# Lucrative but Uninteresting By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2024-03-16 Four-square matrices are standard in business. Perhaps the most common is the grid assessing market share and market growth. That model can help inform organizational strategy. On an individual level, a matrix examining the lucrativeness and interestingness of work is probably more helpful. Work can be unlucrative and uninteresting. Many entry-level jobs fall into this category. Work can be unlucrative but highly interesting. People’s hobbies often fall into this category. This is work people do because of a passion for the work. On the other side, work can be both lucrative and interesting. This is often what one might imagine the high-prestige professions to be like. Maybe they are, perhaps they aren’t. Lastly, work can be lucrative but uninteresting. These are traps. People in this quadrant struggle to figure out what to do. The money is good. This puts tremendous pressure on you to stay and collect the income. The work is fatiguingly boring. This puts a great deal of pressure on moving on. The persistent cognitive dissonance of operating in this quadrant is fatiguing. This situation is isolating since few jobs are lucrative. This means there are relatively few people one could potentially commiserate with. Almost everybody can complain who has an unlucrative/uninteresting job. These are ubiquitous. To complain when in the lucrative but uninteresting quadrant is viewed by many as ungrateful. Whereas it could be, it probably isn’t. The problem of operating in this quadrant for too long is that it requires one to dissociate. This is seldom good in the long term. Work can be ennobling. For it to be so, one must be authentically engaged in it. The inadequacy of uninteresting work precludes this. Lucrative but uninteresting is better than unlucrative and uninteresting. However, the development of hobbies across the spectrum of lucrativeness suggests that interest is close to passion. Humans seek interested engagement in their world. Work should provide this. When it doesn’t, one should ask how much it is worth to them. That is the only way to determine if any given salary is lucrative. #### Related Items [[Analytics]] [[Work]] [[Interests]] [[Money]] [[Salary]] [[Joy]]