I'm full for now ...
Lydia Fisher, who graduated from high school in 2010, once wrote an essay for my AP Language and Composition class about her late-night movie watching obsession. I still remember it. I’ve graded probably 30,000 essays in my teaching life, but I can still remember sitting at my kitchen table grading that piece.
Lydia wrote about how she watched the same films and shows over and over again because they provided a certain type of structure and meaning to her private life. As someone who does the same thing, I identified with this practice right away, which is probably why I remember the essay. My wife and I have our own pantheon of films, each of which we will watch once or twice a year. Sideways. Little Miss Sunshine. The Shawshank Redemption. A few others. Good films -- but we go back to them less for their aesthetic qualities and more for how they make us feel. And don’t even get me started on The Office, especially the first four seasons. When we queue up season four, it’s like we are paying a visit to old friends. We’ve watched “Dinner Party” so many times that we can act it out at holiday gatherings. Anything that tastes funny at the Harrington table is described as having an “oaky afterbirth.” Sometimes, for no reason, we’ll all start singing this.
Lydia writes about this here -- kind of. She actually writes about a lot of things, and finishes with some great advice about how supporting the people around you can be personally fulfilling.
Lydia went to NYU, where she studied film and television and worked as an intern at Saturday Night Live and Late Night With Seth Meyers. After graduating, she moved to LA, where she studied improv, worked odd jobs in production, walked dogs, and served as a nanny for children of privilege. A few years ago she moved back to New York for a job at IFC TV, and she has been living in Brooklyn since.
Her post is about finding meaning in your work, even when it’s not exactly what you want to be doing. “I’m talking about building strong relationships with people to find meaning in jobs or tasks that may feel inconsequential or unchallenging,” she said.
- C.H.
I no longer dread having to be anywhere in the morning. This is the only metric by which I can measure how I’ve changed since high school. Allowing a 17-year-old to drive to school at 7:00 a.m. should be illegal. I got in my first accident while driving in the morning. I was on my way to a basketball tournament and I hit a Porsche. Of all the cars.... The damage was minimal and parental punishment tolerable. Today, at 26, I no longer drive because I live in New York City. And I don’t mind waking up early for work because I find my job fulfilling.
I work for a television network. Or I did until recently. I have the same boss, but I now work for an entertainment company, a conglomerate of networks. That’s cryptic, boring, and almost useless to mention here. But it’s important you know that I’m working in a field I’ve always been passionate about.
My parents let me have a small TV in my bedroom growing up. Our VHS player was wider than this TV set. The VHS sat on top of it and would tremor and seesaw when a tape would rewind. It was referred to as “a kitchen TV” and it was my third parent. When I had nightmares, sometimes I would climb into bed with my parents. Other times, I would turn on my TV and Cheers or Seinfeld would be on to lull me back to sleep. In high school, every essay I wrote my junior and senior year was about a film or television show. I was lucky to have teachers who didn’t flunk me for doing so and only encouraged me to discover deeper connections between stories from film, books, and my life. And to stay on brand, I studied film and television in college.
One thing about working in your 20s, you may be in the field you like but you may not have the job you want. I work as an assistant to an executive at my company. I can’t say I have a passion for administrative work, at least not at the junior level, but after two years of working as an assistant I have become quite good at the job and find it fulfilling. What I find fulfilling has little to do with my daily tasks. I don’t think meaning will germinate from the daily tasks and responsibilities of any job I have in my life. It will always be the people I work with.
I took improvisation classes in LA before moving back to New York for this job. One of the first rules they teach is, “make your scene partner look good,” which means when you’re on stage, don’t make jokes or try to be funny, commit to the reality of the scene, listen to your partner, and play to their strengths. Always walk on stage with that intention and funny will happen. If your scene partner is performing well, it’s likely you’re performing well, too.
I’ve applied this rule to my current role and it has been the key to finding fulfillment at work. My intention each day is to make sure my boss performs to the best of her ability. If she looks good, I look good. It’s like Newton’s third law applied to the corporate world. At this juncture, that equal and opposite reaction is the knowledge that my hard work is critical to my boss’s success as one of the few women in a c-suite role in Hollywood. I’m not saving lives here, but it is fulfilling to make someone’s life easier and know that you’re appreciated for that dedication.
That’s the simplest advice I can give. Care about the person you work for and people you work with. Care about your teachers and peers. You don’t know what they wake up to every day. They probably need your support (and care about what you think) more than you realize. This intention will help you succeed in school and more profoundly after college when you’ll employ all your connections to find tiny apartments in big cities and jobs that pay little but will start your careers.
It’s a small thing, but since I’m 26 and have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, I find direction from the shows I watched in high school (on my tiny TV) like The Office and 30 Rock that taught me to value my work-family and care deeply about the professional and personal success of my colleagues.
I no longer dread having to be anywhere in the morning. This is the only metric by which I can measure how I’ve changed since high school. Allowing a 17-year-old to drive to school at 7:00 a.m. should be illegal. I got in my first accident while driving in the morning. I was on my way to a basketball tournament and I hit a Porsche. Of all the cars.... The damage was minimal and parental punishment tolerable. Today, at 26, I no longer drive because I live in New York City. And I don’t mind waking up early for work because I find my job fulfilling.
I work for a television network. Or I did until recently. I have the same boss, but I now work for an entertainment company, a conglomerate of networks. That’s cryptic, boring, and almost useless to mention here. But it’s important you know that I’m working in a field I’ve always been passionate about.
My parents let me have a small TV in my bedroom growing up. Our VHS player was wider than this TV set. The VHS sat on top of it and would tremor and seesaw when a tape would rewind. It was referred to as “a kitchen TV” and it was my third parent. When I had nightmares, sometimes I would climb into bed with my parents. Other times, I would turn on my TV and Cheers or Seinfeld would be on to lull me back to sleep. In high school, every essay I wrote my junior and senior year was about a film or television show. I was lucky to have teachers who didn’t flunk me for doing so and only encouraged me to discover deeper connections between stories from film, books, and my life. And to stay on brand, I studied film and television in college.
One thing about working in your 20s, you may be in the field you like but you may not have the job you want. I work as an assistant to an executive at my company. I can’t say I have a passion for administrative work, at least not at the junior level, but after two years of working as an assistant I have become quite good at the job and find it fulfilling. What I find fulfilling has little to do with my daily tasks. I don’t think meaning will germinate from the daily tasks and responsibilities of any job I have in my life. It will always be the people I work with.
I took improvisation classes in LA before moving back to New York for this job. One of the first rules they teach is, “make your scene partner look good,” which means when you’re on stage, don’t make jokes or try to be funny, commit to the reality of the scene, listen to your partner, and play to their strengths. Always walk on stage with that intention and funny will happen. If your scene partner is performing well, it’s likely you’re performing well, too.
I’ve applied this rule to my current role and it has been the key to finding fulfillment at work. My intention each day is to make sure my boss performs to the best of her ability. If she looks good, I look good. It’s like Newton’s third law applied to the corporate world. At this juncture, that equal and opposite reaction is the knowledge that my hard work is critical to my boss’s success as one of the few women in a c-suite role in Hollywood. I’m not saving lives here, but it is fulfilling to make someone’s life easier and know that you’re appreciated for that dedication.
That’s the simplest advice I can give. Care about the person you work for and people you work with. Care about your teachers and peers. You don’t know what they wake up to every day. They probably need your support (and care about what you think) more than you realize. This intention will help you succeed in school and more profoundly after college when you’ll employ all your connections to find tiny apartments in big cities and jobs that pay little but will start your careers.
It’s a small thing, but since I’m 26 and have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, I find direction from the shows I watched in high school (on my tiny TV) like The Office and 30 Rock that taught me to value my work-family and care deeply about the professional and personal success of my colleagues.
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