Time to make a difference - join the rat race

(Tom Herde/Globe Staff/File 1998)

It was the day that I got the $100 gift certificate at my new job that I realized how much I loved corporate America. "I love the rat race!" I sobbed to my best friend via text message.

It's a common story for the American worker: Work for many years in the "rat race," get burned out, then transition into a new career that is rewarding and fulfilling.

Who hasn't dreamed about becoming a teacher, Peace Corp worker, or community theater director?

After so many years of working to push a product that may or may not make money for an indifferent large company, many people decide they've had enough of being a cog in a machine and decide that it's time to make a difference.

But for me, it was the other way around - I did the "fulfilling" work first, and then became the cog. And I love it.

Having been raised in 1970s Cambridge, and in a "progressive" Episcopal church to boot, I was determined to make a difference from day one.

No imperialist, soulless job for me. From the moment I graduated from college, I worked to save the world or, at least, people with vision impairments.

For 15 years, I transcribed braille books and magazines at a braille printing and publishing house in Boston. (It is a serious misconception that braille is not necessary for blind people who are capable of learning it.

Many people think that audio recordings and talking computers are enough, but they are not. Without braille, blind people cannot read or write. Listening is not reading. Think what would happen if a sighted person only had audio books and computers with speech.)

It was interesting work (sort of glorified HTML coding), and I got to read a lot. And I felt good, knowing that my work helped a child read Harry Potter with his classmates or a food lover with the latest Rachel Ray cookbook.

My determination to save the world led me to volunteer to take on many extra projects at the company, including writing Perl scripts to make certain tasks faster, helping with public relations copy, and consulting parents and teachers in public schools about what was best for their mainstreamed blind students.

But I wasn't taking care of myself.

After 15 years, I knew it had to end. It was a hard choice. Didn't I want to save the world? But while the company was not a Dilbert-ian hell, any job has its aggravations, and I was starting to go batty over the company's penny-pinching and their slow pace in dealing with growing pains.

Any moment not spent producing at maximum capacity was considered wasteful. Our workspaces continued to shrink. They refused to hire an assistant, but heaped all the clerical work on me anyway as the demand for braille grew year by year.

My output dropped off, and soon they were complaining that I wasn't maintaining the very Perl scripts that I'd voluntarily designed years ago.

But the worst problem was that the raises were not keeping up with any sort of cost of living increases in the Boston area; when I threatened to leave without a decent raise and was told, "we'll miss you," I knew that I had to stop saving the world, but save myself instead.

A lifelong writer, I was able to get a certificate in technical writing and, soon after, a job at a for-profit company that makes heart difibrillators. (Yes, I'm still saving the world, I consoled myself.)

Having known no other work life other than the nonprofit one, I was absolutely dumbfounded at some of the basic perks of the rat race.

The improved salary was only the tip of the iceberg. Who would've thought that in corporate America, there was actually enough money to supply employees with some comfort and allow them to do their jobs efficiently?

Some things were mere coincidences of the specific job: a better commute, a spacious parking lot, an on-site cafeteria with good food. But I felt like a child in a candy store for the first time as I described some of the wonders to my puzzled church friends:

"A spacious cubicle of my very own. Fairly new, boring, clean rugs that are vacuumed every day. A new flat-screen monitor."

"They have a bill changer next to the vending machines."

"There's a whole staff available whose job it is to archive files - it's not just me, who was expected to do it in my copious free time."

And, more seriously: "They match 40 percent in their 401(k)."

Soon after I started the job, I saw a notice on the (regularly maintained) bulletin board about a mortgage broker who often worked with company employees. As I had been planning on refinancing my condo, I contacted the rep, who came to my huge cubicle (with my own whiteboard) in record time and proceeded to work with me. The last time I had refinanced at my old job, I had to take a vacation day to go to the closing.

If I didn't get reprimanded for taking the time off, then I would definitely get reprimanded for spending too much time on the phone beforehand, which I needed to do to gather the documents I needed.

At this job, I was able to complete the closing right there at the office, didn't need to give up any vacation time, and nobody even blinked an eye.

When the rep showed up the next day with the $100 gift certificate, I knew that I was finally being rewarded for spending so many years helping others.

Whether you want to save the world or take care of yourself, it's important to do both.

And it really doesn't matter what order you do it in.