When you love the man, but hate the job

//Photo Courtesy: Elite Daily//

I went stag to an event a few weeks ago (my loving boyfriend canceled last minute #womp) and after wondering around like an lone idiot for a while I figured I better make myself useful and network. So I grew some balls and struck up a conversation with the woman leaning against the same high top table as me.

We  quickly bonded over wine and blogging and started sharing job stories. She was in her mid-thirties and a couple years into a sales job at a huge international tech company (let’s just say it’s one of the fastest growing social networking sites in the world). I of course am a career story junkie, especially when it comes to social startups, so began firing questions at her left and right. Initially I thought she would make a great Q&A subject for Job Offers & Bad Boyfriends, but as I learned more, I realized her’s was a story I’ve wanted to tell for a while now, but just hadn’t had the inspiration.

Her’s is a story about staying with a company for all the wrong reasons.

I’ll admit when she first name dropped the company she worked for, I fell for it. I’m sure there were nerdy stars in my eyes, and I may have drifted off for half a second thinking about what it would be like to say I worked there. I could tell she really liked the company too. She went on and on about all the benefits, the culture, and the people. She even talked about the social clout she received from being associated with that company.

Sounds like a perfect gig. So what’s the catch?

The catch is this: that her positive upbeat demeanor changed dramatically when she began talking about her actual job.  Her job. You know the thing she has to do everyday at said company, a.k.a the world’s most incredible place to work?

You see, after I listened to ten whole minutes of her listing off the amazing accolades of her company, I then listened to 20 minutes of her revealing what was wrong with her underwhelming, dispassionate, sales job.  Ironic huh? To love the company but hate the job?

It got me thinking about love and relationships. I’ll go out a limb here and say that there are a lot of really incredible men out there. Tinder profiles aside, they probably have a lot to offer. You could probably convince yourself to date them, love them, hell, even marry them, they’re so great. Even better, your friends would have heart emojis in their eyes when they look at them, and you’d get a selfish thrill out of showing them off at parties. But then when your back home and it’s just the two of you, you would realize that while you have a very good, very kind, very successful man, you’re in the wrong relationship. Yes, there are incredible men out there. But good relationships, sometimes those are harder to find.

But how could that be – To be so enamored by the “man”, but so over the “relationship”?

The same way it’s possible for my new friend to love her company, but want out of her job.

So what’s a career gal to do? If you’ve felt similar you’ve probably considered yourself lucky to at least love your company. After all, some people don’t even get that much right? And while that may be true it doesn’t mean loving your company should ever be at the expense of not loving what you do. It’s easy to get caught up in the seemingly perfect man. But that’s just half of the equation.

The more I asked my new friend about her experience, the more I recognized that she was doing herself a disservice by staying in a job she didn’t like despite working for a company she loved.  As a woman in the prime of her career I could tell she felt stuck in a relationship with this company. When you’re stuck it’s harder to grow, it’s harder to advance, and most importantly, it’s harder to see a way out.

So don’t let yourself get stuck. Don’t let yourself get caught up with the perfect man if the relationship doesn’t feel right. If you need to reevaluate the job, then make that your priority. Because companies come and go, but the job is the meat and bones of your career. You have to love what you do before you love who you’re with.

In a perfect world the relationship and the man sync up, and believe me, you’ll know it when it happens. In the meantime, trust yourself know the difference between loving the company and loving the job.

Have you ever loved the man, but not the job? Share your thoughts in the comments below!