Are you a competitor at work?

Some people simply love working and when they're promoted to a higher rank they're even a kind of surprised.
They "just do their job" as well as they can and to feel content about that is their reward.

How about you?

Are you competitive at work?

Many people are.

The past month I've spoken with quite some people about the subject and the main reasons for being competitive are:

1. Fear to fail in the eyes of others.
2. Earning more money.
3. Pride. The need to be better than others.

It's interesting that people attach values to their motives.

The first motive, not to fail in the eyes of others, is seen as negative.
The underlying feelings are those of insecurity, being unable to fullfill expectations and non acceptance of their own talents and gifts.
Some of these people found out during the conversation that they'd rather do other work and they feel they would be happier there. But fear of failure kept them from writing an application.

The group that wants to earn more money is mixed. That's due to the fact that the motives for earning more money differ a lot.
Some are in need of money, because they're dealing with problems with the mortgage due to the recession. Some want to realise a dream and are saving for that one in a lifetime trip, a wedding and other goals.
And there's a group who just want to have more and more, and feel driven by a kind of greed. They don't use the money to make other people or themselves happy, but just to pile it up.


I'm not a very competitive person. I'm lucky to be born without jealousy.
I've worked both at the hospital and the uni with utter pleasure and when they would ask me back I would start again without any hesitation.
Ofcourse I have dreams and wishes (see wishlist) and as this society doesn't run without money I need some too. In fact I'm always short of money, mainly for the children.

I've dealt at my work with competitive people of all sorts and sizes.
To me it seems that competition diminishes social relationships a lot. Some people's smiles can't be trusted, because they smile to people they don't like, to be liked and to be chosen over others.
I've experienced people taking my books so I couldn't look up things and they could come up with the knowledge. Etc etc.

How are you at your job?
Who are you at your job?