"Sixty percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing."
VALUES and the WORKPLACE
Are there some things or jobs you would prefer NOT to do because of what you believe?
Are there some you would REFUSE to do even if they were the only available option?
Look at this list of jobs. Would you rate them as:
- strongly supporting your beliefs
- O.K.
- a lot against your beliefs?
If there are any jobs that you would not do under any circumstances? Cross them off the list then LOL
- street sweeper
- kangaroo shooter
- soldier
- uranium miner
- gun shop owner
- life insurance salesperson
- burglar
- beauty contest organiser
- casino operator
- worker at Aboriginal Legal Aid
- selling unsafe children’s toys
- stripper
- unpaid full-time community worker
- teacher of sex education to 12 year olds
- encyclopaedia salesperson
- full-time home duties
- fur-stole making
- producer of pornographic literature
- promoter of tranquillisers for a drug company
- domestic servant
- developer of parkland for commercial profit
- heroin dealer
- selling faulty second hand cars
- bookmaker at the races
- process worker
- a priest, minister or nun
- worker for a homosexual rights group
- barrister defending people who are guilty
- a beggar
- telephone tapper for A.S.I.O.
- designing machinery to put people out of work
- working with severely handicapped people
- chocolate shop owner
- abattoir worker
- scientific experiments with live animals
- a busker
- parole officer
- promoting a cigarette company
- an abortionist
- giving credit to people who can’t afford to repay it
- involved with the in-vitro fertilisation program
- a beach bum
- spy for an enemy country
- a prostitute
- bar attendant
- scientist in Antarctica for long periods of time
- a politician
- mechanic for a firm which does shoddy work
- public executioner or hangman
- working in an overseas aid agency
- working at the stock exchange
- a police officer
- a job in another country
- giving out social security handouts
- owning a pinball & video machines shop
- private detective
- a whaler
- running a bottle shop
- counselling child abusers
- collecting people’s garbage
- doctor
- doing plastic surgery
- a landlord
- acting in a corny soap opera
- a union shop steward
- advertising agent
- running a junk food shop
- working in the tax department
- a police informer
- teaching in an alternative Christian school
- parking police
- professional demonstrator and political activist
- developing tax evasion schemes
- demolition of beautiful historic houses
Use the exercise called WHAT ARE VALUES to help you answer these questions.
Which values do each of these jobs (above) go against?
What values and advantages does each job offer?
For each job you would NOT do under any circumstances… State your reasons for feeling this way.
Do you agree with the notion that “every person has their price”? That they could be persuaded to do a job they wouldn’t normally do?
Which five jobs in the list above go against your value system most? Why?
When you were deciding which of these jobs were O.K., did you consider how high or how low in “status” you’d be doing that job?
Did you consider the “legality” of a job when deciding whether a job was O.K.? Does it make any difference to you whether the job is legal or illegal?
Why does it matter if you do a job that goes strongly against your value system?
Next Up…
Have you ever wondered why people work?
BACK to Choosing a Career index.
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