bobturba.com

Boring jobs – not!

I thought I was being cute and funny by posting the following to one of my egroups:

We have a local weatherscan channel that shows a lot of graphics, maps, etc, but I’d hate to have that woman’s job who says: “Your current conditions.” And then in a few seconds, “Local Dopler Radar,” then “Local Forcast,” and then she starts all over again. Man, just sitting there, doing that all day, over and over..

It seemed, however, that either my joke was missed or that this struck a cord with other members of the group. The most poignant post was about JB Librarian’s father:

My dad was a busdriver. He loved his job. He would give a tour of his route, finding
useless pieces of information to share with passengers about this house or that store or
a make of car or type of dog… there was always something. He was animated. His
passengers loved him and he received Busdriver of the year award on a number of occasions.

I still ride the bus. I like being part of those in-between spaces: people going
somewhere or coming back from somewhere. There’s an anticipatory energy on the bus, and also a letting go of the day. Depends when you ride it. I study the busdrivers, and for the most part, I think they would rather be any place else than driving a bunch of folks around the same circle of town for eight hours, bored out of their skulls and probably tired of the ridiculous passenger that gives them trouble from time to time.

I suppose what I’m saying is that being truly present for every moment switches consciousness from mundane to fantastical. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing: cleaning toilets of performing brain surgery. If you’re present and not coloring the moment with expectation, it’s all worthwhile.

It is an automated channel and I was joking about the droning and repetitive nature of the voice. My father sold produce door to door from his truck almost his entire working life. He left the house every morning whistling and I can remember thinking that I can only hope that I will feel that way about my job someday. He’ll be 92 this year, going strong, and job satisfaction is probably in-part responsible. Because of my job as a counselor (and if not whistling, I do love my job and feel good about it almost always), I obviously (at least I hope it’s obvious) believe that jobs are all in the eyes of the beholders – what might be boring for some is not for others. Buckminster Fuller did extensive writing and research on world resources and people. His most famous book probably is Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth,
http://www.bfi.org/node/422
and in it, I believe, is his study of people and jobs around the world and he was able to speculate that if all people were given a living wage for whatever job they *wanted* to do, then all essential jobs on earth would done such as garbage pickup – and probably the voice on weatherscan channels ;>) The Bucky Fuller Institute:
http://www.bfi.org/