Work Satisfaction

Most of the people, I have been meeting in the corporate world, talk about job satisfaction. Most of them on probing a bit more would tell me something like "You know, you should enjoy your job.", "There are some cons to the job, but most importantly you are working with highly intelligent/successful people", "The job might be consuming, but it pays well..", "This will lead to success in the corporate world". By their words, I feel like the idea of Job Satisfaction is like religion's idea of getting into heavens and I have to endure a lot to achieve divination.

I was just about to accept "Satisfied with job" as the truth of the world, just when I decided to go home for a vacation. In the flight, the person sitting next to me, named Ram Maheshwari, happened to be a retailer in clothing, and seemed roughly 3-4 years older than what I am. After initial bit of chit chat (and a couple of comments about the air hostess), we started talking business. He says, "Dost, business mein mazza (read maj-ja) hai. Maine 4 saal pehle papa se thoda paisa udhaar le kar dukaan shuru ki. Roz dukaan ka kharcha dekha, mehnat ki, aaj meri do dukaaney hai, aur abhi main wholesale ka kaam shuru karne waala hoon aur kal 65 lakh ki jameen kharidi. Mehnat karo, dimaag lagao, khush raho." He continued, "Main achchha khasa kama leta hoon, ma papa ka ashirwaad hai sir par, bhai ko bhi kaam par laga diya, saal mein 2 baar apne gaao ghum kar aate hai full family.. Life mein bahut maj-ja hai.."* The one line, which was ultimate killer was, "Apna customer, apna bhagwaan.. (Customer is God!)"

We talked for about 1.30 hrs, which was mostly him speaking, ranging from his experiences as a kid to his experiences in business, and I was more than just interested in his talks. I was enjoying his passion towards his shop. I realized that this guy doesn't speak the word "Satisfaction" simply because, he is one step ahead of it. He is enjoying his business.

Pretty much impressed and happy that my myth about "Job Satisfaction" was broken, I went home. There, I found a lot of people, who were telling me stuff like, "business mein paisa nahi hai (there is no money in business)". Once, again, poor old me starts getting confused. Then, 6th day at Indore, I found another highly highly satisfied wholesaler, who would explain me everything regarding his business in half an hour. When I sat down in the car, thinking about these two sectors of business, I did a bit of analysis. During the analysis, I realized one thing, almost everyone who was blaming lack of money in business had noticeably major flaws in his own business strategy** and they were blaming lack of money for the faults of their own. Notably though, none but one complained about huge work hours required by business life. (Actually, even the one who complained wasn't the businessmen himself, it was his wife complaining the amount of time he gave to his family..)

Thus, came the most important learning from this vacation, the huge difference between the most satisfied businessmen and the most satisfied employee, I have seen. The most satisfied employee, I have ever seen, is a colleague of mine, who is really enthusastic about his work but even he would say stuff like, "After 8 hours of highly efficient work, I just won't feel like doing any more". And almost everyone who says he has a good job will almost invariably have a but, though, etc. Mr Ram and Mr Rahul would simply say, "Business is awesome fun!".

On the spiritual side, the conclusion led to the already well known fact, everybody is happier working for himself.
On the emotional side though, the realization led to a huge problem. For a guy as self-concerned as I am, I started thinking, I simply can't be as happy as they are :( :( :(..
Oh God! Not the I can't be as happy loop again... Plzzzzzzzzzz....



*(Translated to English: "Friend, business has got some real fun. I started 4 years back, borrowing some money from my father. I managed the shop's expenses, interests, worked hard, I own two shops now, and am starting wholesale soon and purchased lands worth 6.5 million yesterday. Work hard, use thy brain, enjjoyy... I earn pretty much well enough, parents' blessings are with me, brother has joined me with the business.. We go to our native village twice every years.. Life is fun!" ).
**(Most of them were doing businesses in saturated markets, where there were more sellers than buyers, whereas, in the first case, Mr Ram had a pretty good market for clothes in Pune, while Mr wholesaler was a part of a duopoly, one of the two major sports wholesalers in the main market of Indore")


PS: Luckily, Mr Ram gave me an half an hour of fundae session too, on how to start a business.. "Bhai, main 10vi pass hoon, par business mein kitna nafa-nuksaan ho sakta hai, kitna market hai, puri research karke rakhta hoon, pichhle 6 mahine se wholesale market ki research kar raha hoon, ab final kiya hai"