Why you should love your job

A couple weeks back, Minister Chan Chun Sing delivered a speech during my alma mater Temasek Polytechnic's graduation ceremony. This was met with a certain amount of controversy, as he addressed the career aspiratons of the graduates with these words...

"In today's world, where we have many choices, it is very easy for us to get lost among the many choices and get very distracted. We are constantly searching for that something that would give us perfection, searching for that something that would give us meaning. But we would often fail, and then we will be disappointed. But instead, if we change our perspective, and ask ourselves, can we do justice to the job we are doing, can we do justice to the relationship that we are building, can we give meaning to what we are doing, then we are in control. And if we can give, rather than just expect to take, then regardless of our station in life then I think we will find meaning because we give meaning. But to only find meaning, it will be tough to be happy."

I don't disagree (much), though much ado has been made over his follow up remarks...

"Is it more important to marry the woman you love? Or to love the woman you marry?"

Yeowtch. Just tone it down a notch there, fella.

Love what you do, or do what you love?

But however you take those words, one thing remains clear - loving your work has become more important than ever. A couple years back, I ruminated a little over Steve Jobs's infamous quote about loving one's work.

And now, I would like to add a little nuance to it.

Why should one love his job?

One of the most common answers would be - if you love your job, you naturally do it better. That's true enough, but that's merely the icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Also, does it naturally follow that someone who does not love his job will not be good at it?

I've heard it said that passion is part of professionalism.

Rubbish. Utter self-aggrandizing claptrap.

Professionalism is about delivering services to certain accepted standards regardless of whether one loves what he is doing or not... especially if he does not love what he is doing. Professionalism is about divorcing one's feelings from the quality of his work. Nobody is going to cut you any slack, for example, if you start writing rubbish code because your girlfriend just dumped you.

The only exception to the above rule would be artists - designers, photographers, actors - whose work requires them to pour a certain amount of their soul into it (yes, I'm being melodramatic here, deliberately so). And even then, if said professionals in those fields allow negative feelings to adversely affect their work, they're certainly not going to be earning any sympathy points.

When I say someone does not love his work, I don't necessarily mean he hates it. He could simply see it as a means to put food on the table, nothing more. If he could help it, he wouldn't do it at all. There's stuff he would much rather be doing. That does not mean someone who does not love what he does, is less professional. In fact, quite the opposite - someone who does not love what he does and yet manages to perform at consistently high levels, displays an astonishing amount of discipline and focus.

Enthusiasm isn't everything. I mean, look at me. I have enthusiasm in spades, but I suck.

That said...

There is a compelling reason to love what you do.

Automation is becoming the next big thing. Machines won't demand benefits. Machines will produce consistently with few errors. Machines don't need to be motivated. McDonald's has started replacing their human staff with self-service kiosks. Phone Support Hotlines are being replaced by pre-recorded messages. Web development work is being automated via scripts. And I'm not even going to go into factory production lines.

If you don't love your job, the danger isn't that you won't perform as well in it. Even if you are the consummate professional, the fact is that you are tolerating your job to perform as required.

Guess what will always do better than you, at tolerating your job?

Desire is irrelevant.

Remember this quote from the God-awful Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

John Connor: You don't want to do this!
Terminator: Desire is irrelevant. I am a machine.

Machines don't have to tolerate their job at all because machines are incapable of disliking their job. But there is a saving grace to this. Machines, by the same token, are incapable of loving their job. If you can love your job and perform better due to that love, you've just afforded yourself some immunity to the effects of automation.

Because love cannot be automated. Emotions cannot be automated. That is also why artistic industries are largely proofed against the dreaded A-word. Not because actors, musicians and sculptors are more professional. But because their output cannot be easily replicated via automation. Yet.

This blogpost was not automated.
T___T