This job market is not necessarily the greatest environment for that, so this morning I turned it on its head. "Take what you're getting paid to do, and find a way to love it." To be clear: I already love my job, and the work environment is amazing, but some of the tasks are a little tedious (as at any job).
The interns at work have a quarterly project. It takes several full-time employees a few days to set it up for us, and then a handful of interns work a week and a half of overtime on what is essentially 52-Card Pick-Up: we have thousands of individual letters that have to be matched with other individual letters in hundreds of different combinations. The letters must be triple-checked, including a check by a full-time employee, and every quarter we end up with a handful of letters that we just can't figure out. The letters often go out just as the next quarter is coming to a close. Every quarter someone says, "There has to be a better way to do this," but we can't figure it out.
This morning I figured it out. To oversimplify it, most of the intern's time is spent looking for half-completed packets to match them with other half-completed packets. With what I came up with, there is no need for that: you can make the packet all at once and have the next intern double-check it immediately, and hand it off to a full-time employee to triple-check it five minutes later.
I emailed my supervisor, who happens to be in charge of the project (and who often expresses exasperation at this fact) at 7:30am with the solution. I haven't heard back yet but my hopes are high - I can't imagine that anyone actually likes dragging this project out for two weeks.
Next time I walk into work I can be proud, even if my idea is shot down - I showed I was enthusiastic and motivated, I proved I can think outside the box, I demonstrated that the job is important to me and I think about it even when I'm taking time off, and I offered a suggestion that saves time and money. Who wouldn't like that?
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