Is it your job to work at your career?
26th June 2005
A little while back, I was reflecting on the difference between careers and occupations, a post that was spurred by an email from a friend of mine. I have actually been thinking about this issue quite a bit.
Recently, while reading Faith at Work Blog discussing what defines a person, I was once again reminded about these ideas.
I think sometimes we confuse our sense of who we are with what we do. And, we also conflate what we do for a living with the things we do as a person. In the post I refered to above, Mike McLoughlin was speaking more about the kinds of that you do as a corporation that defines the type of corporation it is. Just because one says that a corporation is a kingdom corporation, says McLoughlin, doesn’t make it such.
I used to work for such a company. Regular readers (all five of you!) of this blog will remember my struggles with that company, and especially with my former boss. We used to talk about “customer-centric” philosophies and we often talk about business ethics at work, but the boss practices what some of my friends call “NATO policies” which stands for “No Action; Talk Only”). It all makes for cynicism and deep duplicity at work for all of us.
I suppose this can be applied to the individual level as well. Merely applying a particular label on yourself would not really do the trick. It is by your fruit that you shall be known, as the Lord says in the Gospels.
What has this got to do with the difference between careers and occupation? I think these ideas are all intricately tied up to not only the confusion we place on our view of careers as opposed to occupation and calling, but also how we view ourselves. In my earlier post, I explored the idea that when we focus on our careers, we are tempted to forget that there is a difference between our occupation, our calling and our careers.
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