How work affects your personality

"What do you do?" - this is one of the first questions that we ask people when we meet. It is believed that a person's work can tell a lot about him. However, much more about a person can be learned by asking what character traits and what way of thinking his profession requires and how much work affects his ordinary life.

Asking a question about what people have to deal with at work, you can get very different answers.

The dentist will tell you that he constantly has to deal with excuses and weak character. Serious adults cancel the appointment, citing lack of free time, and when they do find themselves in a chair, they lie about how carefully they used dental floss and break all the promises they made last time. Raising "big children" makes the dentist strict.

The legal adviser will answer that he faces the aggression and impatience of his clients on a daily basis, who want everything to be done yesterday. No one cares about other people's personal lives.

The sound engineer will say that problems arise unexpectedly and constantly, but if you are careful and act methodically, then there will definitely be a solution. If there are seven possible causes of the problem, you just need to check each of them. Technology is generally good because everything in this area is arranged logically.

What work changes in us

All professions can be classified according to which traits of human nature they strengthen and weaken.

Patience and irritability … Does your job teach you to focus on what is happening here and now, and what will happen in a few years is considered unimportant (news editor, nurse-nurse)? Or does it make you think long term (aeronautical engineer, power plant inspector)?
Suspicion or trust … Which of the senses is heightened by your work? Are you in an environment where people keep a lot to themselves or use outright lies (journalist, antique dealer)? Or do you work with people who do not hide their concerns (psychotherapist, air traffic controller)?
Speculation or specificity … At work, are you focused on what things could be, or what they really are? Are you paying attention to things that other people don't care about (scientist, poet), or are you being paid to pay attention to purely practical details (roofer, fresh fruit supplier)?
Seeking consent or independence … Some professions teach the ability to come to a common opinion (teacher, party organizer), others highlight personal opinions or an unusual point of view on familiar things (coach, entrepreneur).
Optimism or pessimism … Does your job encourage you to find positives and perhaps iron out deficiencies (marketing, personal coaching), or does it develop a habit of paying attention first of all to the dangers and mistakes that can lead to trouble in the future (lawyers, accountants)?
Profit-oriented or financial aloofness … Does the work environment and your status involve a focus on money and profit (salesperson, CEO), or can it be overlooked on a day-to-day basis (researcher, teacher)?
Fragile position or secure status … Artists often fail: the work in which they have invested their whole soul can be underestimated, or even completely ignored. Even if they are good at what they do, commercial success and public acceptance are not at all guaranteed. Whereas other professions imply good remuneration: for example, a qualified IT specialist will definitely find a high-paying job.
The best or worst sides of life … Some professions are constantly reminded of the value of life (obstetrics, nursing). In other areas, people are more exposed to the worst aspects of human nature (police, family law).
Strict hierarchy or random progress … In some professions, the conditions that are required to advance the career ladder are known in advance and are logical (pilot, teacher), while in others, career growth is much more dependent on chance and connections (television, politics).
Working in a disappearing or growing industry … There are areas of activity, the golden age of which is already in the past. Working in such areas is probably not as interesting as it used to be (book publishing, broadcast television). And there are new industries with high profits and explosive growth (social media, technology). Do you work with people who feel they can conquer the world, or are you among those who understand that the world has already conquered them?

The essence of change

Being in a certain psychological environment every day for many years has a huge impact on our habits and thinking. It affects how we perceive people, determines our outlook on life and gradually changes ourselves. Everything we do in the workplace extends to the rest of our lives.

Usually we think that this happens somewhere far away and with anyone, but not with us. We understand that the views of a French aristocrat in the 15th century were predetermined by a strict social hierarchy and the ethics of a warrior, and hard work and constant struggle with the elements significantly influenced the worldview of the inhabitants of a Scottish fishing village in the 19th century. However, we are not much different from them. It is much more difficult for us to notice what is happening to us, because for ourselves our views seem completely natural and the only true, although this is not so. A meeting with a foreigner or a person with a completely different occupation from yours will help to see this.

Sometimes we can notice the effects of work on a person. If you ask a lawyer what cars will be like in 20 years, he will be surprised: why bother thinking about something unattainable now? Technology can develop in completely unpredictable ways, but in 20 years there will be courts, laws and jurisprudence. And we'll deal with it all when the time comes. And if you ask an academician how much he earns per hour or what profit his latest discovery has brought, he will certainly consider your questions inappropriate.

We know that the way people think in the work environment can also be traced in their behavior in everyday life. The elementary school teacher perceives his children as students, the teacher accustomed to lecturing is usually the main talker at dinner parties, and the politician is unlikely to resist giving a speech at a wedding.

However, this is all just the tip of the iceberg. The impact of work becomes noticeable in many other cases.

Technicians are very calm and perceive life problems in the same way as technical problems they face at work. They believe that most of the difficulties can be dealt with if you do not panic and methodically go through all possible solutions.
Television producers have a fragile sense of their own worth. They are very aggressive when they feel that they are on top, but quickly change their behavior, realizing that the situation is not in their favor.
Dentists love to command. They scold people for their weaknesses so often that it becomes a habit.
Freelance writers, who constantly have to adapt to the demands of their clients, get used to the feeling of being misunderstood and underestimated.

Good and bad influence

Work can influence people well. The worldview acquired in the work environment often fills in gaps and cultivates qualities that a person could not develop on their own. In an office where speed and punctuality are important, a sluggish and frivolous person usually becomes more collected. And an environment where reaching a compromise is part of the workflow will be extremely useful for people who consider their own opinions to be extremely important.

However, work also has a negative impact. When a person has a certain way of thinking and performing tasks, everything other than this is gradually supplanted. A school administrator can be very good at recruiting staff and solving organizational problems, but the question "What is the global goal of education?" will confuse him.

Questions like these can be very painful for many of us, as they remind us once again of what we had to give up in order to focus on specific work. Having devoted most of our lives to a particular cause, we are not able to devote enough time to other, potentially no less intriguing, things.

Remembering how work changes us means being more forgiving of other people. Perhaps it was their job that made them nervous, aggressive, or boring. If they were doing something else, they would probably be completely different people.