I Do Not “Love” My Job

This week, I’m celebrating three months since beginning my full time professional career as a student affairs practitioner. I’ve learned a lot about who I am as a professional and how my many values shape the ways I interact with my work and my colleagues. I have had the chance to practice old skills and begin developing new ones. However, the biggest lessons so far have been those learned outside of my day-to-day responsibilities. I’ve learned about payroll processes, health insurance elections, retirement plans, investment accounts, and a host of other employment benefits that I now have access to for the first time in my life. I’ve gotten to make grown-up decisions about how to allocate my time, money, energy, and attention. In these last three months, I’ve been earning a larger salary than I’ve ever earned before. I love the life my new job has given me… but I do not love my job.

Three weeks after starting my job, I brought home Cora -- a 2-year-old pitbull rescue with an appetite for long walks and random cuddles. I don’t know much about the first two years of her life but I do know that it involved lots of transitions, trauma, and pain. Through it all, Cora has kept a huge heart and a bright spirit. She’s become my best friend. As I write this article, she is fast asleep snoring with her body pressed against my leg… her favorite spot. Cora loves me; she has the capacity for love. Cora is capable of sentience and makes active choices that remind me of her loyalty every day; and, I love her. Cora brings me joy and reminds me that I have inherent worth that exists outside of my achievements and accolades. To her, I am important regardless of where I work, how many academic degrees I have acquired, or what I can produce. 

If Cora could speak, she’d have one complaint about living with me: I have this habit of getting lost in artistic projects. When there’s something I’m feeling and can’t find the words to express it, I turn to art. My trauma and lived experiences are often the catalysts for the pieces I create. Sometimes I’ll spend 10 or 12 hours working on a painting, drawing, or new original song. I mobilize art to liberate myself from the toils of this messy world we live in. If I get too lost in my art, Cora will whine or grab her leash and bring it to me… reminding me to get some fresh air and take her out to potty. At the end of a long art project, I can sit back and relish in all I’ve learned about myself in the process. I can hold up a final product that symbolizes everything I’m going through. I love my art. I love what my art can do for me. My art reveals, uncovers, and demystifies the parts of me that feel foreign or confusing. My art pours into me as I pour into it; it is deserving of my time and my energy and my love. 

I refuse to love the things that have not the capacity to love me back. I do not love my job because my job is incapable of loving me. If I were to allow it, my job would take from me endlessly and only return my fair compensation -- a salary and employment benefits. To the colleagues who will read this article, to my current, previous, and future supervisors, to the team of human resource specialists who are in charge of managing my relationship with my company, I am grateful. While I do not love this job, I love the people it allows me to work with and impact everyday. While I do not love this job, I love the peace and security it affords me in a world where it can be difficult to simply find steady ground. While I do not love this job, I love the way I feel while working in it. 

It may feel difficult to distinguish between what our jobs are and what our jobs give us access to. For me, anything that could exist separate from my professional relationship with my company is something that my job gives me access to. For example, the friendships I have cultivated with colleagues have been because of our shared relationship with our company. However, those friendships can and do exist separate from my position. After transitioning to a new role or company, those friendships will continue. Those friendships are not my job. On the other hand, many of us “clock in” at the beginning of work and “clock out” at the end. During the day, we attend meetings and send emails, we draft proposals and pitch ideas, and we navigate bureaucratic systems of professional hierarchy. None of that can exist separate from our jobs and I, admittedly, don’t love any of it. Many of those systems and cultural norms are pragmatic and create efficient working environments; however, I reserve love for more sacred things than pragmatism. 

Bless the people who love their job. I don’t think that I’m better than anyone because I don’t leave space in my heart to love my job. I admire those who can examine the finer details of their employment and honestly commit to loving it with their whole heart. In fact, I’ve experienced times when I have loved every aspect of my work. I run a small design business called crafts by JAKE where I sell printed and digital artistic designs to individuals, business owners, and companies. Art is sacred for me and so I was hesitant to commodify my work. I was afraid that if I started selling pieces, art wouldn’t mean as much to me… it would lose its value. Luckily, that devaluation never happened. In fact, selling my art made me love it even more. I love that my design business allows me to reclaim and redefine the traumatic experiences that often give way to my artistic endeavours. I love my job as a designer because it loves me back. Every part of owning a business from managing a website to negotiating pricing and finalizing a transaction brings me joy -- even the bureaucratic bullshit that would be incredibly annoying in other settings. My love feels well-placed in crafts by JAKE and I feel the reciprocated love that it has for me. 

After three months, I don’t know if or when I’ll begin to love my job… but loving my job is not a prerequisite for giving it the effort and energy it is due. I show up every day with a desire to be the best I can be at the work I am tasked with - that will never change. However, I can’t help but imagine what a world would look like if our jobs could love us unconditionally. What would clocking in and out feel like if our jobs provided us with the same things Cora and art provide for me: spiritual energy, reminders of inherent worth, wholistic restoration, etc. As a student affairs practitioner employed by a 100-year old university that exists within an institution of higher education that was founded on patriarchal and exclusionary ideals, wholistic restoration may be too much to ask too soon. Until then, I will collect my check, do the good work, and find love in the things and people who can love me back. 

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JAKE Small is an Assistant Director of Career Communities at the Suffolk University career center. He has a Master of Education from the University of Vermont where he studied Higher Education & Student Affairs Administration while working in career readiness education. His academic focus on antiracism work supplements his lived experiences as he strives towards uplifting transformative and innovative cultural practices. He operates from a place of love and liberation to decenter oppressive ways of being and increase access to professional development resources for all students. His most recent peer-reviewed publication is titled "Reimagining an Antiracist Career Center'' which he uses to problematize the cultural norms associated with higher education.