I think this is a fantastic interpretation and hits some of the nails on the head.
>The yardstick by which you've chosen to determine if a job is "worthwhile" is whether anyone would notice if those workers disappeared.
This is how I judge mine and others' work on a normal basis. As a result, I have always been jealous of those who are ultra-specified because they are the literal choke points of production or whatever effort is happening.
Thinking about it more though, it would seem to me to make sense that people should be fluid between capabilities. Much like you are instructed to diversify your investment portfolio, perhaps you should be diversifying your skill sets.
The trouble there is that you end up a jack of all trades and master of none. This leaves folks like me in a gulch - and generally always dependent on a subject matter expert to get things done in nearly any domain. On the flip side I can move between domains fairly fluidly at a reasonable if not sufficient level of competence to get the job done - making my core skill the skill of persuasion (to hire people onto my teams etc...).
I don't know if there is an answer to this problem here but I think it might be worth thinking about more.
>The yardstick by which you've chosen to determine if a job is "worthwhile" is whether anyone would notice if those workers disappeared.
This is how I judge mine and others' work on a normal basis. As a result, I have always been jealous of those who are ultra-specified because they are the literal choke points of production or whatever effort is happening.
Thinking about it more though, it would seem to me to make sense that people should be fluid between capabilities. Much like you are instructed to diversify your investment portfolio, perhaps you should be diversifying your skill sets.
The trouble there is that you end up a jack of all trades and master of none. This leaves folks like me in a gulch - and generally always dependent on a subject matter expert to get things done in nearly any domain. On the flip side I can move between domains fairly fluidly at a reasonable if not sufficient level of competence to get the job done - making my core skill the skill of persuasion (to hire people onto my teams etc...).
I don't know if there is an answer to this problem here but I think it might be worth thinking about more.
Cheers!