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Life is tough. Nuns are tougher.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Sixteen Tons

How do I know where I am supposed to work? I have a job now. My husband is job-seeking. I get job offers and interview requests frequently. How do I know if I should go to another place or stick it out here?

Well, if you don't know, how on earth can I help you? What's your job? What are the job offers? Do you have to move? Would you make more money? Would you have more time or less time for your family life?  Is where you work now a horrible sinful place where you are surrounded by evil? Are your co-workers dragging you into a life of sin?  Are you put upon so much so that you feel used and abused?  Is there health insurance?

You have to ask yourself every one of these questions. Make a pro and con list.   In the end, if this is the only job that has health benefits, stay.

A job isn't just a job.  It can be where you spend almost all of your time.  You are giving all your time away for what, exactly?

1. Fulfillment. All jobs are not created equally.  Some are mind numbing, sand pounding days of dullness as thick as a layered bean dip.  Some are kind of pleasant at best.  And some are important and engaging. 

But don't think that if you are just a bean counter or a shelf stocker that your job can't be fulfilling.  As long as you do your job with a sense of purpose, that sense of doing good work and being needed will stretch itself across your life.

If you find yourself "phoning it in" everyday, maybe it's time to move on if there's someplace to go. As long as that place has health insurance.  Don't go from a job where you have insurance to one in which you don't.

2. A paycheck.  This is nothing to sneeze at!  Are you making enough to make ends meet?  Do you need more for food, rent, clothing?  If the answer is yes, you should be looking for something better.  Don't go backwards in your salary.  Unless you don't have insurance now and the new job pays a little less or the same but has benefits.  Then it's worth the move.

3. Loyalty.  Also nothing to sneeze at! There's not enough these days.  Still, you have a family to take care of, even if your family only consists of you and your husband just now.

I get the idea that your job is no fun.  But why?  This is an important question.  It could be that it's just not fun, what you do, like being a public defender.  No fun and low pay.  But perhaps a  great sense of fulfillment. 

There are reasons to stick it out if your job stinks.  That paycheck. Those benefits.  If you're just put upon, or your co-workers are icky to you, the only way you are going to survive is to change your attitude, because they are not going to change.

I believe that one of the reasons the world never changes is that, for the most part, human beings have the tendency to say to themselves, "Why am I the one who has to bend over backwards to accommodate these clowns?  They should get it together!"  That's why Jesus was such a radical. He said to everyone, "No. You have to love them as you love yourself. You have to change to behave that way.  Chances are it won't change them. But it will change you."

Meanwhile, we turn to St. Joseph the Worker, our patron saint of workers.  Granted, he didn't have someone in the next cubicle snapping their gum and making personal phone calls at the top of their lungs and eating whatever food is in the break room whether it belongs to them or not.  But he did have the whole town looking at him sideways because of the unusual situation with his wife and son.

We all have our crosses to bear.  I hope yours has health insurance.

6 comments:

Claudia said...

Make a chart and list the pros and cons. What do you want to do and what will work best for you. The highest salary might not be the best if you look at what is required, check the benefits.

I feel that a person knows instinctively what job they feel is best.

Melissa said...

Are you having expensive health problems, Sister?

Anonymous said...

I have held the same job for 10 years,'trapped' by childcare and healthcare issues.
I have worked with people who constantly swear,cuss,swap porn on their phones in front of me and listen to loud rap on their phones that is absolutely disgusting.
I read sister's advise about offering it up. If I started to get upset or worked up- I reminded myself that I do not want to make nasty birthday cakes, and that God has the video tape!
I also started saying the rosary and asked for Mary's intersession.
4 (!) devout Christians have since transferred into my immediate work area and the entire atmosphere has utterly changed.I actually enjoy my job now!

Anonymous said...

Well, this might be a little off topic but it relates to the comment about being trapped in a job. I fully understand because I am trapped too. Not to complain but let me tell you - I work with some people who are not very nice. They delight in creating unhappiness and persecute people for no reason but the sheer sport of it. It is quite miserable. To give me strength I have taken to asking St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross to pray for me that I will be strong - because if anybody knows persecution she does! I've also been a lot of Dorothy Day's diaries. It is good to know someone so holy struggled to be kind and love others. I love that she wrote this one thing about dealing with awful people and she had to remind herself that Christ died even for them. She said she had to remind herself, "Yes, Dorothy even for them. So who are you to judge?" I am also reminded of St. John of the Cross who was also treated unkindly by co-workers. He wrote a lot about suffering building character. I love the Communion of Saints because between the Lord and the Saints we are never on this road alone!

Anonymous said...

New question:


My little boy was foster-to-adopt so he hadn't been baptized yet. His birthmom was Buddhist but she knew I was raising him Catholic and she didn't care. On Sunday, 8/9/09, we went to church, had lunch and I put him down for a nap. He was 2yrs, 7 months and 1 day old. About 20 minutes later, my 4 year old came and got me and said Angel was sleeping in the window with a thing on his neck. I ran screaming into the room and found him hanging by the window blind cord. I had the cord tied up but my 4 year old told police she reached it by standing on the window sill.
I did cpr on him while my ten yr old called 911. He was cold, though, and his chest sounded junky even though he wasn't sick. And while I was doing CPR, I looked up and Jesus was standing in the doorway and holding Angel on his right arm. Angel was sitting on Jesus' arm and his little arm was around Jesus neck. And with his other arm he was pointing to me (or maybe to himself) on the floor and talking but I couldn't hear anything. Then Jesus pointed and talked to Angel but, again, I couldn't hear anything. And I looked down at Angel and his eyes were so dead. And I knew he wasn't coming back. And I told my ten yr old to tell the 911 operator that it was too late. He was already dead. But my daughter yelled back "Keep doing cpr". So, I started cpr again. The paramedics arrived and I was convinced it was some kind of nightmare and it wasn't really happening. And after a while I heard over the police radio that they had a heartbeat. I couldn't believe it. I thought maybe he was okay. We got to the hospital and my parish priest was there and he baptized Angel. And they said Angel wasn't doing well and they were going to fly him to Children's hospital. At Children's hospital, they told me he had terrible brain damage and if he survived he would be in a vegetative state. I didn't want that. I wanted him whole. I begged God not to let him live like that and then Angel died. I felt terrible because other moms in my grief support group begged God to let their kids live like that and they would take care of him/her. But I wasn't even thinking about taking care of him (which I would done gladly if he had survived). They had a diaper on him and I was mortified for him because I knew he would be mortified if he knew (he had been potty trained since he was 22 months old). And he was so active and he ran everywhere, spoke in complete sentences, sang songs. I couldn't imagine him living as he was without any understanding. Although, when I said goodbye, it DID seem that he was paying attention. (although I know it was physically impossible).

Anyway, I was wondering. Where was Angel's soul after the paramedics revived him. Would it have been back in his body? Would he have been aware of me? Would he have heard me when I told him I loved him and said goodbye. I was so worried that he died without ever knowing how much I loved him and wanted him to live (but live whole).
Kat

Anonymous said...

I think he was going with God when you saw him. He was revived enough to have him Baptized.

As a RN I can say you made the best decision. I, personally would have done the same thing and if it were me I would hope someone would do the same.