Suffer With Me

“It’s going to be a big year, come join us,” said one LinkedIn post.  

You know the types: “This company is growing so fast,” or “everything is great,” or “what a great opportunity this is!”  

Hell, I’m pretty sure our company has a handful of posts like this, too. After all, Levelset is growing fast, we do have a good opportunity, we are working on a big year, and things are “great.”

Like “We Want YOU” Uncle Sam posters in the throes of WWII, if you’re even remotely connected to the tech game, these posts and “opportunities” are everywhere.  

But I absolutely hate them.  

If you’re in the market for new opportunities, your best hope is that these advertisements are lies and embellishments. 

Trust me, you don’t want things to be so “great.”  

You want to suffer. 

Bring Me The Wretched Refuse Of Your Teeming Shore

If you visit the Statue of Liberty, the magnificent symbol of freedom and uncapped opportunity poking off Ellis Island and overlooking the great city of New York, you’ll come across the famous poem by Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus.

And you’ll notice that it doesn’t read like a LinkedIn buzz-post:  

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

There’s something really wonderful about this invitation into America.  

Close your eyes and imagine this statute towering over Ellis Island and New York Harbor in those early days. It’s 1886. What does the United States look like?  

Is it going to be a “big year?” Is it going to “grow so fast,” and be a “great opportunity?”

The 1886 United States is messy. It’s funky. It just emerged from a Civil War.  The President and leader of the Union is a muted Grover Cleveland. The roaring 20s are 30 years away. The post-WWII boom is 60 years away.

And the doors of Ellis Island are open for business, asking for the “wretched refuse.”

Are you applying?

Thinking about where to work is a tricky consideration. There are so many dynamics. Are you looking for something steady and predictable? Are you looking for a paycheck? Are you looking to clock out every day at 5? Are you looking for the crowning achievement of your career? Are you looking to make a dent in the world? In an industry? In a group of people?

What the hell do you want? 

See: Career Advice You’ll Love or Hate: Your Choice.

I Think You Want To Suffer

First a disclaimer: You may not want to suffer. That’s okay.  

There are many jobs where you can have a fun work environment, a great team, a great experience, and a good bit of professional growth.  

And, by the way, if this is the case, then you shouldn’t care about all the “opportunity” and “growth” buzz anyway. These aren’t really “opportunities.” They are jobs.

These jobs carry many benefits.  

But they aren’t “opportunities,” and I’m 100% sure of it.  

Opportunities never look like this.  

As Thomas Edison famously quipped, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Opportunities are never bestowed en mass.  

They are never obvious. 

They are never easy.  

And if you want one of these “opportunities,” then you need to suffer.

Suffering is not so bad. It’s good in fact. Consider Ravindranath Tagore’s beautiful poem:

I slept and dreamt

that life was joy.

I awoke and saw

that life was duty.

I worked - and behold, 

duty was joy.

Tom Hanks’ character in A League of Their Own put it a different way: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

What a great quote: If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.

True opportunity comes in only one form: hard.  

And you can’t do something that is hard without great suffering. 

Demand To Know What Will Be Really Hard And Where You Can Suffer

The job posting, application, and hiring process is a bit funny. Companies put out job postings and advertise about how great the opportunity is. The candidate and the company go on an interview blitz touting about how wonderful everything is.  

In all my years of interviewing and talking about Levelset with job candidates, I’ve never had a candidate truly size up the Levelset opportunity.  

They ask about all kinds of things, sure. 

They look for hidden show-stopping problems, yes.  

But they never go digging for what will be super difficult, stressful, and hard about the job. They never truly go digging for where they can really, really suffer.

I love Sheryl Sandberg’s 2012 HBS commencement speech.  

She talks about a job candidate who came to her at Facebook, “Lori.” 

She called me and she said, I want to talk to you about coming to work with you at Facebook, so I thought to call you and ask you about all the things I’m good at, all the things I like to do, but I figured that everyone’s doing that, so instead, I want to know, what’s your biggest problem and how can I solve it? My Jawa hit the floor. I’ve hired thousands of people in my career and no one had ever said anything like that and I never said anything like that. Job searchers are always about the job searcher. But not in Lori’s case. I said, you’re hired. My biggest problem is recruiting and you can solve it. So Lori changed fields into something she never thought she’d do, went down a level to start a new field, and has since been promoted to run all the people operations at Facebook and is doing an extraordinary job and having an amazing impact.

As you start your career...look for opportunities, look for growth, look for growth, look for impact, look for mission, move sideways, move down, move on, move off. Build your skills, not your resume. Evaluate what you can do and not the title they’re going to give you. Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job. Don’t plan too much, and don’t expect a direct climb. If I had mapped out my career when I sitting where you are, I would have missed my career.

Sandberg says: “Look for opportunities.”

Yes. 

Do that.  

Real opportunities.

And then hold on until there’s no suffering left.

See where you can suffer at Levelset -- levelset.com/careers/