Get The Job You Want (Even If You’re Already In It)

I spent a month in Europe after college (thanks Dad). I was 22 and had never been out of the country, barely able to speak my own language much less anyone else’s, with little more than a train pass, some traveler’s checks, and some dry shampoo. When I got home, I bragged most about how I’d avoided all the American tourists, how easy they were to spot, how loud they were, how stupidly they dressed, how embarrassing … like I wasn’t one of them. Big difference, of course: they were tourists, and I … I was a traveler.

Historian, Daniel Boorstin, is hip. “The traveler,” he wrote, “was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes sightseeing.”

All these years later, having been both an avid tourist and traveler, I still buy Mr. Boostin’s insinuation that travelers are apt to get a bit more out of the whole deal, mostly. And not just in those two weeks a year when we gather up the flip camera and the 3-ounce travel containers. We can be travelers or tourists, too, in how we approach our everyday lives, careers, jobs, and job searches.

So here, with your job (or job search) in mind, are some essential traveler tips.

Get Informed

Tourists aren’t any less curious than travelers, perhaps, but they rely more on tourist guides to take them where they need to go and tell them what they need to know. Travelers get a thrill from discovering things on their own. They learn by doing, by exploring. To be a more active traveler at work, be curious about your job (or prospective job), your company, and your industry. Explore. Show some initiative. Find out what’s going on, what’s most important, and what you can do to best contribute. Any skills and knowledge you gain can be applied throughout your career travels, so learn, know, and grow all you can.

Get Involved

Where tourists mostly hang out in the obvious tourist spots, keeping a safe distance, travelers venture further out. They go deeper. They get to know people and cultures. They delve into a place. Pass a dance in the street and they might join in. We’re more of a tourist at work when we keep to our own obvious spots, limiting our involvement, our investment, as if we’re just passing through. Insert yourself, instead. Interact with people with an open mind. Be an enthusiastic, cooperative force on tasks and projects, inside and outside your group. Look for proactive ways to step up and help. Join the dance.

Get Inspired

Many tourists travel to escape. They want a destination to relax and forget the day-to-day stresses of … their job, probably. Getting to that destination is often seen as a necessary bother. Travelers, on the other hand, travel for the same reason writers write and painters paint: they’re compelled to move. There’s a passion for the process of getting from here to there. If you ever find yourself working solely for a paycheck, keeping a constant eye on the clock, loathing every Monday drive in, you might be getting a bit too touristy in your job. You don’t have to be head-over-heals in love with what you’re doing every minute (traveling is tough and challenging work, even for the most devoted travelers), but it should engage you enough and inspire you enough that you don’t want to pack up and head home the entire time.

Get Inventive

Tourists complain, don’t they? “Oh, it’s not like home.” “Is everything so fattening here?” “Only one bathroom … down the hall?” Travelers, not so much. They’re more self-reliant problem solvers, by necessity: a little creativity, some original thinking, some trial and error. They find a way to fix it, or they adjust. The next time you get frustrated at work and start to moan about … whatever, think about possible solutions, as well. You may just stumble on something that makes a big difference, for you and your fellow travelers.

Get It Done

There’s an ancient Eastern proverb that says, “Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Or, there’s our old Southern proverb, “Get off the porch.” Translation: make a move. Don’t sit around waiting for something interesting to happen. Go get the job you want, even it means approaching the job you have a little different.

Tourist or traveler, what really matters is what we experience, what we take away, and what we leave behind (and generous tippers, especially, get good karma).