What a great job

Although I would much rather have no job at all, since I must be employed I am quite glad I have the job I do. I work for Wells Fargo, a little bank on the west coast. Maybe you've heard of it. Actually, it's one of only 17 publicly held American companies to have been in existence for over 150 years. It's got a cool history museum at the downtown San Francisco headquarters where you can see one of the old stage coaches that carried pioneers and gold across the old west. But that's just part of why I like my job. The real reason is that I help people give money away for a living.

Wells Fargo was just named by Business Week as the nation's #9 most generous company in terms of philanthropy. It's nice to know that my company, which has been making money by the supertanker-load for the last several years, does give some amount of that back. And it's nice to know that I helped directly in allowing the company to win all four top achievement awards from United Way of America in 2004. And that my work has helped our employees go from giving $12 million in charitable donations three years ago to somewhere near $22 million this year.

When you have to get up early and get on the train with people coughing and sneezing around you, and you have to sit in a cube all day in front of a computer, these are nice things to remember about your job. Best of all, since I work with other people who give money away for a living, I generally work with nice people. Not a lot of sales pressure in my line of work.

Why am I blogging this? I've found that when I'm writing, especially during NaNoWriMo, I think how wonderful it would be to quit everything and write novels full time. So I need to remind myself from time to time that what I do matters, and it's pretty good being able to do what I do.

By the way, I just passed 60,000 words and am closing in on the end of the book. Another 3,000 or so and it will be all over.