Love Your Job
But be prepared for it to end.
‘Love Your Job!’ a bright-eyed colleague sporadically peps up. ‘Love Your Job!’ we all reply with a cackle.
My first proper job was as a salesman for a small record label. I got paid peanuts, worked long hours and spent most of my time in a chilly and chilling warehouse in a seedy part of San Francisco. I sported a hoodie in the summertime to keep warm.
The building was a slick design with luxurious wood flooring, and of course, a top of the line sound system. Cozy and classy. It was in stark contrast to the colorful characters that littered the alleyway entrance South of Market.
Still, this place housed some of my fondest memories of work.
We were just a bunch of dudes who loved music. We loved our jobs because the music was ubiquitous: we were physically around music, listening to it non-stop, and talking about it with others who felt the same way. Gilles Peterson was our minister, and Straight No Chaster our bible.
I got my energy not from picking and packing records but from those people I worked with. They kept things lively, and we helped each other come alive. I was expected to be me. I performed my best because I was on a team that really cared.
San Francisco at the turn of the century was electric. The company operated and felt like a family. The founders were husband and wife DJs of course. Come midweek we’d head to a local Vietnamese spot called Tu Lan — a hella dingy join but a ritual nonetheless.
But after the dot com bubble burst, I relocated with the company to Newport Beach. And a year later, after the twin towers had fallen, my Canadian ass was no longer welcomed on American soil.
Like that, I was out the door — my dream job gone.
The world of work is shifting faster, more deeply, and more inequitably than we can fathom. Transitions are now strategic pathways.
It’s time we actively engage with the unknown. It’s time to design a better system of quality work. It’s time to renew ourselves through what we do.
Every Monday I publish a short (and random) story like this.
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