The long and short of why we do the jobs we do

It’s good sometimes to wonder what keeps you in your job – but can you sum it up in six words?

EVERY WEEK when writing this column I set myself a theme and try to do it justice in about 800 words. This week I am going to do things a bit differently. My theme is something I’ve touched on before – why we do the jobs we do – but my word count has shrunk. I have only six words in which to nail it.

I am limiting myself like this in response to a competition sponsored by management consultancy Mercer and Smith magazine, which invites people to submit six-word stories with the title “Why I Do What I Do”.

I like the idea. It’s good sometimes to wonder what keeps you in your job; the tight word limit makes waffle and pretentiousness out of bounds.

So I sat down and spent a while chewing my pen. Why do I do what I do? After a small crisis that such profound thinking inevitably brings on and after much searching of soul and wallet, I have come up with the following entry: “Money, recognition, gossip, freedom, satisfaction, mirth.”

My six words are by no means perfect, but I’m not displeased with them as they are honest and pretty much cover the waterfront. Perhaps “mirth” is a bit of a stretch, but I couldn’t face writing “fun” as it sounded too trite.

Yet for some inexplicable reason I seem not to have won. Instead, prizes have been given to: “Amateur chocolatier, making life little sweeter” and “Because brilliant ideas die without encouragement”.

The only thing these entries have over mine is a better narrative flow. The first is a cheesy slogan with a word missing, and the second a shocker. I take it all back about the impossibility of being pretentious in six words.

I am particularly disappointed to discover that the woman who wrote “Because brilliant ideas deserve encouragement” is a careers adviser at Oxford University. They weren’t like that in my day. Back then they did what they did for another six-word reason: introducing spoilt graduates to real world.

I’ve had a skim through some of the other entries and find the judges have missed some gems. I like “After 38 years, still not sure”, but my runaway favourite is: “Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.” This is simple, elegant, works on many levels and I wish I’d been sufficiently Zen to come up with it myself.

It is a clock ticking, marking out a working day. It stands for the repetition that is a big part of all jobs; it also suggests that six boxes are being ticked, but leaves it up to the reader to decide what they are.

Otherwise the entries are astoundingly grim. “Desire: being part of the solution”, “Chances to reach others. Deeply. Spiritually”, “Work is Passion. Passion is work” . . . Are they joking? What brave new world is this? After spending half an hour trawling through this sort of bilge, a four-word story has formed in my head: Pass the sick bag.

Hoping for something better, I have set up a competition of my own, inviting colleagues to write their own short stories on the same subject.

They have approached the task with zeal – though mostly reaching for the reassuring journalistic default position of cynicism. “Fear and greed, like everyone else,” said one colleague. “Haven’t been offered a better job,” said another, while a third said: “Got no Sky Sports at home.”

Another popular theme was work as escape. One mother of three writes from the heart: “To get away from the kids.” Another puts it more elaborately: “Daily vicissitudes conveniently occlude enduring questions.”

I had to look up what occlude means, but wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment. I also agree with the still darker version: “Deadens the drumming of the demon.”

After much deliberation, I’ve chosen three winners which I think are variously true, surprising and profound. The first is: “Tried banking. Didn’t like it.” I love this story. It has great plot structure. It is also dead right in that lots of us (me included) end up doing something because something else didn’t work out.

The second prize hints at something deeper: “To find better version of myself.” This is daringly at odds with the current mood. Post phone hacking, journalism is generally believed to be where you go to find a worse version of yourself.

But the one that I like most of all is: “Because it is hard and easy.” These six little words are oddly deep. A job that is only hard is too exhausting; a job that is only easy is too dull. The right balance is what makes a good job so special.

In case you haven’t had your fill of six-word stories, I want to add another of my own, inspired by my work this week. Why I do what I do? “Colleagues make me think and laugh.” – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)