Doing what you don’t love

Day 202 / 366

Back in college, there used to be some internships and jobs that only people with a high CGPA could apply for. It seemed unfair to everyone. If the internship is about software development, why does your grade in thermodynamics matter?

Later on at JP Morgan when I got a chance to interview candidates at IITs, I discussed it with some seniors there, and the reply I got was pretty convincing. Their logic was this — A person who is passionate about one subject would score good grades in that, but might not do so well in others. However, if a person is scoring good grades overall, it means that he is able to get good grades even in subjects that they are not so excited about.

This is a useful skill for employers. When you work for a firm, you might not always be given a task that you like. If your performance is dependent upon how much you like or dislike a task, that would limit the kind of contribution you can make at the firm. On the other hand, they would prefer to hire someone who can do well no matter if they like the task or not.

I see this all the time when working with new recruits. As long as you give them tasks that excite them, they will be happy. But they resist when you assign them a so-called “boring” task.

This thought came to my mind because I was in no mood to write this blog today. It felt like a chore, and I thought of every possible way to avoid it. But then I told myself that this was just practice, that this would help me get better at finishing tasks that needed to be done, no matter if I enjoyed doing them or not.