Why do people work? The answer is straightforward. This boils down to the most popular desire in most humans i.e. money. By working, you will earn the income for your survival, to feed your family members and for further desires or luxury.
There is no end to human desires and that is where people push themselves harder and further to satisfy their needs and wants. All in all, there comes the big question: Does your work change your personality? I believed the majority would agree with me that it’s a big yes.
Work is very much embedded in our lives that we unknowingly embrace our work into our daily routine. Let’s discuss and see how work has impacted and changed an individual’s personality.
Responsibility and Accountability
Work is work. When a company pays you to execute the duties and roles you are employed for, you are expected to deliver the job within the allotted time frame. Of course, with some due respect that we are all humans and there are times that we may need to be absent from work for example due to urgent family matters and other important issues, nevertheless, during normal, non-turbulence days, the management will hold you responsible for your actions and your deliverables.
With that, you can see that as you are being employed, you are not able to escape your duties and responsibilities – this changes your personality from being laid back and relaxed to a person who needs to keep to the timeframe allocated. You will also have a sense of ownership on the work you deliver. For example, if you are able to deliver great results to the management and receive praise for the good quality of work, you will automatically feel the sense of achievement and success.
Detailed Oriented vs Inattentiveness
At work, your deliverables will need to be accurate and represent the right information to the higher ups. Employees that may be less attentive to details might provide inaccurate information of deliverables which can pose a threat. This may affect the management’s decision too, depending on how crucial the information is.
Thus, during work, individuals who are sitting at the spectrum of carelessness may need to push themselves harder to ensure they pay more attention to the details of submitting their final output to their management. In that sense, you can clearly see the push for a change in personality here.
Training the Emotional Quotient
In the office environment, you are bound to face many types of “species” i.e. all types of different humans with different personalities and in order to sail through your work life with minimal mishaps, you may in reality need to wear different “masks” when you face different people.
Don’t think of it as being a hypocrite but rather an effort you made to ensure all people are dealt with appropriately leading to a positive and harmonious ending. You may be a steadfast, upright, honest and straightforward person and disliking the method of beating around the bush. However, when you face some of your colleagues or higher management who may prefer a more “gentle, softer” approach, you are then required to adapt and adjust the way you present or deliver the message to them.
Working Colleagues
Living in a competitive and ever-changing era, it is quite common to say that those who work are actually in reality spending more time daily with their working colleagues rather than their family members. Clocking into the office in the morning and then clocking out late in the evenings, the majority of your daily lives are with your working buddies.
If you are a lucky cookie, you will be lucky enough to meet the right people who carry the same vision, same temperament, and all of you can easily click with one another. You may be an introvert, but with the right crowd who can motivate and encourage you to speak out, it is no surprise that an introvert can overcome their own personality boundaries by moving up to speak their mind in certain situations.
With a fun workforce, you can also indirectly change from a negative minded person to at least having some more positive inputs in life. The world will not look so bleak to you.
Financial Awareness
One thing that is very clear when you transition from a full-time student to a working employee is the clear definition of financial awareness. Talking about a full-time student who does not require any sort of part time work to fund their studies, their mindset is very clear that the most important expectation would be to study and pass their exams. They are aware that the finances at the back end are taken care of well by their parents so there is not so much to worry about.
However, as you evolve and move on to working adults, whereby you are free from the reins of your family, there will be a time where you will taste what it is like to fend for yourself, surviving on your own paycheck. Working without any additional financial support from the family will teach you to manage your personal finances independently and knowing what you need to pay and how much you can save each month.
Priorities
Stepping into the working world is no easy feat and reality may not be a bed of roses. However, with work on hand, people will indirectly force themselves to start learning how to arrange their priorities in life.
At work, there will be hectic days where many ad hoc and urgent enquiries will be received and that is where one will learn how to manage and arrange which enquiry is most important (by weighing the impact it has on the business). In that sense, a person’s personality can be trained or shaped by being able to be more organized and structured in the long run.
Coming to an end to this very debatable and interesting topic, I would say that work really does change one’s personality, not entirety, but a major influence throughout your lives. Work is part and parcel of life for many people in this world and we do need work to survive, to fulfill our desires and needs. Nevertheless, work is an indispensable norm in life which keeps humans going.
