I noticed something during the latest economic downturn that I did not understand before it. I noticed that people including myself start to think of themselves as their profession, it is their identity.
The problem with this is that if you let anything become your identity then you yourself will feel like you are succeeding or failing based on a market that it ultimately out of your control, placing this much emphasis on something out of your control is not a wise move even though most do it.
It is especially true for people who borrowed and spent a ton of money on school to become some sort of professional, these people feel locked into their life track and when the market is up they are up, when the market is down they are down, locked into a situation where how much $ they make and how they feel about themselves mostly is controled by markets out of their control.
I know one lawyer that spent 100k on school and is now pecking along closing mortgagges at $350 a pop and all the while paying rent to a landlord and intrest on his school, he feels hopeless and like he worked to hard and spent too much for the life he is receiving, but he can not or will not change so he can make more money elsewhere.
By locking your identity to any particular profession you are giving up the ability to change with the market like an entrapreneur who is only trying to make money and security which is the true goal.
It is like if a stockbroker was locked into a stock that is performing poorly and when the stock fails the stockbroker feels like he is failing because he can not dump the stock and get a better performing stock.
I have learned that you are not your job and your job is not you, it is a means to an end and a very good lesson to learn.
Right on Boundary Line, right on.
Yes, and from your FARQ's:
Q. How bad am I?
A. Superbad, my man. Superbad.
Yea, most people do that, but remember there is real change going on. It just isn't a bad economy. Some of these changes are permanent and surveyors need to come to grips with it.
The best example is stockbrokers. That use to be a very well paying profession and had a lot of prestige. Since the formation of mutual funds and the internet all that has changed and most stockbrokers are nothing much more than clerks.
Another fact I heard on NPR yesterday was the vast majority of law school graduates will not find a job working in a law firm-they will be doing something else with their degree.
I retired from surveying a year ago and I am still going through the deprogramming process-it is not easy.
We have a law school grad in our office. She is not working as an Attorney.
My therapist has a Registered Engineer answering his phone.
Exellent post, B.L.
I have sometimes felt like the odd man out around here because I don't really think that surveying is the noblest professional in the world.
It's a job. I'm good at it and I enjoy it, but really, I'd rather be sleeping.
I love sleping.
Also reading.
Maybe I'm just too dang old to appreciate it. I used to think the way some here do: that surveying is the highest calling.
It's not.
Stand up is the highest calling.
Hey, (tap, tap) is this thing on?
Don
> Stand up is the highest calling.
>
> Hey, (tap, tap) is this thing on?
>
>
> Don
A preist, a rabbi, and a stripper walk into a bar.
The bartender says "is this some kind of a joke?".
Three Professionals, a mathematician, a physicist and an engineer, took their final test for the job. The sole question in the exam was "how much is one plus one".
The math dude asked the receptionist for a ream of paper, two hours later, he said: I have proven its a natural number
The physicist, after checking parallax error and quantum tables said: its between 1.9999999999, and 2.0000000001
the engineer quicly said: oh! its easy! its two,.... no, better make it three, just to be safe.
:good:
Great post! A buddy of mine (not a PS) has worked as: managing a wastewater system at a trailer park, engineering inspector, painter, union stage hand, & most recently for an environmental cleanup crew for the enbridge oil spill here in State. All of this apart from being a career survey crew member. He's always placed his faith in the man upstairs, not his employer of the month or whatever title it carries, and his family wants for nothing. Think he's got this old economy figured out pretty good 😉
You forgot the fourth person. The accountant said "What do you want it to be?"
And the interviewer said, "You're hired."
The Statisticians answer is what do you want it to be?
The Accountant says, "I wouldn't advise you to combine 1 and 1 for tax reasons."
this is exactly the way i felt in 2009. no matter what i did i couldn't keep things going the way they had been. it took me months of soul searching to come to the conclusion that it wasn't my fault and i had to find a way to get my mojo back. i really found some wisdom in the serenity prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
after i changed my way of looking at things my morale improved. business still isn't what it was back in the day but who cares. i'm making it fine on what i have and trying to make it better where i can.
great post man. i think a lot of people have fallen into this trap in the last few years. i know a lot of my identity and self worth was based around my profession and what i was able to accomplish. when the work dried up so did my sense of self. i think most of that came because i worked all of the time. my job literally was who i was. 70 hours a week doesn't leave much time to be anything but work.
i just wonder how everybody is going to react when the work comes back. it used to be the norm that me and the guys around my shop worked 60 hours a week and up. now that everyone is just used to working 35 and about 5 of that is just screwing off tying to round out the week. how is it going to be when it is time to work 60-70 hours a week again week in week out? can we do it? or are we ruined now by having so much free time?
the serenity prayer
> God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
> Courage to change the things I can,
> And wisdom to know the difference.
:good:
