When Work Starts to Feel More Transactional

Sometimes dissatisfaction doesn't begin with a bad job. It begins when something that once made the work feel worthwhile becomes less present.

There are periods in our working lives when work becomes pretty straightforward. We know what we're responsible for, we do it well, we get paid and we go home.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. In fact, there may be times when that's exactly the relationship we want with work.

But sometimes we notice a change. The job hasn't become bad and we may still be performing well, yet the relationship with the work feels more transactional than it once did. We put something in, receive something in return, and increasingly that seems to be the extent of the exchange.

That change can be difficult to describe because there may not be anything obviously wrong.

What used to be there?

Think back to a period when your work felt particularly worthwhile. What was present then?

Perhaps you felt connected to the people around you. Maybe you could see the difference your work was making. You were solving interesting problems, building something you cared about or developing capabilities that mattered to you. You may simply have felt that you belonged where you were.

Those things don't usually appear in a job description, but they can become an important part of why the work matters to us.

And they can change.

Small changes can alter the experience

A team gets reorganized and the people you enjoyed working with move elsewhere. A growing organization adds processes that create more distance between you and the people your work serves. A role that once involved solving interesting problems gradually becomes more about maintaining what already exists.

None of these changes necessarily makes the job worse. But each can change what you're getting from the experience.

Sometimes the change happens outside of work. What you want from your job at one stage of life may be different from what you want several years later. The work may have stayed remarkably consistent while your relationship with it has changed.

Compensation is only part of the exchange

Pay matters. So do benefits, flexibility, security and the practical things work makes possible in the rest of our lives. There is no reason to minimize any of them.

But most people also experience another kind of exchange with work. We give it attention, energy, judgment, patience and a considerable amount of our time. In return, we may get challenge, connection, accomplishment, meaning, recognition, belonging or the satisfaction of doing something we believe is worthwhile.

The mix is different for everyone. It can also change over time.

When enough of those things become less present, work can begin to feel more like a transaction even when the formal terms of the job haven't changed at all.

This doesn't automatically mean something is wrong

I think it's important not to turn every change in our experience of work into a problem that needs fixing.

There may be a period when you don't need work to provide much more than a paycheck, reasonable conditions and enough flexibility to support the rest of your life. That can be a perfectly good relationship with work.

The question is whether that relationship works for you.

If it does, there may be nothing more to consider. If it doesn't, simply telling yourself that you have a good job may not make the feeling disappear.

Why another opportunity can suddenly look interesting

This may also explain something that can otherwise be confusing. A person can have a good job and still become interested when another opportunity appears.

The attraction may not be a bigger title or even more money. Something about the opportunity may suggest the return of something that has become less present: challenge, possibility, connection, autonomy, purpose or the chance to do work that feels closer to what matters now.

That doesn't tell you whether the opportunity is better. But it can tell you something about what you're responding to.

Notice what's become less present

When our relationship with work changes, we tend to ask whether we still like the job. I'm not sure that's always the most useful question.

A more revealing question may be:

What used to be part of my experience of work that is less present now?

Maybe nothing immediately comes to mind. Maybe several things do.

Either way, the point isn't to manufacture dissatisfaction. It's to understand the experience you're already having.

Because sometimes what we're looking for in the next job is something we haven't yet recognized as missing from this one.