Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Take this job and love it

I, once read somewhere, 'don't do what you love, love what you do.' There's so much talk about don't do anything for the money, do it because you love it and somehow miraculously the money will follow. There are people who loves their jobs and as many who hates theirs. What is the answer? I've searched for an answer all my life and have not found it. I don't think I'll ever find the answer. I have had a love-hate relationship with my work all my working life. There's nothing I'd rather do other than doing nothing, than to write pieces that no one reads, let alone pay to read. There's nothing I'd rather do than dabble in sketching and taking bad pictures and cooking so so meals and pretend I'm the next Rachel Ray.
Right now I have to contend with dealing with hundreds of people bringing their medical problems to me every day from simple itch in their butts to more serious stuff like having had a finger chopped off at work. I am a pharmacist. The money is so good lately and we are all laughing all the way to the bank. However we are not because the work is so mundane that it grinds us down a little every day until at the end of our work life, we are little shell of a people. We receive recruitment calls a few times a day, recruitment letters fill our mail boxes every day, with companies begging us and enticing us with bags of money to join them. We don't go because we know it's another trap of a job. Mind you, I have left this job many times (twice really) and rejoined the same company. It is the weirdest of relationships that I've had with my job. I'm finally resigned to the fact that this is going to be it for me, after all I don't have long to go till I can collect Social Security.
In spite of it all, this job has provided very well for me,
- a union pension
- a 401K with very generous matching
- a very comprehensive health care plan
- Social Security contributions, because of my huge pay, their 12% is very hefty
- a huge paycheck
It has allowed me to buy homes and to trade up. It hasn't just put food on the table, it has put money in the bank. Each day I check my own stock portfolio and wait for buying opportunities. I just wrote a check ($1,000) to my Schwab One account to buy 10 more shares of Johnson Controls, it is going to split in October. I've owned it on and off the past 5 years. In the chat rooms, this guy owns it and his father owned it before him. I've sold my shares of it last year, took some profit and repurchased it a month later. It was down yesterday and today I'm adding to my position.
Yesterday, a patient came in with an iphone, till than I've only seen them on TV. It looked even sleeker in real life, really neat. I was thrilled to bits when I saw it, making me glad that I own some Apple stocks.
The money from this job has allowed me to invest in stocks.
I travel to Europe twice a year. I've just purchased my ticket for my next trip in October. I'm making the final arrangements for this trip.
I've made lots of friends at this job even though, the past 8 years I've worked at a skid row location. I've met some of the loveliest people, some of them are parolees. Some comes out of prison only to be sent back, they come out again and finds out, I'm still there. They're amazed, 'you're still here?' Yes, I am and why not. The pay is good, the schedule is good, I'm so used to the work that it is easy. All I have to do is put my nose to the grind and take this job and love it.

No comments: