In a study, Richard Hackman, Greg Oldham, and their colleagues proposed that there are 5 identifiable features of intrinsically motivating jobs. In other words, there are some specific, elements to a job that make it something someone will actually enjoy doing.
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Honestly, before reading this article I knew that I loved working in theatre but, like the article said, I wasn't really sure why I loved it so much. But everything this article said was true. The parts I found to be the truest for myself is "seeing a project through to completion" and "making an impact." I also think these two go hand and hand. In theatre, the fact that we are involved on the same project throughout multiple stages of its creation and execution allows us to directly see the impact our work is making on other artists and on audiences. Every job in theatre is necessary and I think one of the most rewarding things about working in this industry is when you finally get to see the final product and you can think that you had some hand in making that, or that it could not have been made without you. This is what I think about every time I am doing the more mundane and repetitive jobs; I always try to remember that every job is necessary no matter how unexciting it might seem and that I am helping to create something wonderful.
Most people say that when you love something you shouldn’t question it- but this article defies that rule. This article presents it’s readers with a series of five questions on why you presumably “love” your job. I personally think that everyone does think these questions, either at one point or all the time, just subconsciously. People who work in the industry understand why the life behind the scenes is so exciting, but everyone is a little biased. One of the questions that especially made me think was, “will I see and understand the impact my job has on others?”. Given the circumstances of working backstage, the people who bring the magic together don’t get the much recognition for their efforts. This question addresses the fact that sometime you won’t get rewarded. But this question is something that everyone this about, recognized or not. I think this article did a good job at being honesty and acknowledging things that people don’t normally talk about. These questions are something I will definitely asking myself when devoting time to something that I love.
This article discusses five elements that one needs in order to love a certain job and applies it to theater. I was particularly drawn to the second reason: “seeing a project through to completion.” When people ask me why I love theater, my answer ties into this reason. I love working on something from the beginning of a process and then seeing it all come together. I also love, related to the third reason, being able to share my work with people. Of course, there are times when I wish people wouldn’t see my work if I am not proud of it but more often than not there is a lot of joy that comes with sharing my work with people. I also think that the fourth reason ties into the second reason because without the decision-making, there is a lot less to make me proud of my work. If a project succeeds and, if it is partially due to decisions I made, I will feel a lot more pride in my work and take a lot more joy from the process.
I found this article incredibly interesting, and while reading it, I found myself really thinking about if I do these things in my daily life in and outside of theater. The first of the five things the article states happiness comes from, using a variety of skills on a daily basis, really hit close to home. This is something that we, in the world of drama, always do. Take today for instance. I started my day with a class about drawing where we talked about the elements and principles of art and design, and we used charcoal to draw a piece of fruit we had cut opened. On top of using art skills, we also had to use active listening and had to participate during the process. Then I went to my history class where I had to actively listen and synthesize it in the form of notes. Next, I have production science where we talk about the technical ideas and information we need to properly design for the stage. Just this one day I have drawn from so many different skill sets. All of the five things listed in the article are things I try and will continue to strive to do every day in order to make mile life in drama as happy as can be.
The thing that jumps out to me the most on this list is the seeing a project through to completion aspect. Up until last summer, I’d only worked jobs in theaters during the summer, and since I’m building shows all school year, I was very used to seeing a project from start to finish in a matter of a few weeks. This summer I was working in a commercial shop in a department that does theater renovation and theme park work with timelines spanning often around a year or show, with some projects looking at a few years from start to completion. I definitely underestimated how much harder it would be for me to feel part of the process when I was jumping in midway through and leaving the project at about the same phase in the process as it was when I arrived. I still got invested in the projects in the end, ultimately it just made leaving feel weird because I wanted to see everything through. I think because I was able to picture what the projects would one day be I still got the feeling of the potential of seeing something through to completion by picturing what completion would be, even though I know I won’t necessarily be there for that. I think we could apply the idea of being able to picture the completed project while working more here at CMU. Specifically when it comes to the scene shop, we have freshmen and sophomores working on scenery without necessarily an idea of what the show as a whole will look like or what specific unit they are ripping down 1x for. I wonder if that work would feel less like frustrating busy work (as I know it does to many people on crew) if we gave people a better picture of the end product they are working towards.
I found this article to be very helpful, specially for people in management, not because of themselves, but in order to create opportunities for the employees to feel like their job matters and it’s not an overpriced game of pretend. Almost every tip given, I have experienced in some way or another during my life as an employee, not just a theatre worker, but a retail employee too. The jobs I enjoyed the most and were most gratifying were the ones where I could experience some sense of autonomy, where I felt like my job was creating an impact, and being able to see my ‘targets’ achieved, or seeing my projects through completion. And all these things are mentioned and explained in this article. It also made me reflect a lot on job position that made me unsatisfied and unhappy, and I was able to identify which parts were missing, and how as a manager I can create opportunities to fix it.
It is interesting that this article identifies five elements out of all the things that we love so much about theater. I agree with all five and especially with the last one because I struggle with feedback. It is not that I am bad at receiving or giving feedbacks from and to others but that I struggle with setting time aside to reflect by myself on each project or production. I get easily occupied with what I have to do right now and in the near future that reflecting on the past never gets priority. So, when post-mortems and feedback are standardized in the system, like in the article and like here in school of drama for example, I benefit a lot from it. It gives me a chance to think about why I did what I did and what could be done better. Only after couple productions, the reflections accumulated and revealed a pattern of who I am. It is so much easier now to identify what aspect of the job makes me happy and not, just based on the reflections. So I agree strongly that feedback really should be the important criteria in any job.
While I understand that phrase “do a job you love” or some variation of that phrase is often thrown out there, I’m not sure that is always what matters but rather do a job you can get a strong measure of satisfaction out of mostly because I feel I fall into the latter category than the former. This is not to say that I don’t love theater at times be like any job work can grind on you. The number one thing that I feel can help with this and is in fact why I switched fields into the world of theatre is that of see jobs through to completion. It is often underestimated in the work place in as rewarding of a feeling it is to completely finish a project and be able to look and your end results and be satisfied with it. Often you won’t have validation from others but when you can feel a sense of completion you can often just feel pride in your work whether or not other fully appreciate your work and that can truly help with the difficult times at work.
Part of the reason I chose to come to Carnegie Mellon was because I made the ultimate decision that theatre was what I loved and that I couldn’t really see myself being happy working in any other field. I had trouble quantifying exactly what it was I love about it, but I think this article does a good job of summing up part of why I find it so enjoyable. The ever-changing responsibilities and needs of different productions keep everything feeling new, it’s not just doing the same task over and over for years like in many other jobs. I love being a part of a production and watching it grow from a script and an idea into something incredible that can impact and inspire others, and I think this article quantifies the things I love about working in theatre and creates concrete goals for each new show.
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