The Harsh Realities About Work for Those Starting Their Careers

In the late 1990s, nearing graduation from university I felt optimistic and excited about starting work. I’d applied for several graduate trainee jobs, selected from an inch-thick directory of employers who were competing to attract new talent.

After a dozen applications and a few interviews, I debated the merits of joining British Airways, Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation. Each had made unconditional offers of work, with healthy salaries and benefits too. I couldn’t believe my luck.

I chose Oracle and began the following September after a leisurely summer. I recall being handed a laptop, the keys to a company car and a corporate Amex card on day one — I felt like Tom Cruise in the movie ‘The Firm’.

A couple of decades later and my eldest daughter will shortly graduate with her degree. The world of work is unrecognizable now compared to what it was ‘in my day’.

As she considers her future, I’m pleased that she’s open to almost anything — at the same time I share her frustration that options seem so limited. She has a casual job at a bar and will work that through the summer while trying to find a career job. If nothing comes up we’re preparing for her to move back home while the search continues.

The start of my career came easily but it hasn’t been plain sailing since. It’s taken years to learn the harsh realities of working life, and even longer to accept and adapt to them.

My daughter’s working life will last for decades and I’m keen that she benefits from what I’ve learned. It turns out that many of these same lessons were immortalized by the Stoic philosophers of old.

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Avoid the creeping dissatisfaction

In the years since I’ve carved out a career that might be labeled successful by many measures. I’ve progressed and earned greater responsibility, gradually earning more money and being entrusted with more challenging projects.

What’s been lacking at times is a sense of meaning and significance.

My wife and I usually check in during the working day with a text message or two. For many years, our exchange would typically go something like this:

Me: “How’s your day?”

Her: “Terrible — So much to do, too little time. Wish I didn’t have to be here”

Me: “Same”

And so we’d move on with our days, each a little more miserable having affirmed our dissatisfactions with our work.

I wonder how many others do the same each day? And yet, such exchanges and the resulting feelings are of our own making. When we wallow and end up feeling despondent and miserable, we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.

The key is in figuring out how to turn this around.

You decide what makes work meaningful

I want my kids to feel fulfilled and find work stimulating and rewarding on all levels — not just financial. But they need to realize that most of us hate our jobs at times. I don’t know anyone who loves every minute of every day.

If you do, then you’re to be congratulated and I’d love to know your secret.

In my case (managing IT projects) there’s limited scope for creativity or making a difference in others’ lives. My effectiveness is measured by financial impacts to the bottom line rather than the social impact it has upon people’s lives.

A few years back I decided to try and achieve more via side projects — writing has been a big part of that. It made me dislike my day job all the more. I resented it, found it annoying and begrudged the effort and time it demanded. Instead of being grateful that it supported my family, I felt it prevented me from doing meaningful and significant work.

No matter how much I recognized the stupidity of that mindset I couldn’t break free from it. That was until I discovered and embraced the principles of Stoic philosophy.

I was fighting the realities of life and feeling bad as a result, rather than embracing one of the key lessons from the Stoics:

“It is not what happens to you that matters, but how you react to it” — Epictetus

It’s a privilege to have the time and resources to pursue side-projects. But it’s also a privilege to have a day job at all, and to rely on that paying the bills while I seek creative fulfilment from writing.

The lesson? — whatever happens we must each manage our emotional reactions since that’s the real determinant of how we feel about life.

You are responsible for your outlook

Stoicism helped me appreciate that I was the main blocker to feeling satisfaction. I was voluntarily deferring pleasure and enjoyment until some point in the future, choosing to hate my work and then feeling miserable about it. I was poisoning my own mind through my attitude towards my present circumstances.

“You could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow” — Marcus Aurelius

This quote from Stoic-heavyweight Marcus Aurelius had become the unwitting strap-line for my life. I was forsaking peace of mind, contentedness and satisfaction in the present by focusing on some unknown point in the future when work would be rewarding and free of frustrations. I would be happy and fulfilled if only I could cling on.

I had to overturn this approach if things were to improve.

The lesson? — don’t waste a single day lamenting the present. Choose to take the best that you can from today and appreciate it for what it is — even if that’s another day’s earnings from working in a bar until you find something you really want to do.

You won’t love everything about every day — accept it

It’s unrealistic to expect every day to be rich with satisfaction and calm, or free from annoyance and interference. Whether you’re pursuing your passion or stuck in a job that you dislike, everyone has bad days.

“Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness — all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Our boss will drop a last-minute, urgent task upon us.

A coworker will let us down.

An irrational customer will complain endlessly.

These are an unavoidable part of daily working life. They’re not directed specifically at us with malice. As Marcus Aurelius points out, the “offender” is likely to be ignorant of the effects their actions.

The lesson? — bad things happen and bad days occur. You can let this shape your worldview and your daily experience, or you can embrace it as reality, accept the good times and ride out the bad.

If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well

Through focusing on the side-hustle at the expense of the day job I convinced myself that I had a right to give a half-hearted effort to the work that actually paid the bills. I deluded myself into thinking that because my interest had diminished, I had only to do the bare minimum. My energy was reserved for the creative work.

How wrong could I be?

I’ve no right to give anything other than my full effort and attention to every task that I do. To consider what a “good man” or woman would do is to bring ourselves back to a simple truth — the right thing in every instance is to give what you’re doing your full attention and do your best.

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” — Marcus Aurelius

The debate over what a “good person” is, should be broadened to consider what a “good life” looks like. We all know deep down what that is. Instead of twisting and shaping our environment or changing the circumstances, we should think instead about what we can do to manifest it.

I’ve labored to my kids the need to do every job with all their heart and to the best of their abilities.

It means mustering the will to be positive, enthusiastic and friendly to coworkers and customers, even when you don’t feel like it. The rude, ignorant or seemingly miserable person you encounter could be having a bad day, and your positivity has potential to lift them up. Even if it doesn’t you’re doing your best to improve the situation.

The lesson? — Do your best, and you’ll likely feel better about yourself, your job and life regardless of what goes on around you.

Time is limited — make the best of it

Stoicism is underpinned with this stark sentiment — our days are numbered and our lives will eventually end. How many of us keep this in mind?

In his seminal book, ‘The Four Hour Work Week’ author and lifestyle-guru Tim Ferriss refers to a “deferred life plan” that many live. We suffer a job we hate for 40 years, saving money for retirement, hoping we’ll still have the health and vitality to enjoy it.

None of us has certainty that today won’t be our last day on earth. This shouldn’t be taken as a license to live hedonistically or as though we don’t care about the consequences of our actions or decisions, but there’s a balance to be struck.

“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.” — Marcus Aurelius

It was foolish to defer enjoyment and satisfaction from work until some unknown point in the future when I might be able to do something different. I took time to realize that each day had to be enjoyed or at least not suffered if I were to feel fulfilled in life.

There will always be bad days where someone else’s priorities direct our efforts and prioritize our work. There’ll be annoyances, offense, disagreements, and dissatisfaction from doing our job in a random world. We still have the choice over how we react — with disappointment and anger or acceptance that we cannot change it!

As Seneca puts it — salvation from feelings of dissatisfaction and frustration is really in our own hands:

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.”

The lesson? — take ownership and accountability for your actions and choices. If you don’t like something, change it or accept it if it cannot be changed, making the best of things.

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This post was previously published on The Post-Grad Survival Guide.

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