Many of my Saturday mornings are spent reading the paper while listening to the morning programming on NPR. I get a lot of enjoyment listening to the trivia on Wait… Wait, Don’t Tell Me and of course my favorite: Car Talk. I’m not particularly into cars, but I do enjoy the antics of the Tappet brothers, otherwise known as Click and Clack. The show consists of listeners calling in with weird, unresolved car issues and the brothers trying to diagnose, often having the callers try to replicate the noises that their cars are making. It’s just a good way to waste an hour. I was very sad to learn that they will be retiring this year.
When you love to do something, it can be seen by anyone who watches (or listens). Work can be many things; it is necessary for most, sometimes stressful, busy, time-consuming. But how many people can say that work is fun and they enjoy even the frustrating parts of it? We look at these people as lucky anomalies. I think we can all get there with a mixture of hard work and determination, along with some vision and opportunity.
What’s important to remember is that it’s our path and we have control over where it leads. The Tappet brothers are both long-time mechanics, but they are also graduates of MIT. I’m sure the expectations were for them to become engineers, CEOs, etc. But they ended up doing what was natural to them, and they were great at it. They obviously love people, love cars, love jokes, and enjoy the challenge of solving the unexpected issues that only a call-in show can deliver.
There’s a lesson here that I think we can all use to make the necessity of work less… work-like. If you enjoy being creative, there must be a way for you to use that skill more often. If you love being around people, having a job where you never leave your cubicle may not be the right fit. There is a way to incorporate the things you love into work, and doing so can affect everyone around you.
I certainly agree that if you love what you do for your job, then it won’t feel like work!
I didn’t know that the Tappet brothers were retiring 🙁 I loved hearing them make cracks about Tom’s Dodge Dart or should I say “Daht!
Over the years, my mother owned two Darts – a blue ’63 Dodge Dart which was very similar to Tom’s (can copy and paste link)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Dart), and by the time I was ready to get my license, we had a ‘68 Dart – yellow with black vinyl roof and bucket seats – http://www.amazon.com/1968-DODGE-VINYL-SIGNED-PRINT/dp/B007Q4ERSO.
It was quite sporty. My friends and I would go cruising on Friday and Saturday nights. Of course gas was only 36 cents a gallon, but then minimum wage was $1.60/hr, and the job I was doing at the time was assembly line “work” in an injection molding factory. I only need to think back to that job to appreciate what I do today.
Thanks for the blog and reminding me to appreciate that I love what I do!