CASE STUDIES
Paul the demotivated programmer
Paul is 38 and he has been working on the same project for five years. He gets on well with his team and likes his manager. He really likes the work he does and doesn’t want to change projects. He’s learning lots too - each week they have a book club and they talk about the latest programming book they’ve been reading.
Recently though he’s been feeling a bit down. He still enjoys the challenges of programming, he still loves learning and he definitely feels he’s getting better at his job, however sometimes he just doesn’t feel happy at the end of the day like he used to. He doesn’t know why, but there are days when he feels he’s just ticking things off a list, and often he feels he doesn’t know why he’s doing them.
Jane the unhappy marketing manager
Jane is 45 and the head of marketing for a small manufacturing firm. The other staff in the company are lovely, she really gets on well with them and there is a great atmosphere in the office. She enjoys the hybrid working too and the flexitime has made the school runs so much easier to manage.
She is struggling with her work though. It’s not giving her as much fulfilment as she’d hoped.
She is in charge of two junior marketing executives and reports directly to the CEO. When she started the job, six months ago, the CEO gave her very healthy annual budget and asked for a plan. Although she created the plan in her first month, five months later she’s still waiting to get sign off. She’s busy, she has lots of blog posts to write and lots of social media to keep up to date (it annoys her a bit that the CEO is still checking her content but she’s OK with it). The main problem is she hasn’t been able to get the big work started. She keeps being told that she’s in charge of marketing but she doesn’t feel that way. It’s making her unhappy.
Theo the struggling freelancer
Theo used to work in the corporate world in HR. He was pretty successful. Last year he took voluntary redundancy and is now working as a consultant.
He loves the flexibility and is really enjoying building something on his own. He now has a logo, website and a strategy to build his consultancy business. However he doesn’t always feel great and misses being in the office and the regular pay check.
He doesn’t want to return to full time employment (he’s loving the extra time with his kids) but he needs to change a few things to feel more content with his work situation again.