Are you having any fun?

Unpopular opinion: I like an easy puzzle. The kind you can start and finish in a couple of hours. The kind where you pick up a piece and can tell what it is and were it goes, and its shape doesn't fool you into thinking it fits somewhere it doesn't. 

Another unpopular opinion: Work should be fun.

I know what some of you are thinking: It's called work for a reason. (I heard those words verbatim from a colleague years ago during a discussion about job satisfaction and it has stuck with me all this time.) And what does this have to do with puzzling?

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I haven't always chosen an easy puzzle. Historically I've gravitated towards puzzles that feel like a challenge and make me go a little bit crazy: puzzles with impressionistic images where the pieces for the water and the sky and the trees all somehow look the same; puzzles with modern prints with large sections of solid colors. These are the puzzles that occupy my dining table (and my time) for days and nights, eventually making my eyes burn. These are the puzzles I used to think I liked doing, until I did enough of them and realized I was stressed out and wasn't having any fun.

It took me a while to realize that doing a puzzle was supposed to be an enjoyable experience. It doesn't have to be my life's greatest challenge, raise my heart rate, or give me a migraine. And if I pick the right puzzle, it can even be relaxing.

It also took me a long time to realize that work should be fun. Ok, maybe it's too much to say FUN ... perhaps I should say ENJOYABLE. Maybe more of you can get on board with that minor linguistic adjustment.

I was raised to believe that with a little hard work and dedication (just like the Capitol One Bank Guy says) I could be anything I wanted to be. And, as you know, I wanted to be an architect. So a lot of hard work and dedication is what came next. 

I believed that all of the challenges would make me a better architect, so the struggle was worth it. I thought if I "put in the time" doing all of the things I didn't really enjoy doing, eventually I would be given the opportunity to do the things that I really wanted to do. I believed that because I chose a career doing something that interested me from a young age, I would like doing it. It would be fun (enjoyable).

Become an architect, they said. It'll be fun, they said. If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life, they said.

It wasn't fun. Early in my career I was put on a track in the wrong direction and I accelerated quickly away from any sense of enjoyment. Eventually I found myself in a job that I hated and a career that I resented. My value as an employee was limited - I was expected to continue to do all those things I didn't enjoy and was told that I wasn't allowed to do the things that I did enjoy. 

Our jobs occupy so much of our lives - so why shouldn't we enjoy them? Why do we accept that our jobs are simply a means to an end, a way to survive? In a country where we're allowed to choose our profession, why do so many of us dread Monday morning?  

There are a lot of complicated answers to those questions. Our unfulfilling, not-enjoyable jobs are supplemented with pizza parties and happy hours, promotions and raises. Sometimes we're friends with our coworkers. And that keeps us coming back tomorrow. 

For me, and maybe for you, that's not enough. I need to enjoy the actual work that I'm doing. Not every minute of every day, but a significant portion of the work needs to be fun. Even if I believe in it and am good at it, if I don't enjoy it, I don't want to do it. 

I'm starting to go down this road a bit at the garden center - I spent very little time in the greenhouse this year and a lot of time doing the garden center equivalent of project management. Believe it or not - playing in dirt is a LOT more fun than managing schedules, assigning tasks, and resetting mouse traps. But I've learned to recognize the issue and this time I can correct it before I'm too far down the wrong path. I'm working on finding ways to build FUN into my job - and this time it's supported. I piloted a weekly farmer's market booth and enjoyed every minute of it, and we're embarking on BOW MAKING SEASON which is maybe my favorite time of year. 

And as for puzzling - last night I took one out of the closet that would have taken me a few days to finish alone, and then returned it to it's shelf and pieced together a fun, easy dog puzzle instead. 

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This time I'm going to share a little advice:

If you're a business owner/leader/manager - if someone has given you control over the daily experience of others: 

Ask your staff what motivates them, and respond accordingly. If any of your staff aren't enjoying their day-to-day activities (and if you want to keep them on your staff), find out what they enjoy and let them do it. Let them do an amount of it, even if you don't think they are the best at it, and especially if you're worried that they are too valuable doing something else that you're going to miss out on what they are currently giving you. If they get to have fun part of the time, the other work they are doing will only get better.

If you're an employee who doesn't enjoy your work and, like me, that's a deal breaker for you: 

Take some time to outline what you enjoy and talk to your manager about finding ways to incorporate that into your role. If they say no, look elsewhere. (Yes, it actually is that easy. The place you work now is not the only place that exists in the world.) 

Happy growing!

Sarah 

Interested in diving deeper into the topic of enjoying work? Check out these books that significantly impacted me:

    Love + Work, Marcus Buckingham

    The 6 Types of Working Genius, Patrick Lencioni