Three Kinds Of People With Jobs

There are three kinds of people who have jobs.

The Workers: Those that are working to live
The Lifers: Those that live to work
The Lucky: Those where work and living have no recognizable differences

Sarnia has a really high concentration of The Workers. For example, Most jobs in the plants consist of repetitive, boring and un-inspirational work. Our pay cheques allow us to live the lives we want. Buy the things we want, eat where we want, vacation where we want and all the luxuries we could imagine.

The Lifers seem to be full of self driven peple where their entire purpose in life gets wrapped up in what they do. I imagine people that are working on a start-up are like this. Everything goes into work. Every dream, every waking moment and every conversation revolves around the work that they are involved in.

The Lucky are found among the self-employed and entrepreneurs who have somehow carved out a life where everything they are doing for work, they would do for fun as well. Essentially though The Lucky people are the fortunate ones to wake up in the morning and do what they want, because what makes them money is also what they want to do. Rarely do these two things collide.

When hiring staff for your business, or for your city or for an organization – avoid The Worker. People who just want/need a job are everywhere and they are just using you so that they can make money and then live the life that they want. Sure this is how most people are and how most of the world works, but if you are looking to make a good hire – avoid them. The Lifer is a hiring manager’s dream, but will likely be impossible to detect ahead of time, but when you get one, keep them and keep them close. When someone has made their life your work you really couldn’t have it better. They are literally giving you their life, so treat them well and thank them often. The Lucky will probably never apply for your job nor want to work for someone else. The Lucky find complete contentment in setting their own visions and accomplishing their own tasks and feel smothered very quickly working for someone else.

If I could organize one company and money was not an obstacle – I would find a bunch of The Lucky – and just pay them to exist in the world. No job description, no check-ins, no KPIs. I would just hand them a salary and tell them to do whatever it is that they feel like they need to do and then just see what happens. I think miracles would happen.