Are you looking at work differently?

Patrick Lencioni’s newsletter item, "Rediscovering Work," strikes a chord that resonates with me as I ponder the worldwide economic slide.  The meaning of work is changing in ways that many of us who do career coaching will struggle to accommodate in our work.  To paraphrase Lencioni, a side-effect of a shrinking economy may well be a new-found respect for work itself--simply having a job that pays.  While this alone might have been enough for many in my parents’ generation to feel satisfied, pretty much everyone born after World War II has internalized the notion that work should be exciting, fulfilling and a peak experience.  Cool, if it works out that way.  Depressing, though, when life turns out differently.

Maybe we will all become a little less perfectionistic about our jobs.  Maybe it is already happening, as we see far few people anxious to change jobs these days.  Maybe we can discover what Barry Schwartz at Swarthmore wrote about in terms of “Satisficers and optimizers.”  In Schwartz’s research, satisficers (in essence, those who seek a good enough consumer choice) end up happier that optimizers (those who chase the perfect solution).

So, what about it?  Are you looking at work a bit differently now?  Does the proverbial grass seem a tiny bit greener at your present school than it did this time last year?