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Meaningful Work: Punching In, Growing Up
42 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, we unpack what “meaningful work” really means while discussing our first jobs. Eccho recalls engineering oil‑and‑well designs and later learning the ropes at Microsoft. Duoc reflects on the fun and growth he found at McDonald’s and Best Buy. Jenny remembers AMC Theatres, where the perks, especially the free movies, made the job shine. Together, we explore the importance of finding joy in work, how much identity we tie to our jobs, and what it means to build a life beyond the paycheck.
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Transcript
Introduction to Meaningful Work
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight, your podcast for all things Asian in the workplace. I'm Jenny. um Echo. And I'm Duck. Today, we're diving into a topic that is probably on the minds of a lot of people just given the where the state of the economy.
00:00:26
Speaker
But we're going to be talking about meaningful work or what meaningful work means to us. And we wanted to draw from our previous experiences from our previous jobs to you know talk about it you know what made us want to stay, what made us want to leave, what were the things that would have made us stay longer, and what were the things that maybe you know made us stay in jobs that we probably would have left otherwise.
First Job Experiences
00:00:52
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, how old were you when you had your first job? Oh my gosh, I don't let Echo go first.
00:00:59
Speaker
I think I started my first job, Redsville, late. My first job, my first full-time job was um outside the college.
00:01:10
Speaker
So that was when I first had my first job. I was doing oil and well with design engineer. Oil and well? know. What the heck? The oil well. Like basically designing the head drill the oil.
00:01:28
Speaker
That's so cool. I remember you come from an engineering background, but I didn't realize it was designing those oil heads. And Echo, I don't think that's that late because I think for most Americans, like full-time jobs, it typically happens after college, right?
00:01:41
Speaker
I always assume, and maybe like you two can correct me, um because every time when I talk, people always talk about, oh, and my first job was at McDonald's. My first job was at this like a restaurant or laundry service. So it was like,
00:01:57
Speaker
Wait, am I just having my first job really late or that's just not the experience? Eka, what a slacker. Didn't have a job till after college.
00:02:11
Speaker
Our audience can't see this, but she's laughing and putting her head down because she's so ashamed.
00:02:17
Speaker
When people talk about that, they're probably talking about like side gigs they had or gigs they had in the summer as a teenager. Yeah. Like my first full-time job was probably definitely outside of college, like once I graduated college, but I had some like part-time jobs before that.
00:02:33
Speaker
i would say my first real job where I got a paycheck was probably bagging groceries at Whole Foods when I was 15. Dang. a But it wasn't a full-time job. It was not full-time. I was working maybe like 15, 20 hours a week.
00:02:47
Speaker
See, that I felt like that has been like what I am aware of, like the average American experience. um It wasn't a thing in China. like and When I was growing up, like even if you go to the supermarket, those people who bag in your grocery, was always they were full-time employees.
00:03:05
Speaker
like I don't think they hire part-time. Oh. Okay. okay How old were you when you had that first full-time job at Go?
Career Progression and Fun at Work
00:03:14
Speaker
Right after college.
00:03:18
Speaker
Oh, okay. So we know that Jenny started at 15. I started, shu i think I 11. Unofficial. Did I ever tell you guys this? I picked blueberries with ah with other immigrants in New Jersey one summer. That was my first job unofficially. And then echo to perpetuate this stereotype, McDonald's was my first ah job that I had when I was when I turned 16 I wasn't there very long now I'll tap i'll tap into that a little bit later but I want to say like my first job that I had um that I really enjoyed was was Best Buy and yeah it was basically playing in an electronic store and was yeah I was just 18 when I got that job and you made your way all the way to the store manager it wasn't you
00:04:13
Speaker
So I started in in sales. A friend of mine referred me because he knew i was into these LAN parties and and I knew how to fix computers. So he invited me to apply to sell computers. i did a decent job of that. And then i the workplace knew my skill set and they promoted me to technician.
00:04:35
Speaker
And then eventually when the opening for a supervisor came out, I applied to that and got that supervisor role, which later became Geek Squad.
00:04:46
Speaker
Oh, I remember Geek Squad. Yeah. It's still a thing. Like I still get, every every once a while when I buy something, and like, do you want to subscribe to Geek Squad?
00:04:58
Speaker
but Here's the interesting thing. During that summer, I worked from, we would head out, get up around like five o'clock in the morning, four or five o'clock in the morning, head out to the field around like six something and then work till like about four or five. And I was dead tired by seven.
00:05:17
Speaker
So, I mean, granted I wasn't as grown. I didn't have as much energy and I didn't pick as much as the grownups did. But I think, know, it showed me what like hard,
00:05:29
Speaker
long hour labor was. We also happened to actually, we're on a strike as well too for higher wages. i got to be in the middle and kind of see all that. I was in that environment and I got to see what it looked like for low skilled laborers.
00:05:52
Speaker
And I think part of that motivated me to do better. ah to do more for other workers. So it's kind of the genesis of where, how I got my interest in the IO site. That's interesting. Did you get paid by the time or you were just helping out?
00:06:11
Speaker
Do you want to guess how much I got paid? so you do get paid? $2 an hour. Okay. So i'll um I'll give you a visualization. you know how much of those little small packets of blueberries costs?
00:06:23
Speaker
I mean, now there're there are like $8 in some places. Yeah, $8. So we're gonna do a bit of math. So that this was about, was it 30 something years ago? So we have to take the price and divide it and by one and a half, two and a half or something like that.
00:06:38
Speaker
Whatever, here's the thing. I had a crate this big that had a pick. And it was about like, maybe like so four or five inches deep. So I wanna say probably fit easily 20 of those little crates, ah small boxes that you got.
00:06:53
Speaker
We get paid $3 for that. $3. And just to give the the listeners a visual, that size was probably the size of like a laundry like a laundry machine, the door of a laundry machine. It's that big. Yeah. Oh, great. Look at that. It's a pretty big, yeah, a pretty big size bucket.
00:07:11
Speaker
So it's it's they pay you by how many of those crates that you can fill. And how long does it take you to fill that one basket? Oh gosh, I think.
00:07:23
Speaker
Or a laundry bag. Let's see, I was 11, 12. It took me about, I want to say, in the span of like 10 hours of work, it took I got six six of those.
00:07:35
Speaker
That's impressive. So depending on how fast you were, you can maybe beat it. But if you're smaller, like I was, and and you know part of it is like maybe he was I was brought out there to be, you know so that no one else had to you watch me or whatnot. But it was an experience that influenced me to this day.
00:07:59
Speaker
And how long did you do that for? oh It was just the summer months. So is I want to say like two, two and a half months or so, maybe three. i also didn't keep my tickets. I didn't keep my wages. It was kept by me by my very brother and sister. Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
So you said that Best Buy was probably one of your best jobs that you had at that time. Can you talk a little bit
The Appeal of Enjoyable Work Environments
00:08:23
Speaker
about why? Maybe we'll pivot and yeah talk about like what was our what was some of our best jobs we've had and why. ah Best Buy for me was really fun because I had a spreadsheet that I created when I was doing all this like management and it was just called Fun.
00:08:37
Speaker
dot yeah xls and it was me coming into electronic store and just selling things that i really believed in like hardware that i thought could change people's work or entertainment so for me it was fun people came in they wanted to buy the best thing they wanted to know what it was they wanted to know how to do certain things and i got a chance to be on the cusp of that and got to play around with all the new electronics that came out when I had an opportunity. So, yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
What was on the spreadsheet? The spreadsheet was just how many hours people were working and how much their wage was so I can actually stay within budget. Oh, so when you were a supervisor? yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:09:23
Speaker
But I think that the point of that spreadsheet was that I didn't see it as work. I saw it as something else. So i think... because of the environment or the way I felt about the work that I did, it felt more like fun than it felt like work.
00:09:38
Speaker
What about you both? what's What was the most fun or job or the most fun part of your job that you had in your early careers? That's a tough one. I'm trying to think.
00:09:48
Speaker
Because I had a lot of like side jobs, like summer jobs, part-time jobs all throughout high school. Maybe, I mean, I'd say like maybe working at AMC theater was fun. It paid the worst. Like it was, I think I was getting paid like $7.25 an hour.
00:10:05
Speaker
But it was fun because the people that I worked with were fun people. There were college students, high school students, people who were just doing this, you know, full time. Yeah. So you had people from all walks of life.
00:10:17
Speaker
And then you got to see free movies. So I think for me, that was a big draw. Yeah. And I ended up watching a lot of movies. Like my friends would always be like, Jenny, let's go and watch this movie because I could bring friends to get into movies for free. Yeah. Favorite movie that you got to watch for free while working at AMC? Yeah. Probably Lord of the Rings.
00:10:38
Speaker
Oh yeah? Yeah. Wait, so you did it you didn't fell asleep your witching Lord of the Rings? And I went and watched it multiple times with multiple different friend groups. So yeah, I watched it several times at the theater. Okay. Sidebar, sidebar. Jenny, did you like the title that I chose for the the last episode?
00:11:00
Speaker
Yes, I love it. I love it. yeah So that's an example where the pay wasn't that great, but I think the benefits of being able to see free movies and the the co-workers, they were just like really fun people to work with. So I actually look forward to going to work. Yeah.
00:11:17
Speaker
See, like for both of you, I hear one thing in common is both of you are having so much fun at that work. And that has something to do with your hobby. Like Jenny, you likes to watch movie and Doug, you are so into the computer stuff. Like you join the work. So interesting.
00:11:37
Speaker
What about you? yeah For me, that was like one job I always wanted to do, but I never get a I guess I don't know why I can totally like can put my resume there and I'm pretty sure they will help me is to work at Trader Joe's. I have never worked there, but I have always heard people are having so much fun working at Trader Joe's. Do it. So why Trader Joe's?
00:12:02
Speaker
So what I have heard there is it's similar to the and your AMC job. Like the people work there coming from all walks of life. A lot of people are just doing part time. They're filling the hours there.
00:12:15
Speaker
um But one thing that kept them working there is they always have this like nice team vibe or team dynamics. It's super fun. And you're supposed to have fun. and You're supposed to bring that joy with the customer.
00:12:28
Speaker
So that's one thing I heard. And second of all, you also get a huge discount on all the grocery. andach It's already discounted. The food's cheaper already. That makes sense. Yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I feel like for me, that could be my dream job. Wait till I go back to the States. Now I feel like I have to try that. and though They do have an hour requirement, though.
00:12:57
Speaker
Like I do think you have to work for up to certain hours before they can like really hire you. So, Oh, there's a probationary period. Yeah. Like you have to work like 20 hours per week or something like that in order to be hired.
00:13:19
Speaker
But going back to my, um the job that I had, my first job outside of grad school, that was the job that I truly enjoyed. I feel like I'm learning so much because that was, definitely it's not my first full-time job, but it was like a first full-time job that that I'm super passionate about. Because my first job was like an engineering. job like i was i know i'm not gonna stay in that field but for that job i felt like for the first time i was able to apply what i have learned from school which job was this um it was actually with microsoft so it was my uh with microsoft doing the uh people research a lot of like a survey research type of work so i felt like i was able to apply what we have learned from school i'm really
00:14:04
Speaker
thinking about like org house, org effectiveness. But at the time, i when I was getting hired, I thought, finally, I get to work on something that I can make everyone happy about their work.
00:14:17
Speaker
I can make the employees engaged. That was like ah one of the motivation when I first applied for that role. And I thought that was not the sole purpose, but one of the big purpose from our program. Like what we want the workplace to be productive, to be engaged, to to be like all fair. That also added to why I was enjoying that job so much. A lot of learning and I also had a great boss. I still keep in touch with her. I think she taught me a lot.
00:14:50
Speaker
She was a tough boss for sure. Like, I i mean, i gave if she's listening to this episode, she can totally hear me saying like she's a tough boss, but because she puts such a high standard on me, like I feel like I learned so much, like over the years, even like as of today, i feel like, oh, there's something I learned back like 10, 12 years ago that I still apply to work. And that's the standard I'm holding up myself to and holding my team to as well, that is the best old job ever had.
00:15:21
Speaker
Well, I got to ask you, Echo. So it sounds like you had autonomy, you had you had a sense of purpose, you had a great boss. Why'd you
Reflections on Meaningful Work
00:15:28
Speaker
leave? Because of the pay. Oh, pay, okay. I was going to ask if you got a discount like we did.
00:15:37
Speaker
I do need to discount on Microsoft product. it's like a minimum It's not even worse. like If you're going on for like a um Black Friday sale at Best Buy, it's probably even worse more so than the than the employee discount.
00:15:52
Speaker
I do think pay is one of the biggest factors back then. Now it's... Now I think about them because they also give me like stock. I was like, wow, i appreciate so much. So probably not that bad. But at the time, i I do think pay was one of the things that among like all the tech firms, like Microsoft is no one for like having a lot of pay compared to other tech firms.
00:16:20
Speaker
You brought something up, which I want to dive into, which is back then where you were in your stage of life, your age Do you think that if you were and Microsoft getting the pay range that you would command, so still lower than the other industries or other companies, would you stay given where you are right now in your stage of life? I was willing to do something different. I think later in that role, because I spent almost like seven years at Microsoft, I was in the same team.
00:16:50
Speaker
My role changed a little bit, but was still within the same bigger team. At the time, feel like, especially towards the end of my time with them, that learning curve is not there anymore. Like, I don't feel like I'm learning. I feel like every day I'm just repeating what I'm doing.
00:17:08
Speaker
So that was the biggest motivation on that side of the pay. And that made me want to try something different. So to answer your question directly, me if they were hiring me back,
00:17:21
Speaker
And if it's a different team, different role, I would totally willing to try it out. So the reason why I ask this is because as we were preparing this topic and I was looking back at my own job and realized I jumped around a lot more when I was younger, like in my 20s, was in one job for like a year, a year and a half, two years. But now, you know, I'm a lot older, I'm more experienced. I've been in my job for now going on five years and that's the longest I've been in a job. that That's why I asked that question, like, does our life stage, like where we are at in our life right now, does that also contribute to whether we are more willing to stay versus more, are we more willing to go? Yeah. du What do you think? That's a great question, Jenny.
00:18:05
Speaker
I don't know. um because the Because the position I was in is just so different with Best Buy because it was retail and retail management.
00:18:16
Speaker
Now i'm in management, but i oversee it like domestic and international. And, you know, I oversee the performance management process that we have.
00:18:28
Speaker
I'm not sure, you know, but I liked the vibe, the what I was feeling. Maybe it was just because I was just in my early 20s and I was just, even when you weren't making that much money, you had money to spend, if that makes sense, to, for the first time, buy your own experiences, whether it be like,
00:18:50
Speaker
a nice meal or, you know, to a nice, you know, movie, you know, if you didn't get those discounts like other people on this call, you know. ah So I think that was kind of liberating that. I don't know if I can repeat that.
00:19:04
Speaker
I know I have to continue to do the work. Like, I think there's a part of me that is telling myself, like, I have to make it fun. I have to make it engaging as well too.
00:19:17
Speaker
The work has to do its part, but I feel like I have to play my part in it. And I work with about 200 HR business partners closely to manage a lot of this process that we have.
00:19:32
Speaker
Will that probably change later on when we have AI agents? Probably. Things are just going to continue to change and I have to continually change the way I engage, if that makes sense. Because I still think I can find that level of happiness, excitement still. Like, I don't feel like I needed to travel back in town. Does that make sense at all?
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah.
Making Work Enjoyable: Management vs Personal Effort
00:19:53
Speaker
How would you make something fun? How do you make your work fun? Well, I can say when we got on the call, and me making fun of Echo was part of the fun, saying that she didn't start early enough like we did, Jenny.
00:20:08
Speaker
Child labor. Yeah. You're missing it out, Echo. You're missing out a lot. but see
00:20:19
Speaker
So I don't know. I think there's there's certain things that management and the organization sets for us. And I feel like there's a bit of it that we get to bring ourselves as we are, you know, these bits of like cogs and sprockets in the much bigger unit.
00:20:41
Speaker
That's just my take on it. I know it may not be everyone else's take on it, but I try to have fun in making fun of myself and maybe others ah before I get into something little bit more serious, you know. So I guess for me, that's how I i try to do it.
00:20:58
Speaker
How about you, Jenny? Would you have kept the same, like if you had the the job that you did at AMC, would you consider going back? And would it be the same now that you have all this experience under your belt?
00:21:12
Speaker
no No, because I think that job for me was always, it was a dead-end job. Like I knew that I was just going to be there for, you know, while I was in in college, I would work there during the summer. i knew that it was ah was a temporary thing.
00:21:27
Speaker
But I've taken the the, I guess the atmosphere that i that I was in at AMC, I think I've strived to find workplaces that are similar to that. Meaning working with people who, are able to use, you know, sense of humor or, you know, are able to make fun of themselves, people who don't take themselves too seriously, people who don't make work their identity.
00:21:52
Speaker
That is probably something that I've... learn from, you know, working at AMC, you know, when I was in high school slash college. And I think I've taken that learning because I do, like, I like to have fun at work. I want to be able to work with people who, you know, if I ask them something or share something, you know, we can laugh about it as opposed to people who are just like so buttoned up that they can't take a joke you know because I want to be able to have fun and and laugh and know really enjoy the people that I work with even though it's work and Jenny say more about you said and something around like that you don't like to work with people who the work makes their identity like say more about that so people who how do I phrase this
00:22:41
Speaker
people who don't have a personality outside of their role. So my identity as an organizational psychologist, behavioral psychologist, like that's part of my identity, but that's not everything about
Identity Beyond Work
00:22:53
Speaker
me. You know what I mean? Like I'm also like a dog parent. yeah i travel. I travel. Like I have a lot of different identities that I also bring to the workplace. And I think that helps balance me out because people can relate to that as opposed to always being about, oh, this is who I am. That's what I meant. Last month, we talked about the difference between Americans and Europeans is that Europeans, they when you meet someone in Europe, they rarely talk about their work. Whereas in the US, that is the first thing that people ask. And what do you do? What's your job? What's your title? Oh my God. What do you do? Exactly.
00:23:26
Speaker
And I think I'm sort of more on the European side of things where like, yeah, we could talk about work, but like, I don't want to be talking about work. That's not my entire identity. You know what I mean? There's some people who just aren't able to go there at all.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. I, the reason why I was asking that question is I do feel like earlier in my year, and I'd love to hear both of you thinking on this as well.
00:23:51
Speaker
I think over, when I was the first start of my, like after the graduate school, when I first started working, I'm holding very tight to my work psychologist role, using that as my identity, meaning like a lot of the decision I made at work and a a lot of the interaction I had with people, I always apply that. And it's like, and there's nothing wrong with it, but I do think certain times because I'm holding up that too tight, that tires me out.
00:24:21
Speaker
And that also sometimes gave myself less of a flexibility. And sometimes I just don't see eye to eye to my leadership team you because I was like, why you making this decision? Like from my you should never make this type of like actions. But I think over the years, as I mature, more mature in my career stage, i do feel like sometimes I like loosen up that identity actually helped myself quite a bit.
00:24:47
Speaker
So I love to hear you two thinking about that. Have you had those situations where you feel like, oh, the identity of oral psychologist actually sometimes gets in the way?
00:24:59
Speaker
That is a good question. i don't know if this is goingnna answer your question, but I think being able to have a healthy separation from my work psych identity slash has been healthy because lately, you know, I've been dealing with a lot of rejection, like a lot of grant rejection, a lot of rejection around funding. And so I think if I tied my entire identity to being an org psychologist, being a research professor, then then I think that would be a hard pill to swallow. But I also have to remind myself, wait, Jenny, like you're also these other things. So even though you know things aren't going your way,
00:25:35
Speaker
with these funding, you know, these these grants, I'm able to separate that and say, you know what, like at the end of the day, I'm going to pivot and I'm going to find something else. I'll find other ways to find funding. And that's been really helpful because if I tied myself up to my DEI, you know, identity, my, or I only do DEI, then I would have been fucked because there's not a lot of funding for those topics. And so I've had to pivot and say, okay, you know what?
00:26:03
Speaker
I'm a behavioral scientist. I'm an organizational psychologist. What are some other aspects that I can study? And so I've like broadened my my scope of work. I echo, I hear what you're saying, like not being too tied up in in one identity um has been very helpful for me in in navigating this minefield thanks to our, you know, know who.
Balancing Skills at Work
00:26:27
Speaker
How about you, Doug? Let me take a shot at it. i don't really know. I'm going preface it with the way same way Jenny preface it. And don't know if it this is going to really answer it. But I got some really good advice from another colleague. He told me that his dad kept separate identities in the work that he did with DEI, empirical work.
00:26:48
Speaker
The empirical work would always be there. The hard skill would always be there. The other side with the DEI work was relied on soft skills, intuition, understanding of history, and application of fairness, all that.
00:27:03
Speaker
And then um sometimes throughout history and throughout time, it would kind of ebb and flow. And I kind of thought about that ah in kind of the work that we do as well, too.
00:27:18
Speaker
And when I gravitated towards assessments, I knew that that was going to be around for a while, that there wasn't going to be things that would upend that.
00:27:29
Speaker
but more than likely, pai will upend the other work that we do. In just prefacing that, I would say, i don't think I've taken on the the identity of an IO psychologist that seriously. i don't think I do. Maybe other people may think differently. i don't think I do. And I would say the thing that the the one thing that really stood out and really humbled me was that ah when i lost my job and had to find another one and I was brought into this government agency and I worked with blue collar workers on assessments, they told me that, hey, we have a lot of, they say guys that we get a lot of because it's predominantly men, almost all men that did this work.
00:28:12
Speaker
They would say, hey, we get a lot of guys that know how to do the work. They just can't pass the test because the test is measuring other things beyond their skillset. It's measuring kind ah reading comprehension and understanding.
00:28:25
Speaker
It's measuring certain logic and the way it's being conveyed back into the tests. And they said this to say like certain things were just so long-winded that it made it hard for them to understand.
00:28:39
Speaker
i think they were thinking that I was this hard-nosed I.O. Psychologist says, we must do everything by the books. It is intended for them to read and understand all this.
00:28:53
Speaker
And instead what I said was, hey, look, I have a mom that has a second grade education. i know how tough that can be. Let's figure out a way to shorten these questions and see if we can make them better.
00:29:05
Speaker
I think it's that balance that we need to have in order to not only bring, echo what you said about la bringing the fairness, the justice to the workplace, but also like bringing our the the folks who actually do have those skills along too and not letting letting them fall behind and find that balance and i think it's tricky but i think each one of us will find our way in doing so does that kind of answer your question i think so i think so yeah well well knowing knowing what you know now what would be your dream job ah
00:29:38
Speaker
So that's assuming that money is not a factor, let's say we have billions and billions stocked away. so you have money in your bank account. you don't So you have millions or billions in your bank account. So you don't need to work. What type of job would you have? Let's answer that the questions for each other.
00:29:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. I'll play with this game. So we're going to answer for each other. oh gosh. Can I cheat? I wanted to do that because I want to answer for Echo and say, I'm going to put Echo into Trader Joe's.
00:30:11
Speaker
That is my dream job. i got I got you some more clothes.
00:30:18
Speaker
But you know what, I actually now that I think about it, I think like when I go to Trader Joe's, sometimes I hear people talk like the employees talking to each other. And like some of them are like tech bros who made their millions, who can basically fire financial independence or retire early.
Desires for Simplicity and Interaction
00:30:34
Speaker
So they retired, they're in their 40s, late 30s, but they still want to have a job that gives them some structure. So they work at Trader Joe's a part time, they still get benefits. gives them an opportunity to to do something, get outside the house. They don't need the money.
00:30:48
Speaker
So I know people who do that. I also know that there are you know college students, high school students, people who are trying to make ends meet, working at Trader Joe's, getting the discount. And so I do think that that that would be a a fun job to have. I think for me, I used to work at Starbucks and I really enjoyed that as well. So maybe being a barista and just like making...
00:31:08
Speaker
cappuccinos and coffee, you know, not all day, but four of five hours a day. Like I would do that if money wasn't an issue because then I wouldn't have to think. I can just enjoy smelling the coffee, talk to people.
00:31:20
Speaker
would that That's the side job. What's the real job if that's the side job? If there is a side job. Yeah, what would be the side job? I would just do that as my main job. okay, okay. sorry. would do that for 20 hours a week. If I didn't have to earn money, like if I had millions in my bank account, I would just work part-time at a Starbucks or as a barista. Yeah? Yeah.
00:31:38
Speaker
yeah I think Doug's question is, what if you don't have that billionaire and you don't have millions in your bank account? What's your full-time job so you can do this side gig?
00:31:52
Speaker
I guess the answer is both. Like if we're out of the job, I'm going to go be a star barista as well too. Okay, so barista. So if you had fuck you money. Barista, Trader Joe's, give it to me. I'm going to take it whatever job I get. Actually, I would say my answer is actually very close to what Echo said, but like a derivative of that, ah her answer earlier. i would actually go around the world and do interviews with people who have interesting and odd jobs. And it reminds me of this TV show and like the Discovery Channel, like it was called Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Oh, yes. remember that I don't know if any of you remember that.
00:32:29
Speaker
He would just go on these adventures and become one of the employees for like an episode, whether be on like a fishing fishing boat or working for a water ah company or whatever, and have a perspective that. And for me, what I would do is I would do a job analysis. That's my spin on it. I would do a job analysis, verbal job analysis while I was there and probably annoy people and get in their way.
00:32:58
Speaker
That would be my dream job. I would have fun doing that. So you would interview them. You wouldn't actually go into the sewers and like. I would go into the sewers with them. would go into the sewers and talk to them ah while they're there. Like the household how much time would you say you spend on this XYZ duty? oh okay. But you wouldn't actually go in like I would do the job. I would try to do it as well too. That would be part of the fun. It didn't have to be a TV show, but it it it would be something that would just, I don't know, that would keep me, it would keep me engaged. So an anthropologist, an anthropologist in the truest sense.
00:33:35
Speaker
And maybe that will actually make you rich because you can do your own be your own producer and have your own YouTube channel and you know i could be one of those influencers. Oh gosh, I don't know. Okay, so Echo is nominating Duck to be an influencer, a YouTube personality.
00:33:58
Speaker
ah if if money is an issue, so grounding it back to reality, going back to what you were mentioning, Juk, I think if if I didn't have fucking money and I had to work a job, I think it would be the job that I'm
Current Job Satisfaction and Alignment
00:34:11
Speaker
doing now. Like I'm really, yeah, I really enjoy the work that I do. It gives me the autonomy that I want, I can apply what I learned yeah in my PhD program. And I think the most important thing is I'm constantly learning something new, you know, whether it's a new topic in healthcare disparities, whether it's learning a new way of analyzing data, using you know AI and to to augment my work. There's always something new that I'm learning every on every project. And so it's it doesn't pay
00:34:41
Speaker
a lot of money compared to what I would make in the industry, but it gives me enough that I would need to, you know, sustain my lifestyle. And I think, yeah, it gives me the agency and the autonomy yeah to do interesting work that I find, you know, intellectually interesting to me. Hmm.
00:34:58
Speaker
So you're actually doing your dream job, Jenny. I'm so jealous. I mean, and and and then the the cost of that is, you know, it's, it's an academia. So it doesn't pay as well. I'm not earning like crazy amounts of money, but it's enough to, you know, afford the lifestyle that I want. But that, yeah, that exactly, that, that actually affords your lifestyle. I do think even though said earlier on like, Oh, um like it seems like money is really important to me. It is, but I do think, Is it because I live certain style, like lifestyle, like I travel so much that I feel like if I can cut down my travel. But also sometimes I feel like, no, I was also saying like maybe like a travel is my way to escape my...
00:35:40
Speaker
my job like i because I work so much like I just don't like my or don't enjoy my job that much so I just using travel to compensate for and that's the way to balance it I think most people probably just treat their job as this is just a job I'm earning money but it affords me the lifestyle that I want. And I think that's also a good place to be in versus people who are miserable in their job, who just can't wait to find another job, but can't. That would be the worst place to be in. Yeah.
00:36:10
Speaker
And don't get me wrong. Like my job gave me perfect autonomy. Like I can work anywhere. That's like very important thing to me, but not in China. Oh, Did I mention to you both? I can't even bring my laptop to China. Really? And also Hong Kong.
00:36:25
Speaker
I think it's a lot of workplaces. It's a high-risk area. Yep. Yeah, there's there's a list that organizations go off of. I can go to China.
00:36:36
Speaker
In fact, I did go to China um a year and a half ago. i went to Shanghai. That's interesting. But that makes sense because you're working in finance. Oh, nice. Yeah, is i think I do think it's the...
00:36:48
Speaker
data security they're concerned about. Like, they don't want me to bring
Conclusion: Personal Fulfillment and Job Satisfaction
00:36:53
Speaker
laptop. I think we answer most of our questions about the work, our previous jobs, right? like And it felt like we answered some other things too, like what was enough, which I was going to ask as a follow-up, but it sounded like we answered that naturally too, which I thought was really cool. The takeaway is find a job that that either you love or a job that allows you to live the lifestyle that you want. Is that the main takeaway? Yeah.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's part of it. I would say like the other part is also as our listeners like go through their own journey, the beginning of their career or the middle of their career,
00:37:29
Speaker
They may have jobs that they like or don't like. And I think that's just part of the journey, that you learn what you like and what you don't like and what you are willing to live with. And I want to say that's okay because we're in the discovery aspect of it. I would say like if they're in the middle or near the end, hopefully that they're in a position and I'm in a decent spot. And I would i would hope that for all our listeners and ourselves as well, really. And we're also going to end the with the haiku, as always. Okay.
00:38:02
Speaker
Hit us with the haiku, Echo. What do you got? The haiku that we got today is love the work you do or let the paychecks fund your dreams. Joy finds its own path.
00:38:14
Speaker
That's good one. Yeah, it does. that ChatGPT or was that Gemini? Gemini. Gemini. Okay, Gemini is spot on. Okay. I like it, i like it. But anyway, um this is our latest episode and that we talked about the jobs that we love and the jobs that we enjoy the part that we don't like about. Stay tuned for our next episode. Till next time. And let us know how young Echo should have started work.
00:38:44
Speaker
How old she should have been at her first part-time side gig. Yeah. i would I would say I would go with 11. so Now listeners should also realize why I think money is important to me because I start work so late on like the other two. Start work at 11 and 15. No, we we still we still don't have enough money. We still didn't have enough money. We're talking about like having a couple hundred bucks in your saving account. Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
We're not talking. yeah If I had known about compound interest back then, oh my goodness. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening and catch you later on our next episode. by Bye. Bye everyone.