PSU Magazine Winter 1988

Bergman herself has taken pay cut for her last three jobs. but say she's happier now than she has ever been. Finding answers To help career seekers find their niche. Counseling and Testing Services uses a battery of tests such as the Strong– Campbell Interest Inventory and the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey. Included are hundreds of questions, such as "What would you rather collect, (A) butterflies, (8) pieces of different woods, or (C) signatures of famo us people?" or "What would you rather pl ay, (A) checkers, (B) chess, or (C) nothing (1 don't like games)?" The results show if the client has more in common with artistic types. such as il – lustrators, musicians or Engl ish teachers, or investigati ve types, such as computer programmers, dietitians or psychologists. They show how the client's responses compare with those of people in various profess ions, grouped in six categories: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. The result , after hours of tests and several sessions with a counselor, is a heightened sense of self, or at least a sense of direction . Dr. Ronald Ronacher says the response from clients after the test results are shown to them is not so much revelation as affi rmation. "Most people view the outcome as more of a validation of what they basically knew about themselves. It's reassu ring," he sa id. The Career and Placement Services of– fice uses a shorter version on a color computer screen, cal led System of Interac– tive Guidance and Information, or "SIGY" for short . While it's less thorough than the Counseling and Testing surveys, Career and Pl acement takes up where the other leaves off, by offering counseling in specific careers and an extensive library of job in formation. Counselors from both sides agree that addressing the "Who am I?" question must come before anything else. (John R. Kirkland, a Po11/and free-lance writer and photographer, has contributed lo PSU Maga zine in the past.) It's off to work we go To find out what makes people happy in their work , it's good to take a look at some of the reasons people are unhappy. Hakanson cited statistics that the average American weighs six pounds more today than he or she did in 1980. What that shows, he sa id , is we're more inacti ve and we probably spend more time sitting in front of the television set. Couple that with data showing a higher prevalence of repetitive, boring jobs and you have a populace that is more bored and increas– ingly inert not only on the job but after hours. Computers, which are supposed to make our lives easier, are part of the problem. Eugene Hakanson Ronald Ronacher Not only do they overwhelm us with information, but they speed up the .work pace to the point where we have no breathing time between projects, no time to sit back and admire our handiwork. Computers also enable our boss to look over our shoulders more easily. A super– visor can access our terminals at any time and see what we were up to, say, between 9:20 and 9:40. Just like Big Brother. And with this comes alienation, the lack of a sense of self, and job burnout. Computers also have created a culture that is more and more service oriented , in which the products of work are intangible, less iden– tifiable and in which workers, ultimately, have little power. Power is important for job satisfaction. It gives the stimulation human beings need to get up in the morning. " You tend to be healthier when you have more power in how you deal with the world," said Hakanson. " It's been shown that the healthiest person in an organiza– tion tends to be the chief executi ve officer. The least healthy tend to be the ones on the bottom ." He said Ford Motor Co. is try ing to give its workers more satisfaction by tak– ing them out of assembly lines and putting them into small teams to build cars. That way, they feel less like machines and more like craftsmen. Volvo had been using the small team concept for years in Sweden with great success. P'art of the counseling process involves showing clients they have the power to change whatever is bothering them about thei r jobs, and that the changes needed often are smaller than they thought. Take the example of the teacher who's fed up with teaching and wants a complete change of career. Through testing and counseling it may be uncovered that this person really loves teaching and the true problem is that the school is too fa r from Whether the scapegoat is money, or boredom, or the office's bad coffee, the cause of dissatisfac– tion can be one of want– ing too much from one's job. home, has too many students per classroom, or the principal is a jerk. For others it can be more involved. Certain personality types are generally bet– ter suited to some kinds of jobs than others. Standard tests can measure the level of introversion or extroversion, for example, and determine the kinds of jobs in which a person will be happiest. The salesman who hates his job may discover that sales - a field that takes a lot of persuasion and extroversion - i not where he should be. He's too introverted. It's hard for him to pick up the phone and make cold calls, whereas someone whose tests show a high degree of extroversion would thrive on that kind of activity. Or there's the computer programmer who is depressed about her job even though she's good at it . She may find she needs to get out of the secluded computer room and get more contact with people. Money often becomes a scapegoat for other problems in which the job or the job setting is wrong for that particular person. (Continued on page 22) PSU 13