By work, I mean paid work. “What work is” — is important for every organization to understand, define as well as evolve to the changing times. This helps them to design the rules for recruitment and promotion, monetary and non-monetary incentives, among other things. In the same way, it is important to understand what work means for each individual entering, continuing/changing, or exiting an organization. People choose an organization (and/or organization chooses people) for different reasons which in turn sets different trajectories and influences their choices to earn, learn, evolve, or leave. For some, it could be the first job they landed, some chose the location which then closed their options outside, some chased competitive wages, and some looked to earn satisfaction in addition to wages. The choices have been made and the counterfactuals are for anyone to ponder over lifetimes.
Shifting Gears
Why did I come to GBL? This is something many people have asked me while I have asked myself — “Why do I want to go to GBL?”. Over a hundred times, before I finally joined the organization. As I am nearing a year of completion here, my reasons are now edited and evolved considering my experience here. Teaching has been my passion since I started to understand this world; thanks to the large joint family that I grew up with, I had to tutor my younger cousins being a woman (sister’s job) and doing decently well in studies. As a faculty, I have taught full-semester courses to more than 700 students during my 8 years of full-time teaching. As I started teaching my learning curve was so steep that I am indebted to my former students forever. But I did feel the slope flattening a bit, and I knew teaching without learning becomes dull if and when I hit the peak. Of course, not to mention my anxieties and fatigue of COVID-19 lockdown exacerbated by being a mother of two young ones, features of G-meet lectures — pin drop silence, uncountable entries and exits, just staring at the initials and not even full names, a one year old son intruding to say he has to potty just I am on the lecture etcetera etcetera
From academia to the field
What did I expect work to be at GBL? Frankly, I expected to unlearn, learn and relearn. However, I did not have much idea of what a non-academic work life would be as I had not stepped out of academia — I did schooling, my undergraduate, masters, PhD and then started teaching. I moved cities with my entire family for a job at GBL. I started this job like I started my PhD, i.e, learn to conduct and simultaneously conduct –RCTs, surveys, analysis, proposals, stakeholders meetings etc. Maybe all these were not entirely new — I carried some transferable skills from my past teaching and research experience. Nevertheless, I feel I have ascended a steep learning curve again.
New ways of unlearning
As I started writing this piece, I understood that work is learning for me. Of course, it is important to me — how much I think I am worth and how much the organization thinks I am worth ($$ per unit of time — our funding team will be able to vouch for that!) In addition to that, I also derive from GBL — learning — not just in terms of conducting research in the best possible way, but also countless important things — setting up meetings to agendas to making notes (I did not realize I was so bad at this), listening to young minds (did I even learn to talk and walk at that age), working with interdisciplinary teams across verticals, to building values, relationships, culture in an organization. I have tried to imbibe as much as I can like any good student will do. I do not think GBL has everything right and best, but I think that it is still learning and evolving like I would like to. As long as that happens, (wo)men may come and (wo)men may go, but an organization will go on forever!
Your daily wages
I am lucky that I am doing what I like — learning a bit every day. However, let me reiterate this — paid work is something people do for pay — people work to fend for themselves and/or their dear ones or to earn money and do something they like later in life and so on. So, work need not be as exciting (or boring) as other parts of life can be. There are people who like to finish their work for the day and do something they enjoy for the rest of whatever is left of the day and week and month and lifetime. Again, as I said in the beginning, some of it ties up to why people choose to work in an organization like GBL that has found its sweet spot (worker well-being and business interests). Each of us must find that sweet spot (income, growth, opportunities or balance, satisfaction or values) or keep looking for one in this journey of life. As the dictionary says, a sweet spot is “an optimum point or combination of factors or qualities”. The optimum point and its qualities themselves change and evolve as we keep journeying.
Have any questions or thoughts on the article? Write to sowmya.d@goodbusinesslab.org.
