Feed the lizard
The problem here isn’t about politics at all; it’s about life and work and an attitude toward work that I’m afraid I’ve seen from a lot of younger people over the past 10 years. If your boss wants you to do something, just go do it! If you find the work unpleasant and don’t want to keep doing it for the long term, that’s fine. Nobody stays in a job forever, and it’s always reasonable to want a better one.
But you know what’s a good way to get a better job? Work really hard at the job you have and impress people. Feed the chameleon!
When you’re young and don’t have the experience or knowledge of your more senior colleagues but also don’t have competing family responsibilities, you should be the one who is willing and eager to take stuff on and become a valued member of the team.
Last week, I flew to Burlington on Monday to speak at Middlebury College that evening, then back to D.C. on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday I took a train up to New York City for a dinner about energy policy, then returned to D.C. on an early morning train so I could appear on a Thursday afternoon panel. It was a kind of exhausting week, but I also like my job and it’s nice to talk to college students and in the end it was all fine.
