How much is your identity tied to your work?

12%

Geez, you ask me this on a day it was announced the company I work for is in discussions to merge with a German Company.

My identity is not tied to my job, but I enjoy where I work and what we do. So if I lose my job, it will be tough adapting to a new job (praying I can find one!).

That being said, when it comes time to retire I’ll look forward to not getting up early and having the time to ride my bike.

Ha, ha. I am what I am.

Ha interesting, my dad is going through an identity crisis after retirement. He could identify himself with his work for thirty years, but now he’s not sure who she is.

A year and a half into retirement, I am happy to say that I was never my job. I plied my career for thirty years, and I still “am” an editor, but I sustained my sense of personal identity in spite of the workplace and not because of it.

My identity is not connected at all with my job, which is at best very menial and not terribly important. If I wasn’t there tomorrow they’d carry on without me and probubly not even miss me. The other part of your question though, would I miss my job, well of course I would. I work, like many others, because I have to, I have to pay bills. We have had four management changes in the time I’ve been with the company, and yes it makes life… interesting. Each time the new manager has brought in his own people to work around him, and then there is the whole “new broom” thing where he will introduce his own methods of working, in spite of things working perfectly well as they are. As I’ve said though, who can afford to just quit their job on a whim because they don’t like management or what they’re doing? Certainly no one I know of. @wundayatta this is a GQ.
huggles xx

Most people’s identity is tied in with their profession….

Ask about someone you usually hear about what they do as a job second after their name..

I think I see my career as more character defining than the people int life – which I feel is a good sign.

I have a pretty high opinion about what I do and how I do it, but most of my friends and family (even my wife) have no clue what I do, are fuzzy on the details or simply don’t care. Who I am to them has nothing to do with my jobs.

Meaning, if I were to die tomorrow, their memories of me would have little to do with my career. I’m pretty happy about that because, as much a I love what I do, it’s ultimately just a job and a small fraction of who I am.

The thing I like about my work is the mental challenges it presents. I could very easily take the skillset to a non-profit setting as a volunteer and be quite happy. Also, I have a lot of other interests and talents that I never get to pursue because I’m so time-strapped. Arguably, I would be less time strapped if I wasn’t on here as much. I feel like I’m on Fluther a lot, but it’s generally after 10 pm, or around 5:30 am. I don’t feel like cooking or working on a project at those hours.

My current job (which doesn’t even pay much at all right) is both my identity & my most favorite job ever! It could get better, but I wouldn’t disappointed if it didn’t.

I would be disappointed if the band broke up.

I have three very different jobs, so I’ve had to develop a certain alacrity in picking up and putting down these various roles. When I step into each of these little worlds, the others vanish like a dream. It’s been an interesting education in the relative nature of identity.

I work for myself, and my job is merely a means to earn money.
I am who I am, with or without a job.

I work within the Air Force and I do some very very interesting things and get to be part of many things. I am wanting a change though there is too much that is hard to accept in todays world.

I believe this. That 15% of the employees do 100% of the work at any occupation. Sometimes, a change is necessary for the common good of all employees. Here is a case in point: two years ago, a new Police Chief was hired for my department. This person was very strong on employees doing their share of the work, equally. I agreed with him. Some drastic changes were made in my departments rules and regulations. These changes upset many officers, especially those not pulling their own weight. Thus, a brand new Officers Daily Activity Report was born, showing an officers activity for his 8 hour shift. This changed everything. Did we quit our job? no. we accepted the changes and made the best of it.

I work for myself and love what I do.No problems there.:)

Not very much. I wear a camouflage uniform 12 hours each work day so I’m mostly invisible anyway and my identity is therefore concealed for the most part.

I leave for more money.

I’m pretty tied to my career as a nurse because the things I know and do stick with me 24/7, but I’m not necessarily tied to my current job as a nurse. I think this is mostly because of the fact that I knew it was temporary when I got it due to my husband’s career. When I got this job, I knew I’d be leaving it one day, just like the last one I had. Once we are settled for good in one area, I’ll probably feel more attached to the place I work at.

I had to get a high security rating and man they look deep into your life so maybe I’m a bit tied to my job. They even talk with your neighbors. But that was years ago but they renew it once in a while.

No. My identity is not contingent on anything outside myself.

What I do and who I am are completely independent of each other, although, who I am shows up in what I do.

Over identifying with any-‘thing’ as a means of ‘securing’ a sense of self is dangerous territory.

If your entire sense of self worth and identity is contingent on external situations one is easily shattered when things do not turn out the way they belive they must for fulfillment.

Dropping all identifications with form is very liberating.

I wonder whether being tied to a job or being tied to a career is different.

The reason why I ask this is that my wife’s employer was taken over a year or so ago by another competitor. The new management chucked the acquisitions methods and installed their methods which rely more on brawn than brains. My wife, who is highly trained, is now doing copying and envelope printing, as well as the stuff they presumably hired her for.

They have reorganized so the job is more assembly line. It’s like a customer service center has replaced a system where every customer got their own agent. The old system worked better because you could learn your customers. Now, they have six times as many customers, and it’s impossible to learn them all, so the service reps are always having to learn customers that someone else already knows. They just didn’t field the call.

In addition to this reduced efficiency, they are being assigned more and more work. She has to work long hours and bring work home now.

She feels no job satisfaction any more, because she never knows if a client has gotten what they want. She’s also doing all this administrative work that requires no thought, and that isn’t very fulfilling for her. She’s miserable and she hates her job. Hates it! She’s never hated a job before in her life.

I keep telling her it’s ok to quit. I tell her she shouldn’t care. She should do a half-assed job because that’s clearly what the company wants. Indeed, her boss told her to “cut corners,” and then said if anyone asked, he didn’t say that.

She says she just can’t do that. It’s not in her to not do the best job she can. She has a reputation. Everyone knows her as being thorough and correct. She can’t give that up.

So she stays, and is miserable, and comes home and cries and cries, but she won’t even consider quitting, I think, because this is who she is: an extremely good person at her job. Well, her old job. She’s not good at cutting corners. She just can’t do it. So she’s not suited for this job, and yet, she seems to be unable to imagine leaving it. But maybe she’s changing. She has made an appointment to see her job counselor.

I, on the other hand, like my job, but’s it’s just a job, and if I had to go somewhere else, I wouldn’t care. In fact, I’d try to make the case for a career change. Try to be a writer, I think.

Very little. My friends don’t call me doctor or esquire..

It sounds like she is resisting what is, and what is, is things have changed, as they always do.
One can either stay in a situation that no longer serves them and cry about it…or, take the helm and steer their own ship into new uncharted territory.

Her suffering is not serving anyone, least of all herself.

Grieve and move on is the only sane choice in my opinion.

I never had a passion for my job, but nonetheless it is part of my identity. What I do is very specialized, so it would be difficult to find similar work at another company. Mainly what holds me here is the pay and the security. Since it is so specialized, I am afraid that any other job I might take in the future would have to be entry-level, which would likely mean less pay. This is the reason I am getting an mba, I’m hoping that will tip the potential pay scales a bit more in my favor. But only time will tell where I end up. CORRECTION: My job is not part of my identity as you put it, like in the sense that it is for my wife who is a teacher.

I don’t much of my identity is tied up at work. I like helping cancer patients but I feel that I play a persona at work (the quiet girl) that isn’t at all what I am – I can’t really be open here about what I am passionate about nor can I really expect people to understand my gender non conformity. If I talk too much about the injustice my patients face because of the fucked up system of healthcare, I’m too rowdy, whatever. This isn’t what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.

I think everyone should feel pride working for the company they are employed by as I consider that company to be a direct reflection of the persons choices and character in life. If the company does change for the worse and it no longer is reflective of a company you are proud of, definitely time for a change. Life is too short to work for a crum-bum company. I mean at least ¼ of your time is tied up working there and it is most certainly a reflection of part of your identity but certainly not all of it. I leave my work at the office and become mild mannered Cruiser when at home. ;)

@wundayatta I think I see what you’re getting at. She feels that the workplace should be more human, less routine, and this change is an affront to her need to be seen as a person, not a block on a flowchart. It’s the same sense of outrage that factory workers experienced with the advent of “efficiency” engineering that reduced each job to precise rote steps that any dolt could perform.

Maybe it’s less a question of identification with the job than the sense that one’s identity actually matters.

At the moment I feel like I am my job :-/
Working seven days a week, sometimes doing a twelve hour shift or back to back eight hour shifts….. Today I’ve a bit of a rest as my six till twelve shift is over with… I’m back in tomorrow doing a six till two……
I can hear my friends calling “SCOOBY DOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU” …….
Still it won’t last forever, the overtime that is, so I have to get it while I can……. :-/

@Scooby, do you have a seasonal job? What kind of work other than medicine has a schedule like that?

@Jeruba

No not at all, I get my hands dirty for a living…..... It’s a full time, all year round job in heavy manufacturing, production of various parts & assembly for the earth moving industries around the globe…. Mainly in the European sectors.. Production is at a high for the first time in nearly three years, new customer demands are dictating the production schedules so it’s all hands on deck ( so to speak ) throughout the various departments, production processes.. It’s really nice to be busy again, the thoughts of closure are well in the past now as the order books are swelling week on week…… busy, busy, busy……..
:-/