I always believed I was passioned about my work, the profession I chose, until… a manager I had changed my mind.I had just started a new job at this huge corporate company. It was a dream come true to work for such a prestigious company, with so many amazing people, with impeccable backgrounds in the same field of work as me. I felt important, I thought I’d found my gang — visionary people that wanted to provide amazing experiences to the customers and stakeholders.
There was only one problem: My manager kept begging me for passion, literally.
“Endora, where’s your passion?”
“Endora, without passion you can’t do this job!” — He would say,
The problem was what he considered to be passion… I don’t think we were at the same page on this one.
This is what passion meant for him:
- Working until late (even if not necessary) to show how committed you were to the job.
- Selling your soul to stakeholders, meeting unrealistic deadlines imposed by them — even if that meant working 12 hours a day with a 15 minutes break, for several days in a row.
- Accumulating endless, non-senseless overtime — and people bragging about how much overtime they had and how they would use this free time in the future (but living a poor life in the present).
- Never asking nor wanting to know how their subordinates were doing and adapting to the company, but only expecting meticulous and perfect results.
He kept asking for my passion and I could not but think there was something wrong with me. Why wouldn’t anyone at the company mention anything? Why did I seem to be the only one not fitting there? I though that something was wrong with me. I thought I had lost my passion, that I lost the fire. I didn’t want to go to work. I was actually terrified of it. Every morning, when I woke up, I would have anxiety attacks and, because of that, my performance at work would get way worse, which would make my manager pick on me even more. It was a vicious — never-ending circle.
When I finally left the company (thank god!) I had a mixed feeling of freedom with defeat. Although it felt simply amazing not having to step foot at that company again, I was still asking myself: Why did that not work out? What I have done wrong? I went through a dark period, thinking I was the problem (because nobody else seemed to have a problem with what was going on there — toxic, I know)…
…until I started at a new job. It wasn’t anything that I had expected. I was like this traumatized straight dog that bows its head looking up in suspicion manner and not knowing if it can trust the new owner or not. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t a job within my field of study, but far, faaar from it. But, you know what? After a few weeks, I never felt more passionate about a job in my whole life. Why? He are a few answers:
- My manager trusted me and gave me creative freedom to deal with my work the way I thought it was best.
- My managers trusted in me 100% and never even tried to micro-manage me.
- My voice was heard and my inputs valued (even if not aways right).
- The company principals and values were way bigger than any clients crazy demands or money.
- The team believed so profoundly in what they were doing, that you just simply wanted to do your very best every.single.day.
And then I figured… my passion was not at all related to the work I was doing, to working to a dream company, to having a higher title or whatever. My passion comes from believing on what I do, from knowing that I am bringing value to another people and to the world, and from being valued for who I am and being trusted at what I do.
So, I am curious. What does passion at work means to you?
