My Career Search Saga

I’m so bored at work. I have stuff to do, but I just can’t seem to get motivated to do it. I recently switched jobs within the same company because I was sick of the stress of my last job: I had so much to do I felt like the only way to catch up was to leave the job and transition all my work to a different person. The job would be manageable for the new person—at least for a while—because he would be too new to be seen as the expert and so wouldn’t get pestered by a million different people for help on their projects or with random questions.

Anyway, so now I’m in this job that isn’t stressful, has very few deadlines, and doesn’t require me to manage anyone, and now I’m bored and feel like the stuff I’m being asked to do doesn’t add much value. I’m pretty sure the latter is true.

Do I need to be bombarded with emails and phone calls and be under deadlines in order to feel important and like I’m making a valuable contribution to the organization? And if I do, then why is it so stressful to me? Do I thrive on stress? (God, I hope not.)

Ugh. Why can’t I just figure out what I want to do as a career? Why is it so difficult to determine where my passions lie and what I want to do for a living? Or why can’t I just be satisfied with any job that pays well and isn’t mind-numbingly boring at an organization that it respectable and treats its employees well? (Which is what I already have!) Why does my job have to be something that “feeds my soul”? Maybe I’m not happy with being happy. Or maybe I don’t know myself well enough to figure this out.