I find a lot of people complaining that they are not satisfied with their job. They don’t find the work challenging or that they don’t
deserve to do the work they are doing. It reminds me of one incident which took place when I first came to Bangalore.
I had joined MindTree and along with two other friends rented a two bedroom flat. The flat had only one wardrobe, which was not sufficient for all our clothes. So we asked a carpenter to fix a metal rod between the two walls of the bedroom to enable us to hang our clothes. The carpenter came around 12.30 p.m and started his work. He took measurements and fixed the wooden pieces on both sides of the wall, between which he was going to fit the metal rod. Suddenly he realized that the two wooden pieces were not in a straight line. The piece at the right was about 1 cm below the exact place, although you really needed to look carefully to notice the flaw. He told he will remove the wooden piece and fix it in the correct place, which would take another 20 minutes. It was already 1:10 and I was hungry. I told him there was no need for this as you could hardly make out any difference. But he insisted and told me that he believes in doing things perfectly. He started the work and after 40 minutes when he was totally convinced that the final product is perfect, he let me go!
If something like carpentry -which we think mundane and uninteresting- can give such satisfaction to the carpenter (I unfortunately did not ask his name), then why can’t we be happy with what we are doing? I think it’s not the job which satisfies us, rather it is our attitude. With a right attitude, we would find joy and happiness in whatever we do. This is not to say that we should keep doing the same job throughout our life. If at all we want a change, the reason should be a strong liking for the new job, rather than a dislike for the current one.
