July 19, 2010
The Dream Job Project Part II
Last April, in a piece on these pages, I solicited comments from people about what they aspire to in the way of work, whether those aspirations were for a “dream job,” the next stage in one’s professional life, or a first stepping stone to something different. My thinking on this originated with the notion that aspirations offered by the culture aren’t necessarily supported by the economy, and that one possible response was to design those aspirations. Before you can design, you have to have a 360º view of the structure of the work. With that, you could build an aspiration design tool, a dashboard of options and choices, something to help you measure where you are and where you want to be.
If you offered your comments on that piece, you helped with the first stage of that process. I read your comments, pulled out things you said you wanted or didn’t have, and constructed a category for that thing. From the concrete particulars I created a set of more abstract categories which, if you took them all together, would make up everything that someone — at least in a contemporary knowledge-based economy — could want from work.
Now, for stage two, I need your help again. Below you’ll see all 22 categories that I abstracted out. Please note that these don’t appear in any order. Is 22 too many? I don’t know. Below that are the same categories with the concrete particulars that sparked them. The list may contain 22 categories, but I know it isn’t exhaustive or complete — it’s not a full 360º view. What else is there? What else should someone dreaming of the best job or even just dreaming of the next job be on the lookout for?
Also, do the categories have the right labels? You can read the concrete particulars I pulled out — tell me if the category names capture what that category seems to be about. (You could also go back to the original comment thread and look for particulars I missed.)
In stage three, I’ll present the final aspiration design tool and give some ideas about how it might be used, and invite comments on the tool.
Categories:
Source of Motivation/Direction
Workplace as Space
Job/Life Location
Job Duration
Daily Schedule
Amount of Income
Predictability of Income
Type of Income
Partnership
Colleagues
Quality of Interactions with Others
Psychological Experience of Sustaining
Autonomy
— External
— InternalÂ
Workplace as Space
— I can do it in my home, my favorite place, my haven
— A work station that doesn’t share my bedroom…a whole area dedicated to this persuit consisting of 3 conferrence/crafting tables…one along each wall….one for my knitting machine and supplies
— Comfortable surroundings
— I work out of the house because I have two small children
— Having a healthy, open environment in the office is key
— Where we live will matter less
— I also do not want to commute the 35 minutes into Boston, where many jobs would likely be for me
— Hopping in my car with my laptop and driving 15 minutes to some small office
Job Duration
— Project-based work
— I want to have ample vacation time so that I can spend several weeks out of the year freshening up on my language skills, in addition to moving me around the country so that I can live in many different cities
Daily Schedule
— I can do it when I want, my own hours
— Some flexibility to work on my hours, off-site if possible
— Flexible hours
Amount of Income
— Steady minimum income that allows me some mad money at the end of the month
— Enough to pay bills plus savings and health coverage
— Then sell enough work or reproductions to have a decent quality of life and take a vacation each year
Predictability of Income
— Just to keep income steady, may sell yarn, books, and offer knitting classes
— Predictable financial security, an ability to estimate that i will have enough $ to support current (moderate) lifestyle and attain health insurance
— Sustainable business model & cash flow
— Then sell enough work or reproductions
Partnership
— Flexible relationship to an institution whose principles I generally agree with; so, not being dependent on one single place for any duration of a time but choosing to develop (possibly long-term) relationships with institutions whose product/services/philosophy I agree with (or at least, don’t disagree with)
— We may need multiple projects with multiple groups going at any time
— The critical balance between a person’s gifts and a company’s goals
— Collaborations in many fields (both paid and volunteer)
Colleagues
— Work with nice people; those that like their job, are responsible, cordial and positive
— I work with 10 other women, also writers and creative types
— No psycho bosses or gossiping
— To be stimulated by collaborating with those around me
— The ability to learn from and teach my co workers, bosses, and employees
— With people who challenge innovation all the time
— Work with funny and quirky individuals so that I can be friends with those I work with
Content
— I just passionately want to understand the natural world by experience
— Explore/popularize/conserve the natural world through mixed media
— Whatever a complex test would determine you’re most compatible with
Position/Status
— To be an expert and share that knowledge with others
Appropriateness of Income
— Payment for what the project and skill level is really worth
Tools
— Ability to work with my hands, my mind and my spirit
Quality of Interactions with Others
— Respect and trust from the client
— My dream job involves me speaking several languages fluently
Meaning/Personal Value
— Ability to really delve into a project, invest myself into it, know it inside and out and see it through to the end
— The opportunity to grow
— My drive to pursue my passion
— I would much rather be living a life full of meaning and balance
— To be part of something meaningful with a group of people I enjoy and care about
— SOMETHING THAT BRINGS YOU JOY AND THAT JOY SPREADS TO YOUR ENTIRE LIFE
— To be part of a project that enhances creativity of the world around me, impacts lives in a positive way
— The chance to produce meaningful and thoughtful work
— Nurtures my creativity
— I want to love what I do completely and believe in the people I am working with
— Allow me to search within my own process to find new ways of learning, thinking, and doing
Process
— The ability to control when I am the most creative
— Find that inner voice that can fuel my true creative process
Tradition/CraftÂ
— There’s certainly been some movement in the last years to reinstate “craft” as a component of work, especially design work
— A workplace where no idea is overlooked and where open communication leads to the betterment of the project
Organization/Structure
— Many of us are mothers who have only five or six hours of available time during the day. But together we might equal six full-time employees, and so we have created a firm that offers the labor of six employees
— Fairly flat management
Psychological Experience of Time
— Allows me to experience “flow” more often than…whatever the word is for the opposite of flow
— Work days would move swiftly, and yet I would leave work each day ready to embrace everything else in my life fully, rather than always being pre-occupied about the next day’s business
Psychological Experience of SustainingÂ
— To live without fear of being without work
— Without worry about how I would sustain myself
— A lot of us have actually already realized our dream job/dream parameters, but because it isn’t as glitzy as we thought it was, there must be ANOTHER dream job out there somewhere
Autonomy
— Actually making enough that I don’t need an outside job and all bills are current or paid off
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By Michael Erard
Michael Erard is the author of Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners (Free Press). His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Science, Wired, Slate and many other publications. His book about what we say (but wish we didn’t), Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, came out in 2007 (Pantheon).
