A job well done

Life and work are more enjoyable when we can take satisfaction from the job itself. Doing what needs to be done, to an acceptable standard (or better) can be a significant reward if we value the task at hand. Even if no-one else rewards us.

Sometimes the task is undervalued by our peers and/or those whom we serve (bosses, clients, children, etc.). Stay-at-home parents are familiar with their work being invisible until it isn't done.

Sometimes the task is undervalued by us: most of us have, at some point in our life, thought, "Why do I have to do this boring/tiring/dirty/menial/basic/repetitive task?" Jim's Mowing keeps a lot of people in business by recognizing this. The outcome is valued, but the task itself is not. This is a pity.

Occasionally (or more often in a large bureaucracy), we do a task that is pointless or counterproductive. There is very little job satisfaction to be had in, for example, filing reports no-one cares about or will ever read. More often, we don't have our head on right. We're living in the future and not honoring what we're doing right now.

Today I have been scrubbing mould. Yes, it has been wet and warm for more than a week now and the 'comfort facilities' at my music school are in the basement. The mould has been enjoying our absence during the Christmas/New year break.

Scrubbing mould is not a dainty task, but I found it enormously satisfying because I know why it needs doing, I was the only person available so I didn't have the option to delegate it to someone else, and because cream paintwork looks better cream. (The - only - nice thing about really bad mould is that you can really see the results of your labours when you scrub it off.) Funnily enough the many people who would like to own their own business seldom realize how much emergency cleaning is likely to be involved.

Oh yes, and hard physical work puts paid to insomnia. So I'm off to bed.

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