Job Satisfaction vs Pay

Posted by Jonathan Ng | Filed under Personal

How would you define a dream job? Easy: satisfying job and good pay. Jobs should be satisfying - you should be happy at work, you should get along great with co-workers, it should be challenging enough, you should be able to work the way yout want etc etc..

But, what if you have to choose between job satisfaction and a high salary?? Which would it be?

I believe most will choose a high paying job. But for my situation right now, I’d definitely go with job satisfaction - this is mainly due to the fact that I’m not in dire need of money..

Anyway, are companies actually taking steps to ensure people enjoy their work there? Or is it coz I’m just a trainee, so I don’t get to enjoy any benefits at all?

My office doesn’t even provide drinks (coffee, Milo, tea etc), let alone snacks. They’re like: “look, I’m paying you good money, so give me a 100% from 9-6″. I think there’s lotsa simple things that companies can do to boost employee morale.

I’m not sure about banks, but given the chance, I’d sure like to work at Fog Creek Software. Yeah, it’s a software house, so programmers/developers there enjoy plenty of perks. These employers understand what programmers want, and give it to them! The ultimate goal? You want an office environment where a progammer feels so comfortable he doesn’t wan to leave! Things like dual-screen set ups, the luxury of ordering any book on Amazon.com (paid by the company), “bionic office“, game consoles, ergonomic chairs etc definitely make programmers happy. I don’t have Internet access at office, and I’m even warned about listening to music on my mp3 player…. ughh…

For programmers, I think job satisfaction is much more important than a high pay. Then of course, it should be reasonable. Good programmers are those that are very passionate about programming. They don’t study programming plainly to pass the exams and get their degree. Hence, I think they’d naturally lean to companies that understand their passion..

Will I return to where I’m working now?? I guess the answer is obvious enough…

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Permalink | April 24th, 2007

3 Responses to “Job Satisfaction vs Pay”

  1. Jeffrey04 Says:
    April 24th, 2007 at 10:48 pm

    i would choose job satisfaction as well

    however, i dun find myself satisfied for now as an intern. I feel lonely all the time because I am always the only one who work on a project. So to me, besides job satisfaction, i would also expect teamwork. Now the situation is, my “supervisor” assigned me a project but he has no idea on how to implement the project, so basically this means i am on my own. He doesn’t even really care about how i do it, but he cares about the progress and the final product. Kinda stress as I have no one to refer to when i have doubts….

    p/s: I think i should be thankful for having internet access in office (I have to maintain a website and write another website for the company, hence….) although I am not “encouraged” to go do instant messaging. They do provide drinks like milo, coffee, instant noodles etc as well :D . and if i forget to bring my own player, i don’t have to worry because my colleagues plays music everyday… And dress code… erm… basically if you don’t wear as if you are going to a club then it should be okay :D

  2. Shyang Says:
    May 6th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    i strongly agreed that the job satisfaction should be at the highest priority. I rather choose to work at Formis for RM500.00 per month then working in HSBC, which i felt so stress to work with, although the allowance is twice and nearly tripper more then Formis. As a programmer, of course what i interested in was to do those programming, but the situation now is that i need to do support works in HSBC. Same as you, I was required to help those idiot users to solve their problems which sometimes can be a stupid problem.

    Hey man, we are programmers, we supposed to be assigned tasks which related to program development, not answering phones all the day or replying lotus note mails to the users. I hate this sort of working environment and i getting frustrated with it, now every night i dreaming about a better working day for tomorrow. I don’t want the high allowance, I just want to be a pure programmer, that all.

    Jonathan, together let us prey, let us prey that these six horrible months will be end sooner then we thought. Hahaha…

  3. Jonathan Ng Says:
    May 6th, 2007 at 11:12 pm

    I don’t mind doing support work. It’s one skill that we have to learn sooner of later no matter what. The thing that I don’t like is multitasking - doing both together. Human brains are NOT designed to multi-task..

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