(1315) Are you happy at work?

After her graduation, my youngest had a reunion with her Fifth Form mates. She came back telling me that she was the only one happy with her job. There were four young men and four young women besides her. Some were working for well known companies and one or two were fairly well paid by local standards. Each said that come one year or so they would change companies, one wanted to get out of his field entirely.

I look back to a gathering I had after returning from the States. They were five female and two male friends. We gathered at A&W and had root beer floats. I was then teaching in a shop lot college. I could not complain about pay as my contemporaries were either jobless or working as interns in accounting firms for a miserable $400 per month. We started with the guys. One worked at his uncle printing shop, he was going to take over when his uncle decide to retire. Happy? He merely said that it was good to be paid at the end of the month. The other guy was the youngest in a family of ten. He was slotted to take over his dad's wholesale shop in town because he was the only one who could and would take over. He was married, soon with two mouths to feed besides his homemaker wife. He was working extremely hard to pay bills, thanking God that his big extended family was solvent. His dad passed way rather unexpectedly a year ago.

As to the ladies, Mei hated her job with a developer. She said it was still better than being unemployed. She was, nevertheless, interviewing on the sly before confirmation. It was good that she could move freely from headquarter to a few site sale offices in different parts of town. Jenny said a job is a job. She would work smart and be on the look out for a better offer. Milly said she loved the first flight to London, she was a stewardess. But she would wait until she got tired of flying to Los Angeles and New York City before thinking of quitting. We had a fun time teasing her about her wealthy boy friend in London. Laila said her work was fascinating, but her boss was terrible! Unless she could hop out soon, she would find herself working nights and weekends. Next to the air-hostess, she was the second well paid one. Lee Lee was the lucky one who landed in a field of clover. She loved her work and got along with her boss like a house on fire. Thirty years later, she was the only childless one among the nine of us. I guess children do not go well together with a distinguished career.

If you love your job, you are very lucky. In retirement, I am most fortunate to have enough to live on, but more than anything else the time and peace to write to my heart's content.