Tao and Zen

Last Thursday, while I was recovering from the class I'd just delivered in the UK, my boss called me on my mobile phone. He asked me if I'd be willing to let him pull me off the training I was scheduled to give in India next month, and then he said, very quietly, "I need you." If I hadn't already been ready to say "yes", that made up my mind for you. "I'm yours," was my reply, as it always has been when I'm needed.

This is why I do what I do. Obviously I need a paycheck, and obviously I need for it to be "enough" by whatever definition I'm using at the current time, but since I started my tech career, my main motivation hasn't been money. In fact, though I'd always like to be making more, I have to say that if I didn't love what I was doing, no amount of money would entice me to keep doing it.

I do what I do because I have a passion for it. I have a passion for providing good technical answers to customers who need them, and I have a passion for "getting it right". I have a reputation for delivering excellent technical support, and I come by it honestly, with hard work, long hours, and an attention to detail that my customers really appreciate.

I don't martyr myself. I feel that it's important to kick back and relax now and then, to play, to take time for myself, to rest. If I put in fourteen hours one day I'll put in only five or six the next. I flex my hours as much as possible. I work from home when I can.

But I do take an immense amount of pride in my work. There is nothing I hate so much as doing a half-assed job, because even if nobody else notices, I sure do. I've always been unhappy in situations where nobody around me knows whether I'm doing a good job or not. I hold myself to a standard of excellence but I also need others to hold me to that standard. And I feel that no matter how excellent I am, there is always room for change, for improvement, for growth.

My career isn't the only thing that gives me satisfaction. I have a lot of hobbies that take up my free time, and a wonderful partner and children. I am not "married to my job" or buried in my work to an unhealthy degree. But I really believe in what I do and I take it very seriously -- much more seriously than I take myself. And I believe that this is why I'm successful, why I'm valued, and why at this point in my career -- after a decade of very hard and rewarding work -- I can pretty much write my own ticket, including a possible transfer to another country if that's what I want.

I am the can-do woman, and I find it very, very rewarding.