For the Love of Work but No Money... Thursday, November 27

"No need to take tomorrow off work", I told Snickers.

What a sentence to say, I mean most people don't exactly like their jobs and would love to take a day off work but not me.  I love my job.  I hope my friends do too.  I really do hope my friends love their job and I started thinking about this today while I was on the bus, headed downtown to do some shopping for the club.  I had told Snickers I was leaving at 1:30pm to go Advent calendar gift shopping.  I only had 7 out of the needed 24 gifts and was super eager to get the calender finished and up so that members could enjoy it before we actually started it on Monday.  Originally I was going to take the day off tomorrow and I had told Snickers this.  I told him he was going to work tomorrow and that I'd enjoy a day of Christmas Advent calender shopping but when I woke up today and saw our naked calendar looking back at me, I decided I was going to do it today.  After all, once I got the shopping done what was I going to do with all my free time?  Linger around some coffee shop and eat at a restaurant by myself?!  No thanks and not likely.  I rather be at the club and so that's probably where I'd head to.  So why take the day off then only to hang out at the club??? Exactly.  

While on the bus, I started adding up just how many hours a week I work, and this is what I came up with.

50 hrs = add 10 hours for each day I work Monday to Friday
6 hrs = add 2 hours of cleaning on Monday and 1 hour for Tuesday to Thursday
2 hrs = add 2 extra hours for Free Train on the weekend
4 hrs = add 4 extra hours for dinner and social time after weekend Free Train
4 hrs = add 2 extra hours for our Monday night after hour club dinner and 2 more for other days
5 hrs = add 1 hour for each of my three morning runs and 2 for my weekend long run (yes, I do consider this work-related, after all I am a professional athlete and sponsors are paying me to train.)
hours = the average work week for me

71 hrs = my average work week

Note that my boxing and weight training are both done during regular club hours so no extra hours were calculated for that and I didn't add in any extra hours for sponsor meetings or other club-related things like grocery shopping for our juice bar/coal heater and monthly socials.

I work 71 hours a week and it's obvious that my business and personal life are mashed together.  There is no distinction between what is business and what is pleasure because my business is my pleasure and my pleasure is my business.  But it got me thinking about my friends and whether or not they too enjoy their jobs.  The average person works about 40 hours a week but I can honestly say have the slightest clue as to what many of my friends back in Canada actually do for a living unless I have already asked them.  And so I decided to do a little bit of "Facebook stalking" to figure out what it is some of them really do.  There was the friend who obviously obsesses way too much about the hot coworker and, judging by the excess pictures of him, she works in what appears to be an office with plenty of private cubicles.  There is the friend who complains about her work being on strike and me not quite figuring out what company or kind of company it was that was on strike except for the fact that she is loving the strike and hopes her boss freezes outside.  I have one friend who continually posts pictures of the staff room's nasty coffee pot, so I'm relieved to note she actually does have a job and can pay to host the travel bug that's bitten her.  Now days there's a lot of commuting complaints -- complaints about the slow traffic and extra long commute to work.  Overall however, most of my friends don't seem to post much about their work and it kind of made me sad.  Here I am living in another country and loving what I'm doing for work so I question why aren't they and why don't they like their jobs.  I did a quick Google on job satisfaction and what factors influence it and these are the factors that popped up as being the most influential.   

Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction
1. Pay
2. Job Security
3. Social Simulation
4. Demographic Factors
5. Opportunity For Promotion
6. Recognition & Appreciation
7. Interpersonal Relationships
8. Opportunity To Use One's Abilities
9. Working Hours & Physical Conditions
10. Adequate Authority & Sense of Control

My own personal list of my top 5 factors

1.  Sense of control and freedom

I loved teaching English but I hated that I felt it was the only job I could do in Korea because I am a foreigner.  Even after marrying my Korean husband, it still seemed to be the only position available for me.  I figured the only job perfect for me was the one I'd create myself so that's exactly what I did.  I made my own boxing club and made myself the manager.

2. Opportunity to do what I love and use my abilities

I am very passionate about fitness and health so it only seemed appropriately fitting that I would work in such a field and now I do. Moreover, I love doing creative things, like writing and crafts, and I've been able to incorporate many of these skills into my job here at Hulk's via our monthly newsletter, Facebook and monthly events and celebrations. More overly however, it was very, very cool being the one to design the actual floor layout of our club. I had a lot of fun and spent so much time designing every part of our club, from the mini pro shop and juice bar to where each sandbag would hang and the Hulk's halo over our ring.

3.  Interpersonal relationships

I was so over dealing with the hungover coworker or the annoyingly spoiled coworker who didn't know just how well they had it compared to our Korean coworkers.  It's hard to find a job though where you can pick and choose who you work with... but not when you're the boss!!! In addition to the issue of those I work with at previous jobs, there was also the issue of those I worked for and I don't just mean the boss but the other people my job includes.  When I was teaching, it also meant the parents and of course the students.  The bonus of running Hulk's is that everyone that comes to my club to train really is trying to improve upon themselves.  There are no members here being forced by parents or not wanting to come.  If they don't want to come, they don't come.  It's as simple as that.  But they do come and they do want to change and so it's pretty awesome to be surrounded on a daily bases by people who are trying to better themselves.  I've never had a job like this where I've been surrounded by such a large group of positive people.

4.  Feeling of purpose -- recognition and appreciation

It's a pretty awesome feeling seeing someone step on the scale, knowing full well that you had pushed them through countless hours of training and helped encourage them to eat clean, and then seeing their success with the numbers and the smile that lights up their face.  That gives me great self satisfaction with my job as does so many other things, like members lingering so long at the club, random text messages from members, and seeing someone do something I taught them that perhaps they struggled doing last week.  I feel I'm helping people, changing people into the better, the healthier and the happier version of them and it's pretty darn cool.

5.  Being constantly challenged

The fact that I run a boxing club in another country is already a big enough challenge and everyday that is something I have to face and deal with.  Whether it's the delievery man asking me to confirm a special shipment, a visitor wanting a tour of the club and asking a billion questions, a sponsor checking our books, or having to deal with a Pesky Parker, my language skills and social manners are constantly being challenged.  Other challenges of the job include trying to improve upon my own physical strength and well-being so that I can mentor others.  I'm always trying to come up with new and interesting crossfit classes and I'm always reading articles online about various health and fitness related issues so to keep up to date.  I'm a person that likes challenges, needs challenges, and this job definitely has a lot of them though sometimes it feels like there are more than I can handle but it sure beats not being challenged at all, or at least that's what I tell myself.

Ironically, the common thing I found among my friends who did post frequently about their work on Facebook and appeared to have great job satisfaction were those who are working in such fields that aren't such "money-making" fields, like those who involved in the fields of music, sports and teaching, and/or are entrepreneurs. A couple of friends from high school are still going strong with their music while one of my university friends took off with her dance classes and now runs her own dance academy. I should note here that her dance school rehearsal pictures are absolutely adorable!!! I suppose the payoff of not making a big paycheck is a higher level of happiness. Good for them too, I mean, if you're going to spend +40 hours a week working then you may as well enjoy it.