The Three Parts of My Job: What I Love, Like, and Dislike

I am very thankful in life to have a career that is both enjoyable and rewarding. Years ago, a head hunter recruiting me for a different position asked what my ideal job would be. I paused for only a second or two, and then stated that my current job was my ideal job. It still is. I do not necessarily enjoy every minute of every day, but as I often tell people, I enjoy going to work most days, which is a pretty good indicator of how much one likes their job.

At other times, I tell people that I can break the activities of my job into three categories, which are (a) activities I enjoy and find deeply satisfying, (b) activities that I like that also enable things in the first category, and (c) things I truly dislike.

Most of the parts of my job I truly enjoy involve either my intellectual work in the biomedical and health informatics field or interactions with students and colleagues. Certainly among the major things I love revolve around teaching. I believe I am particularly skilled at taking the complexity of the informatics field; distilling out the big picture, including why it is important; and conveying it through writing, speaking, and other venues. I also enjoy teaching because it requires me to keep up to date with the field. I enjoy constantly learning myself, especially as new areas of the field emerge.

I also enjoy my interactions with people, especially students. I sometimes half-joke that my interactions with learners provides me a similar kind of satisfaction that I no longer get since I gave up practicing medicine a decade and a half ago. One really nice aspect of mentoring learners is that they come in all ages and experiences. I am no longer very young, but some of the people I teach are older than me. I also enjoy mentoring others, including those who have completed their education and are advancing in the field. This especially includes young informatics faculty, both at my university and at others.

Another enjoyable aspect of my job is disseminating knowledge in diverse ways. I have found the Internet as a platform and educational technology as a vehicle to share my knowledge. As noted in a previous post, I also enjoy the opportunity to travel around the world and see informatics play out in other cultures and economies.

The second category of my work consists of activities that I like, or at least do not find onerous. Many of these activities enable my being able to do those in the first category. These include many of my administrative duties as Chair of my department. Fortunately my leadership role in my department is nowhere near a full-time job, which means that I am still able to spend plenty of time on the activities in the first category above.

Finally, there are some aspects of my job that I dislike. Most of these revolve around less-than-pleasant interactions with people with whom I work. One thing I particularly do not enjoy is managing conflicts among those who report to me. I also do not enjoy managing those who do not meet reasonable expectations for their work. And of course there is no fun when budgetary problems arise.

I sometimes think back to a conversation I had a couple years ago with the now-retired President of our university, who was previously the Dean of the School of Medicine. He lamented that one down side to reaching his level was that he did not get to work in his field (ophthalmology) any more. This really struck me, and made me realize that informatics is what makes me work life interesting, and I could never see completely giving up the intellectual side of the field.