conviction there wasn’t another person on earth who could have been better suited for that job. That was exhilarating. The flip side of that was that the job was perfectly unique, meaning that when I lost it there could not be an equivalent job for me. But at least I had the experience knowing what it could be like to be perfect for a job. Hour by hour, that was a thrill.

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        1. bill, i just reinvented one of my job roles this week. the amazon partner and i had a tough time getting the guy who needed to cough up the 250,000 dolalrs to get the ball rolling to give us free reign over the project and do what we wanted him to do.
          so we decided the way around it is to tell the manufactiurors that we are amazon experts. they all respond that they would like to have ius sell their products on amazon and we tell them we dont buy their products we sell the factories products on amazon for the factory. it takes a minute to get the idea to sink in but the response was really good.
          i wonder if your skillset is something i could put to work on the new project . i kicked it off this week at the show i attended in las vegas. i talked to a bunch and came up with 5-10 factories that say yes trright away and 20-30 more who will be followed up on and kept in the process if we can juggle an infinate number of balls.

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      2. Bill’s work history not only shows him doing a great many different jobs. What is more impressive to me is how varied those jobs were. That’s possible only for a few people.

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    2. The video seems to show a dog that is as athletically gifted as I am. But note the way the poor dog has been groomed. Talk about “having the wool pulled over my eyes!” The thick hair around his eyes means he gets only fuzzy glimpses of the ball or rope.

      I knew a woman who was close to her Old English Sheepdog. She kept that dog’s face as furry as shown here, for that is the breed standard. One day her dog ran full tilt into a metal signpost it couldn’t see because of that fur, and it died.

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        1. She was just following a fashion shared by owners of that breed. People just need to remember that dogs need to function in this world, not just be cute according to our notions of cute.

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  11. I’m a big picture person, don’t get too excited about the details. Oddly, one of the more satisfying tasks that I’ve done was bookkeeping. I also loved creating databases. I suppose the challenge of setting them up was part of the fun, and unlike working with people, you always knew when you had been successful and achieved what you set out to do. If the results weren’t what I expected, there was only one person to blame, namely, myself.

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    1. I was hired once because I had laryngitis. As soon as I got home, they called me and said, “That was the best interview for a job that we’ve every conducted”. Boy, were they sorry when I got my voice back!

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  13. I dislike multitasking, and being interrupted, not allowed to finish one task before starting another. Most of the jos I’ve had required that sort of continual switching between tasks to try to fit more work into the day.

    I like the volunteer tax preparation I do, in part because I can usually just focus on one thing at a time. Occasionally, someone will interrupt to ask a question, but not very often. So I can just work through a return from seat to finish, and then put that one away and start the next one. I like that, and wish I could find a paying job that was like that.

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      1. post stuff on ebay and etsy. take a picture, write a description put in a price and post. check every day to see what needs to be shipped and ship it. good will has tuesday sale day where everything three weks old (they tell by what color the tag is) is on sale for 75% off so a dress or jacket on sale at goodwill for 10 is i=on sale on tuesday for 2.50.
        lots of the stuff can be sold or at least listed on ebay for 50+ and sold for a little less but still a big profit.
        i know a lady who does exclusively boots.
        i do hats and mens suits and top coats.
        if you pay 2 dollars and sell it for 20 the challange is to find a place to keep a pile of unsold stuff for an extended period of time.
        its not glamorous but it fits your scenario to a “t” and looking at vintage clothing and new designer stuff is kind of fun. maybe some other area would call out to you. the variations on a theme are endless.

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  14. i tell people i am a great worker but a poor employee.
    i do it my way and get results so i get away with it. in the few instances where i am a hired hand they all want stuff filed and reports filled out and if i can hire it done it can be achieved. if its left to me we have a problem. my amazon partner noticed i dont file expense reports well. i am working on it. my chinese bar b q guy had a us office and i didnt fit the culture and wasnt gong to get away with being the exception to the rule.
    the chinese guy came to me at the show in las vegas and confided he is looking for a new business model because his isnt working well. i had two to throw at him on the spot and we are discussing how to begin those next week
    i have a file of 20 or 30 ideas i love that i will get o or leave like the davinci diaries.
    i love multitasking and need a support staff ot keep up with it but am happiest when i am allowed to roll 14 ways at once and keep all the balls in the air.

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  15. It is difficult to get to know one’s self well. It is difficult to understand the true nature of different jobs. The magic happens when we can find a job that exactly fits our peculiar mix of abilities and shortcomings.

    A friend created a fly fishing tackle shop because he loved fly fishing. Then he found out he wasn’t cut out to be a shopkeeper because he hated people, or at least many people. He was delighted when he discovered a way to sell to people through the mail, a way of getting their money without dealing with them.

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  16. Our garden work started in earnest yesterday, and my, am I stiff and sore. We put out all 14 tomato cages (plants will go in next weekend), plotted all the rows, and bought 7 bleeding hearts, and 6 maiden hair ferns to rejuvenate a flower bed in the back yard. 12 strawberry plants will go in the strawbwrry bed to fill in the bare spots, and we transplanted an annoying row of old perennials that were taking up space in the veggie garden. We will put the new plants in when I get off work tomorrow.

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    1. It was serious gardening at my house too today. You know it’s a serious gardening day when about half way through the day you decide your clothes are too dirty to keep wearing, even in the garden. I went in and changed!

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      2. i never noticed that. i sometimes wear them the next time i go out to work in the garden too. they are already dirty after all

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  18. Goofy moment f the day. I was watching on the iPad a sort of weird movie, fun weird. In it is a parrot who says several peculiar things, one oh which is to make a phone ringing noise and then answer as a receptionist. But I was sort of dozing. Then the parrot made a different ringing noise and a different operator voice said phone call from 507-xxx-xxxx. The parrot went on to say other things. then It went back to the phone noise and call from 507 etc. then a bit later it did it again, but now I realized it was saying two things at once. Oops. It was my phone talking to me. My daughter was at he security door calling to be let in. She had to call three times. Funny coincidence.

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  19. About an hour ago, our door bell rang. When I answered, there was a girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, standing holding two tiny rapidly melting popsicles on sticks, asking if I was interested in buying them. I asked how much, and she said a dollar each. I told her that was a bit high, so, sorry, no, I wasn’t interested. I would have gladly paid her a quarter each, just to support her entrepreneurial spirit, but a buck for a popsicle that was no more than half the size of a regular ice cube, seemed a bit ambitious to me. She was awfully cute though. Summer has arrived!

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