Outsourcing your job or finding your purpose in life

There was a fun story on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning about a software engineer in the United States who had apparently outsourced his work to China. This led to a jokey discussion from the presenter about the appeal, the practicalities and of course the consequences of paying someone else to do your work.

As someone who feels lucky (most of the time) to have a job which is a vocation and a passion, it struck me as somewhat sad that he felt this way about his work. Even more, to discover he used the time created by this ruse to watch some of the videos of cats on YouTube.

(Actually there are some great cat videos on YouTube – although this is my favourite cat related one.)

One of the most inspiring aspects of spending time helping aspiring entrepreneurs and listening to successful ones, is hearing about their attitude to work – they don’t have one. If I had a pound for every time someone said, “since starting my business I have not had a day of work”… I would have about £20 by now. But seriously, you can hear that their business is their passion, both in what they say and their tone of voice. Being master or mistress of their own fate means so much to them.

I had my share of unrewarding jobs before stumbling upon the information profession and seeing the light, so I can relate to some extent to this cat loving computer programmer. But it seems such a shame to think of someone being creative enough to outsource their work, but not enough to find an activity to give them a sense of fulfilment.

Perhaps our business and life coach Rasheed Ogunlaru might be able to inspire them to help to discover what their heart truly desires, and the route to bring it to life.

One Reply to “Outsourcing your job or finding your purpose in life”

  1. Neil,

    I enjoyed your take on things, if this is your site, but it is interesting how people who do things for themselves don’t think about it as work. We met only once, and that was in 2004 at a “work” related conference that our “employers” paid for. I don’t work in the traditional information profession any more, haven’t since early 2006 and since then nothing has been work. Sure I don’t have the pay I even had when I was fresh out of my MLIS but I realized some time ago that there is a lot more to life. There is a lot more to doing things that you are passionate about and using “all” of your skills. Thanks for sharing mate. I “The Konnector” and because if it I believe that yesterday there may have been at least a few more hundred people who knew that Turkish Journalist Mehmet Ali Birand passed away very recently.

    Cheerz, from Montreal.

    Bill

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