Thursday, June 26, 2008

What makes a house a home?

As we say goodbye to retiring employees (some of whom spent thiry years or more with us) and seek to hire new faculty and staff, I am left wondering: What is it that makes a job more than a job?
At what point does a job become a career? At what point does your workplace become your second home and your coworkers your second family? What makes FVSU not just a place of employment or education but the home-base for a far-flung family?
Because there's definitely an X-factor. Maybe it's a phenomenon of time. After so long at a workplace, it's hard to not get to know the people you share an office with. It's hard to not care about their successes and hopes, their disappointments and setbacks.
And maybe it's the byproduct of good hiring. What makes one person stand out in a sea of applicants? Usually it's that person's ability to "fit in" with the existing staff. Or to round out the current talents in an office. And those are hard things to train for, if not impossible.

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