Finding a job that loves you

''Work is something you can count on, a trusted, lifelong friend who never deserts you." -- Margaret Bourke-White

Here was the opening sentence of a reader's e-mail: ''I am so tickled about my wife's good fortune that I just want to tell you."

Isn't that marvelous? It called to mind a definition of love I read in a Scott Peck book: Your pain is my pain; your joy is my joy.

Paul Kasley went on to say that his wife had given up a job that she loved working in a preschool, to take a part-time job as an office assistant in a medical office -- a sacrifice that allowed her the time to drive their daughter to a private high school. Her husband's opinion of that job: ''She was treated as a lower life-form and paid less than the guy who swept the floor. She hated but tolerated it. I heard about it every night." (You remember Scheherazade's tales for 1001 Arabian nights; husbands like Paul get the nightly tales of Schehatesherjob.)

Paul did more than just listen; he cajoled her into taking classes to stay qualified for her preschool work. ''She objected that she had been out of school too long, she was too old for anyone to hire, she hadn't worked full time for so long, blah, blah. I said if that's so, then I should give away the books she'd saved and empty the file cabinets with the classroom materials. She took the first class, and the second, and a third . . . which included a once-weekly half-day practice teaching session at a day care. On her last day of practice teaching, the supervising teacher told her how much she had learned from my wife and asked her to interview for a job coming open. The interview was only a formality -- she was hired the same day!"

Paul concluded: ''The kids' books are all over the house again, and I hear about her job every night -- all good stuff! She's showing off her gift for working with the little ones, carrying coursework at night and she is having fun!"

Beautiful, no? You have to feel good for her and have to admire a husband who ''cajoles" his wife toward her gift. But, of course, Paul had his reward, too -- nightly tales of joys rather than frustrations.

The same day I got that e-mail I took my computer to the Apple store to be repaired. I waited till a weekday morning to take the laptop in, hoping to avoid a crowd. I was told at the so-called ''Genius Bar" that I had to make an appointment and come back. I returned at my time, and after a wait, was helped by a pleasant young woman.

Her pleasantness was astounding, given that she was handling half a dozen customers at once, all of them a bit annoyed at being there with a failed computer or iPod and with getting one-sixth of a person.

I ended up being there for an hour and a half, just to leave my computer. That gave me plenty of time to watch a terrific employee. Not quite as impressive as watching a cook at the Waffle House on a Sunday morning, but still, she was just what an employer would want: able to work frantically but competently, smiling and joking with the customers.

On the other hand, the payoff for her likeableness was to convert customer resentment into pity, so that just about every customer said, commiserating, ''You need some help." She'd say to each, ''It takes a long time to train a 'Genius' [grin]." Still, along the way I got her to admit that she was mostly scheduled to work alone, that the appointment times were continuously overbooked. Given the e-mail I'd gotten that morning, I noticed the wedding ring and inquired about the effect of her job on her marriage. She laughed and said, ''I go home FRIED. I just veg out on the couch."

I found myself feeling sorry for her husband . . . as well as for her, of course. Here's a marvelous employee, called a 'Genius,' working for a company that designs some of the coolest products on the planet, and her reward is to go home with the life sucked out of her. Even so, she loves her work.

So that defines our assignment as life-path adventure guides: Not only do we have to help those we care about find jobs they love, but find jobs that will love them back, where the company's joy and energy is the employees' to take home with them.

Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.