Attitude As It Relates To Job Performance

Long story short: it doesn't.

Those who believe an unhappy person doesn't do as good a job as one delighted with things as they are — I believe they are simply out of touch with the real world.

Many of the excellent performers I know personally in various fields — as disparate as law, gardening, sales, waitressing, medicine, airline pilot, coffee roaster, upscale real estate broker, and business school admissions committee member — are not very thrilled with what they do.

Some have to fight every morning to make it in, so unhappy and angry are they with their lot.

Don't give me that "Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow" pap — it's a sound bite to keep you anesthetized.

I got through medical school only by riding a combination of fear, uncertainty and well–concealed rage at the whole process.

I left general practice after two years because I was bored to tears and devastated each night when I got home, a combination of emotional fatigue and (short–term, I hope) brain damage resulting from listening to 30 depressed people a day tell me the somatic manifestations of their misery.

But guess what?

Every single practice I worked at during that two–year run–up to beginning my anesthesiology residency (which I absolutely loved every minute of, by the way) begged me to stay and become full–time.

They loved me.

I'm talking five or so different groups around the greater L.A. area including Kaiser, one in East Los Angeles in the heart of the barrio, one in Beverly Hills and a couple others.

Why?

You can believe what you like but what they all told me is that I was a doctor who really cared about the patients and the patients — most of whom I'd seen only once or twice during my short stint as a fill–in — told them so.

So drop the "why don't you quit if you're so unhappy?" stuff — it's silly and tedious and simply marks you as just another Kool–Aid drinker.

Me, I'd much rather tell it like it is than live in some fantasyland.

I'm with Jerzy Grotowski who memorably remarked, "Daily life involves endless pretexts."