Definitely a job. It pays the bills but offers me little personal satisfaction. It does not define who I am.
I don’t remember who said it, but it’s a good one:
I guess that by the OP’s definition, I have a half-job, half-career.
The half-career: I derive a sense of achievement from my activities at work. I strive to excel.
The half-job: I am not on the lookout for opportunities to advance to positions of greater responsibility/authority/pay, nor do I want to exert greater influence on the organization. While my current job has grown, and I have grown in it, I really don’t want to advance, because advancement would mean spending my time managing people rather than doing the stuff I’m best at.
But by my own lights, I’d still call it a career. In a situation where advancement means a change in the fundamental nature of the work you do, from work that’s in your wheelhouse even as it gets more challenging, to work that you’d rather slit your wrists than do more than incidentally, it makes no sense to want to advance further. But that doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not it’s a career rather than just a job.
I always view a “career” as having some possibility of upward progression, professional community, generally an ecosystem of companies of various sizes, vendors, clients, professional associations, ties to education, certifications, publications, newsletters and whatnot.
Whether what you do for a living is a “job” or a “career” is largely a matter of how your approach it.
I have a friend who left a “job” in investment banking to pursue a “career” in bartending. I don’t mean they got fired or fed up and quit and now are stuck tending bar or became a drunk. This person hated I-banking and loves beer. They took a job in bar that serves hundreds of different kinds of eclectic beer, goes to various beer-related Meetups and networking groups, is dating a bar-owner, and is pursuing getting more involved in the business of bars and beer distributors.
A job, but don’t tell my bosses that. There’s zero chance for advancement and not enough incentive to be a part of their “family.” They’re good people but I’d quit in a heartbeat.
Career. Especially as defined my msith537 But it does feel like a job sometimes.
You sound an awful lot like me…
Basically I more or less like what I do, but I’ve kind of hit, or at least come very close to the level at which much more advancement would take me out of doing the stuff I like (the analysis, building working relationships and doing light technical stuff) , and switch the focus of my job to being primarily an administrative one, whereby I’d basically make ridiculously detailed and impractical project plans because that’s what the business types like to see. Then having to backpedal and do song and dance numbers because those detailed plans never hold up to IT reality. Plus I’d have to deal with budgets and accountants, both of which make me homicidally angry.
Ultimately, I’d jump in a second if someone were to walk up and tell me that they’d pay me as much or more to do something less demanding of me and my time, even if it was less prestigious or embarrassing or something.
I learned long ago that maximizing that curve like Shagnasty suggests in your own favor where it’s at. Anything else is giving the company a free pass, in hopes that someone will reward you for it, and that’s kind of a booby prize because often you get the responsibility and work without the pay, or because some other asshole gets promoted because he plays the social game better than you do. It’s just not worth it for me.
I don’t feel like I love what I do, but I guess relative to how most people feel about their jobs, I probably do. There have only been a few times when I really didn’t want to come into the office and that includes times when I’ve been depressed.
So for this reason alone, I’d say I have a career.
However, if inherited $100 million tomorrow, I’d send in my letter of resignation the very next day. What I do is a part of my identity, but it’s not so much of my identity that I can’t imagine doing something else. If I had the opportunity to do something else, something that I’d have a burning passion for, I would take it.
But since no windfalls like that aren’t heading my way any time soon, I have no qualms about sticking with my career for the rest of my professional life.