Help! Should I be more ambitious?

Dear OOO,

I like my job, especially. The people are nice, the work is interesting, the salary is good and I have a lot of flexibility. I’ve been here for a long time, and I sometimes ask myself: Am I weirdly unambitious if I don’t try to level up?

–California

One thing you realize after spending a couple of time as a columnist as a workplace counselor is that no one – or at least no one in a “creative class” career that often leads people to confuse a job with a religious calling – feels confident where they are in their career. Middle managers wonder if they should be senior executives, and when senior executives are worried about when they back down. Junior staff are concerned that they are progressing fast enough or that they are moving too fast and will be forced to manage. People who have changed roles many times (hello!) are concerned about seeing people as fleeting job sellers; those who have been in a long place are concerned about treating people as furniture attached to the floor.

The pandemic, of course, has exacerbated all of the above. Being trapped in the house all day – at the same time isolated from most loved ones and indistinguishable from some selected loved ones – can make a difference in a person’s relationship with the guy and reality. If you’re the type of person who defines your job in a healthy way in a bad way (hello again!), A tremendous panic about your professional station is inevitable. (It’s not just office staff. Anne Helen Petersen’s newest essay he elegantly links the fate of the “creative class” of workers and service workers to what he calls “broken capitalism,” arguing that the real problem is bad business models that demoralize and burn workers in all sectors of America. economy.)

The easy answer, then, is to California, for not being in a role where you like a weirdo with great ambition and treat you well. When everything around us feels unstable, not only is we ashamed to hold on to such work, there is a lot to try.

And yet! Something in your brain or heart or soul tells you that a pretty good job with an interesting job, a good salary, and nice colleagues isn’t enough, and that’s worth taking seriously. It is perhaps the biggest fetishization in the world of continuous progress, in which case please make the effort to tune in. But maybe it’s something more, some people who are confused inside you tell you that what you did on paper at the time you didn’t feel.

You don’t mention anything about whether you’re feeling full or happy with work, and that makes me wonder if that. There’s nothing wrong with expecting a psychic reward in exchange for a salary — whether the boundaries between your work and your life are healthy or I’ve heard that — but your questions seem to be not your style. And I wonder how much work I do “mostly” I like my job. To chew on some questions: Are you having a good time? Do you worry more often or are you filled with fear at the beginning of your workday? Do you feel challenged? Are you able to try new things? Do you work for the people you want to learn?

Some of these questions will not matter to you, others will resonate with you. The latter is especially important to me personally; the times I’ve really loved my job have been when I’m smarter than I am and surrounded by people who have enough support to teach me things. The common connection between all of my questions is that they transcend surface attributes such as salary and general enjoyment, and that they affect how your work affects your well-being.