A job description can never exactly give you the full picture. Just as the map is not the territory or working is not productivity, your job and your work while being connected has more to it than meets the common criteria.
Your work far supersedes the job you do. Here’s a hint: your work might not be what you think it is. A chef might think his job is to focus on the food. Or the Doctor who thinks her job is to cure patients. But the cure is only a goal and a subset of the work that has a bigger narrative. Of community upliftment, of healing, of teaching, of giving.
It’s the famous story of the two workers – one said his job is breaking stones at a construction site, while the other worker on the same site was proud to say that his work was about building a beautiful cathedral.
The technical tasks are important, but the work involves more than that. There’s always more to the work than what’s in the typical job description.
The intangibles that are never part of your job description matter a lot. Delivering a great culinary experience for patrons is what a chef’s work would entail. Which goes far beyond the job of focusing only on the food.
A web programmer’s job description would be to write codes so that the site visitor gets to see what she is searching for. But the work at hand would be to offer a seamless, frictionless, engaging experience, that keeps her on the site happily for long and brings her (and her friends) back again and again and again.
Doing your job is not always the same as doing the work. There’s far more to it than meets the I.
The job description default is a constraint. Work goes way beyond that brief.
So, if you are in a job, you have your work cut out! Let’s not miss the wood for the trees.
ENDS
