Do you matter?

I enjoyed reading Rayle’s article this week because job satisfaction is something that has always been important to me and has been an issue that I’ve spent a lot of time considering in the various positions I’ve had in my life. In my first job in higher education, I felt like I “mattered” to people because I had a good amount of responsibility for programs and people that I managed on a daily basis. Although I felt important, my job stress was also fairly high, and I burned myself out quickly by not maintaining the right amount of work and life balance. After this experience, I began working in a position that I did not really have a lot of passion for, but had low levels of stress and had a lot of time for other activities. I think I’m still searching for a career where I can find this balance of having passion for the work without going overboard and making my work my life. This will be something that I will have to work on internally as well. Rayle (2006) found that for school counselors, views of job satisfaction and levels of job-related stress were moderately related to counselors’ perceptions of mattering to others at work. However, views differed for different groups of counselors. For instance, school counselors who had been teachers before they became school counselors reported greater job dissatisfaction. I found this really interesting because I would have assumed that former teachers would feel more competent in their roles and have higher levels of job satisfaction. I’d be interested in learning more about other studies examining this trend. School counselors running comprehensive guidance programs reported greater levels of mattering and job satisfaction. I can understand why this would be the case, as these programs provide a framework for counselors’ work and a way to evaluate their effectiveness. I am not surprised that elementary school teachers are the most satisfied with their jobs and experience the lowest amounts of job-related stress, as they tend to spend the most time working directly with students. High school counselors report the highest levels of job-related stress, most likely due to all of the administrative and paperwork responsibilities that fall to high school counselors. I can understand the reasons for this, but I hope that I can effectively manage all of these responsibilities in order to still have time to build significant relationships with students. Rayle, A. (2006). Do school counselors matter? Mattering as a moderator between job stress and job satisfaction. Professional School Counseling, 9(3), 1-15.