Member-only story
If you can’t find meaning in your work, find meaning in the process
All jobs are not meant to be “meaningful”
My time as a paratransit operator leaves many stories and memories to recollect. Paratransit is a transportation service provided for those with disabilities, albeit not limited to.
In four years, I picked up hundreds of passengers logging thousands of miles. Complaints about the service were frequent and long winded. But every so often a passenger would express gratitude for the service.
On one route, each Wednesday morning I’d pick up an elderly woman who was visually impaired to transport to work. She’d exit her home seconds after pulling up, board the van, buckle her seat belt and say, “This is a great service you’re providing.”
At 26 years old, I understood the gravity of what her words meant to her, but was dismissive due to the annoyances of my job. The benefit of working limbs, eyes that see, and ears that hear was so routine and normal I took it for granted. A majority of my passengers were devoid of many of the aforementioned and much worse, mentally they were incompetent.
I’d never seen my job as meaningful until this passenger told me it was.
Between social media content berading 9–5’s to highlights of luxury lifestyles…
