We talk about finding happiness at work, which can mean
taking an unconventional view of a conventional job or taking an unconventional
job altogether.

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about work happiness and,
like, doing what you love, I guess. Or loving your work. What are your
thoughts?

C: My thoughts are that I love my work.

K: (laughs)

C: I feel like…

K: What do you- like, do you seriously love your work?

C: Most of the time, yeah. I mean, most of the time when I’m
writing, I love it.

K: Okay.

C: There are days that I get up and I drag words out of
myself, and there are days that I get up and they just flow out of me like a
magical rainbow.

K: (laughs)

C: But, when I look back, and when I read over it, I can’t
tell the difference between which day was which. So, I think that the quality
of work I produce is the same on most days.

K: So, I know that I loved your work because the amount of
availability that it gives me. So, just, if you don’t know, Chad’s an author,
and I’m a therapist. So, Chad, you also do like editing and other stuff, but
mostly you’re an author.

C: Right.

K: And caretaker of Kisstopher (laughs)

C: Yes. So the only thing that’s time sensitive is caretaker
for Kisstopher because if you’re like “I need some water” I know that I have
about thirty seconds before you perish of thirst.

K: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You are not fetcher of things for
Kisstopher. Just today, I got my own salad.

C: Oh my goodness.

K: Yes.

C: I didn’t even notice you eating a salad, I was so busy writing.

K: Thank you. Thank you. So don’t act like you are beck and
call because you are not beck and call.

C: No.

K: You temperamentally sometimes like to pretend that that’s
your existence, which I always find interesting because it would drive me just,
ugh, just drive me to irritation. I wouldn’t like it at all. Like if you ever
expected me to just constantly get up and get you things. But there days that,
like, you just ask me and ask me and ask me, so I’m like “okay, if I want
something and Chad’s in the other room, today he’s in the mood to go get stuff
for me.”

C: Yeah. So, sometimes I can be interrupted without any
disruption to my workflow. And other times, it’s a disruption to my workflow.
But everything that I do aside from things that are time-sensitive for you is
not time-sensitive. So, when I edit, I edit so far in advance of the deadlines
that I can usually turn things back days early if I wanted to. I don’t because
that creates bad expectations on the part of clients.

K: Yes, it does. And we’ve worked really, really hard on you
understanding that.

C: Yes.

K: So I’m super, super happy that you don’t turn them in as
soon as you’re done. So if you’re an editing client of Chad’s and you give him
a deadline, no, you will not get it early. Even- because, here’s the thing with
that, is that you are not able to consistently beat a deadline.

C: Right.

K: There are sometimes that you are like working straight up
until the deadline, and we can’t tell until you get the editing job how it’s going
to shake out. Because sometimes there have been jobs where you’ve actually- the
English translation has been so bad that you had to go back in and read the
Japanese to try and figure out what they’re saying in the English. And those
are super, super time consuming.

C: There have been those, and usually the translation is
really bad in that it’s fake. Where the translator didn’t quite know what it
meant – it could be one or it could be the other, so they just chose both.

K: Yeah.

C: Which in academic editing, which is most of what I do,
that’s not helpful. You really want to specify one or the other.