The Important Lesson My Dad Taught Me About Working in Government

Talking to my dad hasn’t been easy.

For a long time, I didn’t know what to talk to him about because it seemed like we couldn’t talk about anything. However, I wanted to have a better relationship with him because if I know him better, I can know myself better. The more self-aware I am, the better person I can be to everyone in my sphere of influence.

Years ago, the government agency that I work for went through a massive restructuring. The entire senior leadership team disbanded and it left the workforce in a state of disarray.

I was successfully managing a province-wide project at the time and it was making great strides. However, the executive sponsor left and the project was nixed.

There was a ton of ambiguity. I was in my twenties and my job was everything. That project was the first time I had ever led something completely by myself. I had a team and I was dedicated to it with my blood, sweat, and tears. After the project was nixed, I was left feeling like my efforts were futile.

My dad has worked in government since he moved to Canada in the 1970s. He’s seen the rise and fall of various political parties and the changes that ripple through an organization. Unless you’ve worked in government, you really don’t know how political it gets and how slow things move. It’s the nature of the work.

So I decided to talk to my dad about my feelings at work. I wanted to find out his experiences of working 40+ years in the public sector and any advice he had for the feelings I had at the time.

He told me that throughout his career, he has gone through at least 8 leadership turnovers and the new people all have the same agenda: to prove themselves, to make a difference, and to leave a mark. Some succeed and some fail, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.

His sage advice to me was,

Do what you can and do your best. You can only do so much.

It’s not worth losing sleep over. You have to learn to let go when it’s time to let go.

The next day at work, I changed my mindset. As a government employee, the work is a marathon, not a sprint.

The motivation isn’t financially driven. It is people-driven. I came to that realization with the help of my dad and I am grateful for initiating that conversation with him.

Improving any relationship requires conversation and communication. If your relationship is like mine with my dad, you could start small. I knew asking him for advice about my job situation would be a neutral start because we share the experience of working in government.

Plus, Asian parents love giving advice (even when we’re not asking for it). Regardless of whether his advice was useful or not, I had the opportunity to know him better; hence, know myself better. It just happened to be useful.

Readers, what do you like to talk to your parents about? What kind of conversations do you have? Do you have older children? Do you guys do small talk? Or have deep, meaningful conversations?

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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.

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