“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Confucius

I have virtually no mechanical skills. I can pump gas and refill windshield washer fluid. Once, I successfully replaced a cabin air filter and was so proud I considered opening my own garage. My mechanical aptitude leaves much to be desired.

As a teenager one summer I was desperate for work, I saw an add for a job that paid $10/hr (this was a lot back in the days before cell phones or tariffs). Seeing green I applied to be a grounds keeper at a local park.

Assuming it would involve simple tasks like mowing grass or trimming weeds, I figured I could do anything for $10/hr. To my surprise, the burly interviewer began grilling me about spark plugs, blade sharpening, and balancing lawnmower blades—something I jokingly claimed to do “on my head.”

My final question was the oil-to-gas ratio for a 2-cycle engine. Needless to say, my answer wasn’t even close. The interviewer politely said he’d “be in touch,” which never happened.

This experience highlighted to me the importance of aligning work with your actual skills, not just going after the dollars. That summer I ended up becoming a counselor at a YMCA day camp for less money, but it was blast.

Lessons from Healthcare During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic vividly demonstrated the risks of chasing money without considering job fit. During the throes of the pandemic many healthcare workers realized that this wasn’t the job for them. Many providers & nurses left the field all together.

The result was many health systems were left with severe staffing shortages, requiring them to pay top dollar to fill the vacancies. It was a good time to be a travel nurse as their salaries boomed with many seeing up to a 25% increase.

Naturally, many healthcare workers took advantage of these lucrative opportunities. However, what initially appeared attractive soon revealed downsides, including overwhelming workloads, unfamiliar systems, new colleagues, relocating and sometimes much longer commutes. As a result, many healthcare professionals eventually returned to their original employers—a phenomenon now known as “Boomerang Nursing.”

The True Cost of Job-Hopping

Switching jobs primarily for financial gain often has downsides:

• Career Capital: Every time you change jobs, you reset your “career capital,” losing built-up trust, autonomy, and organizational knowledge. Regularly job-hopping can significantly stunt your professional growth.
  
• Hidden Expenses: Longer commutes, relocation costs, and potentially less desirable benefits packages can erode those initial salary gains. Additionally, losing seniority can negatively impact future opportunities if you decide to return to your original workplace.
  

Fair Pay Matters—But It’s Not Everything

To be clear, fair compensation is critically important. When my wife and I were engaged, we were wisely advised to wait until we had stable employment before getting married. My future mother-in-law kindly reminded me, “Love doesn’t pay the bills.”

Organizations must understand that fair pay is fundamental—if salaries aren’t competitive, talented employees will eventually leave.

Healthcare illustrates this perfectly. Facilities that underpaid staff pre-pandemic quickly learned their lesson as workers left in search of a fair & livable wage. After the crisis subsided, data showed healthcare salaries overall had increased by roughly 5% overall, with nurses seeing the biggest growth at about a 13.1% boost.

A tale of two salaries

In his book Die with Zero author Bill Perkins talks about the fact that a higher salary doesn’t always translate to more money.

Kind of confusing I know.

He uses the example of someone earning $70,000 a year but working 60–80 hours a week, constantly checking email and never truly unplugging. When you break it down, their hourly rate is actually lower than someone making $40,000 a year who works a standard 40-hour week, maintains healthy boundaries, and has the time to actually enjoy their income.

I think many folks often fail to calculate all the potential cost when they are just focused on a paycheck.

$10,000 a year does not really translate to that much more take home pay and often the added responsibilities actually make that money less valuable.

Practical Steps for Employees and Employers

For Employees:

• Protect and nurture your career capital.
  
• Consider all aspects of a job, not just the paycheck.
  
• Reflect carefully before making a job change based solely on salary.
  

For Organizations:

• Pay fairly—but recognize compensation alone isn’t sufficient.
• Foster a culture of trust, autonomy, and growth.
• Remove unnecessary bureaucracy and let staff work to their full potential.
• Recognize this is not the 1990’s, that your team does have a life outside of the job, try to encourage a healthy work life relationship

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