I Don’t Care Where You Work
By: Jayla Sun
Tags: Personal Development, Life, Self Improvement, Work Life Balance, Work

I Don’t Care Where You Work

But how do I stop you from caring about where I work?

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

I’m very lucky.

For a while, I’d been working a cushy job at a University lab. A position I carried over from a undergrad extracurricular. For a few years, I strung together crappy contracts built around a student’s school year calendar.

It looked something like this:

Contract 1 = September — April

Contract 2 = May — August

Contract 3 = September — April

Contract 4= May — August

Yeah. Not really the flourishing career you hope to have post-grad. But hey, you get to tell people you work for an “Ivy-League” level institution and then let them assume you’re making conducting elite, cutting-edge research while rolling in the big bucks.

Besides, successful scholars never openly discuss salary. That would be so unprofessional.

Anyways, after a few cycles in contract renewal purgatory, I felt like my time was about to be up.

In reality, it was overdue. The staff were probably have “committee” meetings to figure out how to get this post-grad (me) who overstayed in a undergrad’s experience position for nearly two years. Oops.

In fact, in the last four months, they named me the lab manager. But hold up your jaw, it’s nothing to gawk over. The reality was, I was being paid like a peasant to babysit a bunch of overenthused undergrads. Yeah…

I must have subconsciously been aware of my expiration date because in the last few weeks of the summer, I had been casually cleaning up my resume and tossing it at anything at somewhat fell within my realm – hoping, wishing, longing, it would stick.

But the job market overlords must have sent down some guardian angels because in the last week of August, I landed an interview. And after a series of very fortunate events, I somehow ended up in my position now: full-time, permanent, remote job.

Given the economic times we’re in, I basically won the lottery. And I’m grateful. Like I said earlier, I know, I’m lucky.

But since starting this new job, I’ve been asked the dreaded question, “where do you work?”, or worse yet, “what’s the name of your company” three more times than I would have liked (I’ve been asked three times in total, by the way).

It seems pretty innocuous, and probably — it is. But honestly, I can’t help but think there’s some ulterior motive. Not that I can provide logical examples of what those might look like.

It’s more of a feeling, I think. Just the shear number of times it comes up in general conversations should be enough to make anyone skeptical, right?

It’s also the pointedness of the question. It lacks the leeway of a simple “how are you?” or “what’s new” or “how’s it going”. But “What’s the name of your company?” That’s not something I can sidestep and tango around. Like, oh, you know… it starts with a letter P. Absolutely no one is going to not notice that. But also, MY GOOD GOSH. What crime did I commit? Officer, I swear I’ll go get that headlight fixed if you’ll let me go… just no more questions, please.

Like I said, I’m probably mocking all of this up in my head. Are people curious? Sure. Do they have good reason to be? Other that the reasons that society has bred us to believe, probably not. But I mean, do any of us really run by our own rules?

Truthfully, I’m also to blame. I mean, it’s clear I attach a lot of self worth to my job. Otherwise, I’d easily be able to drink my own kool-aid.

I always say, who cares what so-and-so is doing? NOT ME. And for the most part, that’s true. I haven’t bothered to weasel occupational information out of anyone in a long time. And it’s also been a pretty long time since I’ve gone down one of those Google — Facebook — LinkedIn, CIA-esque stalker searches to figure out what someone’s been up to in the last few years. HEY, don’t judge me just because I’m honest enough to admit it.

But if I really didn’t care that much, then I guess the “where do you work” or “what’s the name of your company” questions shouldn’t bother me at all.

I mean, it’s another example we didn’t need of the classic tale of chicken-or-the-egg, which came first? Have we even answered that question yet? I don’t think so. I’m sure it’d be huge news if we did. Until then, I’ll sit on the fence and let my mood dictate my opinion for the day.