(I Can't Get No) SATISFACTION) Mick Jagger & Keith Richards

I spent a few years working in the U.S. before coming back to Canada -  minus a job! I stayed with a  friend and his family for a few weeks while looking for work. I must admit that searching for employment is a difficult task - and you don't even get paid!

Indexing tool for Punching
Addressograph Cards

I quickly found a sessional job in the Fire Marshals Office working on an addressograph machine. The rest of the staff were phlegmatic females wordlessly working at their typewriters. Each morning we had to sign a register book so the "boss" knew we were not coming minutes late for work. At exactly eight-thirty he emerged from his office and drew a red line under the last entry. Word came down that he had to discontinue this practice.

The first morning of the new procedure I happened to be a few minutes late. The red line was gone but I did notice a tiny red dot after the last entry. I signed the book and then scribbled this note, "I see the little red dot!!"

This was a strange, but probably common, working environment. The  imperturbable staff were always at their desks pounding away on their clattering typewriters - a very mechanistic space.

Originally the word job meant a piece of work only, and not something full time. In the Fire Marshals Office I was the 'one on the job', the others were employed full-time.  But I wondered about their  'job satisfaction' and whether they sensed that what they were doing was somehow making a difference. I felt bad for them knowing I might soon escape. Perhaps they were happy - I simply don't know, since they did not talk to me very often. But to this day I wonder what drew them back, day after day, to that disciplined and cold environment. In 1965 The Rolling Stones expressed it well with the song, "SATISFACTION".

 Steve Jobs wanted to make a big difference. "I want to put a ding in the universe,"  he said. He sure did! Many people have jobs and their satisfaction and motivation is simply their pay cheque. They are happy to be able to pay the mortgage and buy the groceries. Others have a career and their motivation is not simply the money, but also the hope of future promotion or some new opportunity. Finally, there are those who have a passion, the work itself - not the money, the privileges or the control over others. In the past we called those jobs a vocation or a calling. Such was Steve Jobs job. Confucius is thought to have said, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day of your life." Unfortunately, most jobs require the workers to find for themselves a sense of satisfaction and the knowledge, that no matter how humble, others will benefit from their efforts.  

U.S. News and World Report this year listed the 100 best jobs.  The ingredients are:  a good salary, a manageable work-life balance and job security.

Given today's job market many can't be choosy and workers have to develop a positive attitude, avoid the negative crap, talk to their co-workers and, above all, take responsibility for their own actions. As the old Napoleon Dynamite fans would say "Friggin idiot...GOSH " -  this is beginning to sound like a Salad Sermon...'Dearly beloved LETTUCE, LETTUCE.....'

And that's Dicks View of the World this Week

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