Blogging meme no.1 - Ambition
Sep. 5th, 2008 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrph(as requested by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kest )
Let's start with a difficult one, shall we? "What do you want?" might be the underlying question when you talk about ambition; on the other hand, the question may actually be closer to "So, how are you keeping score...?".
Either way, it's not a question I have a clear answer for. I know people - mostly via family or work - who I'd certainly describe as 'ambitious' in one or more ways. It's never been a label that I've wanted applied to me, though - I'm certainly highly motivated in some aspects of my life, but 'ambitious', for me, seems to summon up all sorts of negative connotations. It feels like it's a focus on ends instead of means, which may be an unfair judgement on my part...
I want to be financially comfortable for the forseeable future. I don't have a driving desire to be rich - I don't want the summer holiday home, or six cars, or a swimming pool in my garden. I do want to live in a place that I love, and I fully intend to keep working on the house until I move away or successfully turn it into something special - but that's about the limit in that regard. If I ever settled down with a family, which might happen someday, then I'd probably be driven to do more in this regard - but for the time being, I just want to be somewhere nice with enough money to pay for my social life, my holidays and the occasional luxury.
That, I guess, brings me to the source of that money - work. Once upon a time, when I still at school, I wanted to be a scientist. Or a writer. I don't think I ever wanted to be rich or famous; I just wanted to create something new, to do things that hadn't been done before. I'm less concerned about that now, although I couldn't entirely tell you when or why that changed.
I take a great deal of pride in my work, whatever it is that I'm doing - I've been effectively sacked once, from a temp job with Fed Ex, and that left me disgruntled for weeks simply because I thought (knew?) I was doing the job pretty damn well. I'd like to think I've done most of my jobs pretty well. I have certain workaholic tendencies and I'm an annoying perfectionist - which fits my current role perfectly - but... I'm less driven than I used to be.
Partly that's just pragmatism - they get my best efforts when I'm there, but if I still can't keep up with the workload then they have a staffing problem and that's not really my problem. It took me a long time to learn that one, and occasionally forgetting it has done me no good whatsoever. Partly, though, it's that I know what I'm good at - and I don't want to drift into management and get too distanced from it all. I don't need the politics and too much time in those jobs seems to be spent dealing with staff admin and HR, which just feels like a distraction from the things I'd want to be doing.
In some ways, my current job's perfect. I get to deal with a lot of people in a lot of different departments, many of which don't quite know where I fit into the business, but seem to think I'm rather more senior than I actually am. I get asked all sorts of questions when nobody else seems to know the answer, I get to change things - and, now and then, I get the realisation that I'm making decisions that affect many, many people. Including some that I know, which is just plain odd. In those terms, it's delivering pretty much everything I want from a job - including praise from people who I feel are deeply competent, which means a lot to my ego.
But I get bored easily. Eventually, even change starts to become dull - especially when you're been there a while and seen things go full circle in one way or another. Which leads onto the 'what next'...
...and that's the bit I'm struggling with. I want to be doing something that makes a genuine difference to people's lives. Something where I can actually feel relatively good about myself at the end of the day, and not just from an intellectual problem-solving point of view (sometimes, at least in my head, work is just another mildly addictive strategy game...).
So... ambition? Not money, as such. Work, to some degree - in some ways. What does that leave? I don't think I'm socially ambitious, although I've been accused of it a few times in the past. There was certainly a point when I really enjoyed walking into almost any UK goth club and being sure to know someone - but, again, that's something that I'm not terribly concerned about these days.
...and at this point, I may have exhausted my list of comments on the topic. At least for the moment.
kest )Let's start with a difficult one, shall we? "What do you want?" might be the underlying question when you talk about ambition; on the other hand, the question may actually be closer to "So, how are you keeping score...?".
Either way, it's not a question I have a clear answer for. I know people - mostly via family or work - who I'd certainly describe as 'ambitious' in one or more ways. It's never been a label that I've wanted applied to me, though - I'm certainly highly motivated in some aspects of my life, but 'ambitious', for me, seems to summon up all sorts of negative connotations. It feels like it's a focus on ends instead of means, which may be an unfair judgement on my part...
I want to be financially comfortable for the forseeable future. I don't have a driving desire to be rich - I don't want the summer holiday home, or six cars, or a swimming pool in my garden. I do want to live in a place that I love, and I fully intend to keep working on the house until I move away or successfully turn it into something special - but that's about the limit in that regard. If I ever settled down with a family, which might happen someday, then I'd probably be driven to do more in this regard - but for the time being, I just want to be somewhere nice with enough money to pay for my social life, my holidays and the occasional luxury.
That, I guess, brings me to the source of that money - work. Once upon a time, when I still at school, I wanted to be a scientist. Or a writer. I don't think I ever wanted to be rich or famous; I just wanted to create something new, to do things that hadn't been done before. I'm less concerned about that now, although I couldn't entirely tell you when or why that changed.
I take a great deal of pride in my work, whatever it is that I'm doing - I've been effectively sacked once, from a temp job with Fed Ex, and that left me disgruntled for weeks simply because I thought (knew?) I was doing the job pretty damn well. I'd like to think I've done most of my jobs pretty well. I have certain workaholic tendencies and I'm an annoying perfectionist - which fits my current role perfectly - but... I'm less driven than I used to be.
Partly that's just pragmatism - they get my best efforts when I'm there, but if I still can't keep up with the workload then they have a staffing problem and that's not really my problem. It took me a long time to learn that one, and occasionally forgetting it has done me no good whatsoever. Partly, though, it's that I know what I'm good at - and I don't want to drift into management and get too distanced from it all. I don't need the politics and too much time in those jobs seems to be spent dealing with staff admin and HR, which just feels like a distraction from the things I'd want to be doing.
In some ways, my current job's perfect. I get to deal with a lot of people in a lot of different departments, many of which don't quite know where I fit into the business, but seem to think I'm rather more senior than I actually am. I get asked all sorts of questions when nobody else seems to know the answer, I get to change things - and, now and then, I get the realisation that I'm making decisions that affect many, many people. Including some that I know, which is just plain odd. In those terms, it's delivering pretty much everything I want from a job - including praise from people who I feel are deeply competent, which means a lot to my ego.
But I get bored easily. Eventually, even change starts to become dull - especially when you're been there a while and seen things go full circle in one way or another. Which leads onto the 'what next'...
...and that's the bit I'm struggling with. I want to be doing something that makes a genuine difference to people's lives. Something where I can actually feel relatively good about myself at the end of the day, and not just from an intellectual problem-solving point of view (sometimes, at least in my head, work is just another mildly addictive strategy game...).
So... ambition? Not money, as such. Work, to some degree - in some ways. What does that leave? I don't think I'm socially ambitious, although I've been accused of it a few times in the past. There was certainly a point when I really enjoyed walking into almost any UK goth club and being sure to know someone - but, again, that's something that I'm not terribly concerned about these days.
...and at this point, I may have exhausted my list of comments on the topic. At least for the moment.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-06 04:48 pm (UTC)I'm also a very fast reader with an eye for detail, which helps when reviewing documents.
I'm not good with blank pages, though. I like taking something that's already in place - if only as a rough idea - then tweaking it until it works smoothly.
Fortunately, within a big enough business with enough history behind it, there really aren't many "blank page" moments - everything's built on the back of something else.