Jobs

I once knew a guy who had an amazing point of view on work.

In college I worked at an incoming call center as a part time job. It was a female clothing catalog, and it was a great job. I got to sit on my butt, play Game Boy and be surrounded by beautiful women all day. My co-workers were amazing.

Like everyone else has had, we had some amazing bosses and some truly obnoxious ones.

One boss really ragged on him and made it her goal to make the guys life miserable. She was someone who would listen into the calls and make sure we offered other clothing, and told the customers about sales going on. He would continually get low scores from her but it would never bother him. He took it in stride, usually laughing and not viewing it as a big deal.

I asked him, “Mike (not his real name), how do you do this? You keep your head up and have such a great attitude about it.”

His response stuck with me. “It’s just means to an end, I don’t care. It’s not going to be my career.”

I love that attitude. It stuck with me. The same day I had a childhood “friend” make a snarky comment “Oh, Tim, I thought you’d be at that job forever.” I thought of Mike and his attitude.

Thanks Mike, wherever you are. You taught me two things. 1) That childhood friend was a major ass, and so is anyone who talks down to someone in a less glamorous job than they have and 2) view a job as means to an end, not the end itself.