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I enjoyed this section of the textbook, as I have always found personality and mood interesting. I think that my biggest take away was the use of the five big traits in predicting work behavior. As a manager I will be using this in a few different ways. The first will be to assign tasks based on the trait that people represent such as placing those with high emotional stability in areas of customer service, those that are conscientious into work that requires detailed specific requirements and so on. Using the five big traits will also help me in the future with employee selection and retention. I was excited to learn that you can estimate not only performance and job satisfaction but that you can also look at the probability of longevity within the position.

It is being in the emergency services I also have an interest in the dark triad. I have seen a lot of potential employees that present many of the traits within the dark triad and this now gives me the information I need to combat the potential harm that it may cause. Overall there is bits and pieces of the entire chapter that I will be taking away and using in my position as I move forward.

Thinking back on the topic of Job Satisfaction, i couldn’t forget my first job experience working as a brush boy for a land clearing company locally   found in Fairbanks. The hours where long, weather was harsh, yet I never had another job to compare it to, so Working a labor job, $15 dollars an hour at the age of 16 is more then enough to retain my services for a summer. I remember the first month was miserable. The interesting thing about this job was there was concrete potions or a chain of command. typically our teams were in sets of 3, with the longest working employee typically taking the duties as a Saw-Man, which essentially chopped trees. The two other individuals on the team where brush boys. They moved trees. How things worked was employees were payed for the amount the boss believes they are worth, which is biased off of his   and senior employees. A brush boy can be payed equally well as a Saw-man or a   Saw-man can be payed less then a brush boy. The fist summer went on without a hitch and made a few pay bumps and would say I had a high job satisfactory However it was the following season that had problems

Midway through my second season of work I found my self unsatisfied with my work and became tired and fed up with the physical labor. Essentially i was doing my job to well, and although i was receiving a hire payment then the rest of my team. I didn’t want to take on any extra responsibilities are duties… except for getting my hands on the saw. I told my boss of my issues, where shortly I was given a saw and was filling contracts independently. This did fix my job satisfaction… for a time that is. I finished the season out. however i didn’t make a verbal commitment for a 3rd season. By the end of the second season, I was to say “disenchanted” with my first job.   In the end I believe it was the combination of repetitive   monotonous labor and repetitive tasks drove me to seek for other forms of employment.

I can honestly say that there is definitely an extreme contrast between having a job that you are very excited about versus a job that you are not experiencing satisfaction. I’m assuming that   most people after high school are either undecided what direction they are headed professionally or have an proposed direction but how they are going to get there is a coin toss. I was definitely one of the one who really had no idea what professional path I wanted to take. After high school I bounced around from menial job to job until, by chance,  that I found myself on a career path of satisfaction.

My job of satisfaction was definitely my career that I spent in law enforcement. they thing that was so unique about this professional that it brought me satisfaction on varying levels of satisfaction. These factors consisted of the obvious: helping others, improving your community, being put in a position of trust, experiencing something different everyday. During my career I was promoted to the Detective Division and it was during this position that I experienced the ability to work in a very autonomous role. The ability to govern my own work schedule and work with little direct supervision was very satisfying to me. It wasn’t until I transferred into the K9 Unit and became the unit supervisor and trainer that I enjoyed the job satisfaction on a level that I have never experienced before. This position not only involved autonomy, but tapped in to a personal level of experience and comfort that made going to work an enjoyable experience everyday

Since recently retiring from law enforcement I have struggled professionally to find that same level of job satisfaction. After concluding my law enforcement career, I went to in the private sector for a large corporation in corporate security. While I enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy in this position, I experienced a shift in priority from my employer. The difference was a change in focus from helping others to helping the bottom line. I also experienced a significant difference in management style and can only assume this was due to a change in “company” priorities. I have since left the private sector and return to the government sector but am still where autonomy is still very minimal. I think that the biggest factor in my current level of job satisfaction is two fold. I miss doing something that I am passionate about and I   also miss making a difference.