What happens when your heart is no longer in what you do? At what point do you still consider it “doing what you love?” 10%? 5%? I don’t have hard numbers, but what I “love” doing is no longer what I’m getting paid to do, by a long shot… somewhere down the road, computer techs have become secretaries and accountants, cause all we do now is answer the phone and fill out paperwork. I relish the few hours I get to actually fix things, while I spend 30+ hours a week just answering emails and filling out forms. And heaven forbid if I forget to fill in a blank on the form! And we have to remember not to use other blanks, cause they changed the process and didn’t bother to remove the blank.
So this is what corporate America has become. Companies pay $75 an hour for skilled contractors, and the actual people working get 20% of that if they’re lucky. Why not cut out the middle man? These staffing companies are getting harder and harder to work with. They are cutting deals with global companies to provide levels of service that we can’t achieve… at a price we can barely survive on.
I am firmly convinced that a corporate environment is dangerous to your spiritual health. There is nothing uplifting here, nothing good, just a bunch of dissatisfied people working out of force of habit. It’s a shame when a company remains running simply because all the workers share a “fellowship of misery” and stick together.
Note to companies: if you want your employees to enjoy their work, try actually letting them do their job!
The only thing keeping most computer techs like me from working on their own is more paperwork. If you can find someone to do your taxes and forms for you, then we’ve got the “fixing stuff” part down.