When I say, “good enough is not good enough,” I believe it scares people, because I believe that for most people good enough is good enough and for a lot of people not-quite good enough is also good enough and for too many people not-at-all good enough is, well, still okay. Good enough. A phrase that when you say it frequently, it starts to lose its meaning; on multiple levels. Today, where the overriding goal for most people is comfort and it is expected that you will go into a job (or any endeavor) just planning to get by, who really wants to work with (or worse yet, for) someone who is never satisfied? So much easier (and far more cheerful) when everyone goes along to get along, and we pretend that one-hundred-percent of those in our cohort are above average, and we are happy with the bare minimum because to be dissatisfied is to be troublesome, difficult, vexing, fractious, ungrateful; and once we are labeled as any of those things, we are ostracized in as polite and pretentious of terms as is possible, because after all, we must be sure that no matter what, we all get along.

My current-day dilemma is I am job-hunting and I don't know how to market troublesome, difficult, vexing, fractious, ungrateful. I like to ask the question, “is it better to be truthful or nice?” And I have a natural aversion to anything less than (at least 75 or 80 percent) truthfulness, and I have not figured out how to tell a prospective employer that I am frustrated in my current position by varying forms of Good-Enough. In my struggles with this explanation, I believe I only succeed in helping them to see a time down the road when they will be faced with my dissatisfaction. I have tried to spin this as improvement, lifelong learning, adaptability, raising the bar, and the desire for a new challenge, but I think all they are thinking is, “Yikes! What would I be getting myself into?” I am intense and serious; and I know this comes across in an interview, and I know this is (again) often thought synonymous with troublesome, difficult, vexing, fractious, ungrateful. And I do understand how striving for excellence can get in the way of pretentious camaraderie, but when did comfort and simplicity overtake and strangle the life out of the satisfaction from hard work and high standards?

I even understand that with 8,023,375,108 people here on this planet in this moment, there has to be more give than take, (and I am a strong advocate for improvement through some form of social democracy), but this reality should not punish those of us who, despite believing Truth to be unattainable, are still searching. The question remains – how do I market these (misinterpreted) attributes that should be my strongest selling points? How do I not scare people – and still be truthful?

There are other factors in my current desire for change: an increased workload, below-average pay, the aforementioned polite, pretentious disengagement, superficial promises and priorities, excessive, misguided bureaucracy. But once again, though I am happy to share reasonable examples, facts, statistics and even a spreadsheet or two, if I am truthful I will come across as troublesome, difficult, vexing, fractious, ungrateful.

To job hunt implies dissatisfaction. But I am finding that in a job interview, to be truthful about the nature of that dissatisfaction is injudicious; counterproductive. Yes, I am unhappy with the status quo; with any status quo. And my current job description could be summed up in one word: maintain. And with the increased workload I am barely able to do that. And I realize that if or when I do find a different job, I may go into a new circumstance where once again, good enough is good enough; but at least I will have the challenge (for a little while) of a new learning curve, and maybe I could even advance from below-average pay to average pay.

My current department finally got approval (several weeks ago) to hire another full-time person to help with the workload, but we are counting now in months the time this process has taken so far, and the job is still not posted on the list of over a thousand available jobs, and by the time it is posted and we go through the process of screening and interviewing and making a decision on a person willing to accept below-below-average pay to do a difficult, uncomfortable job, and then we account for their new learning curve by further increasing my workload at the beginning (if we move quickly) of a new academic year when the workload is already at its heaviest… well, it sounds and already feels like a never-ending saga. I would not be surprised to learn that this apparent unwillingness to do the right thing is a (conscious and/or subconscious) part of my punishment for striving toward excellence and for encouraging others to do the same and not going along to get along. Regarding my current circumstance and partially in hindsight:

• I never wanted kind words.
• I never wanted reassurance.
• I never wanted justification; i.e. excuses.
• I never wanted apologies.
• I never wanted promises.
• I never even wanted acknowledgement that my perspective is valid.

In the past four years I have received all of these things but all of these things have turned out to be mere delaying tactics. In hindsight, what I did want was change for a significant better. What I want now is a different job. But I don't know how to market troublesome, difficult, vexing, fractious, ungrateful.

It pains me to say…

But perhaps I have no choice but to be less than truthful.

Maybe the best way to do that is to get in front of it by acknowledging the obvious: that by definition to job hunt is to admit to some dissatisfaction. In my case my dissatisfaction stems from my job description (to maintain) and my pay (below average). And a new job that pays more, regardless of departmental philosophy on good-enough, will also provide new opportunities and a new learning curve. This is not being entirely truthful but it does (more succinctly) sum up my dissatisfaction and it might-perhaps-maybe partially mask my vexatious nature. It would be a step forward as opposed to my current circumstance in which I am at best standing still.

All this said, I still believe my vexatious nature is a necessary strength and I believe, for the sake of survival, more of us need to champion hard work and high standards.