I don’t feel any passion for my job – and that’s not normal for me

A reader writes:

Over the past few years, I took several months away from work due to significant personal circumstances, including a divorce and the loss of a parent. A few months ago, I decided I was ready to return to work and accepted a director-level contract role at a small nonprofit, covering a sabbatical leave expected to last more than a year.

From the outset, the hiring process felt somewhat disjointed. I was initially asked to complete a background check and submitted all the required paperwork. Later, the HR director informed me that the background check company they used did not have the proper permissions to complete the process and asked whether I could conduct a self-check and report the results directly.

I then received an employment contract to sign, but the accompanying email was extremely brief — simply “see attached” — without any welcoming message or indication of enthusiasm about my joining the organization. In fact, I did not learn that my references and background check had officially cleared until the Friday before my start date.

My first day further reinforced the feeling that my arrival had not been particularly anticipated. My manager neither appeared nor contacted me at any point during the day. At day’s end, the HR director suggested I should probably send my manager a message to let her know I had started. I did so.

Since then, there have been several small but noticeable signals of disengagement. I have not been added to the organization’s website. I was told I would “meet everyone when in the office,” yet no one has made introductions. My role does not carry the same signing authority or operational tools as the person I am replacing. The organization publicly welcomed two summer interns, but there was no acknowledgment of my arrival. I invited the other member of my department to lunch in an effort to build rapport, but she declined and has shown little interest in getting to know me professionally. The same has largely been true of others in the organization.

To be clear, I am not emotionally distressed by this. I am an adult and understand that not every workplace is warm or highly collaborative. My concern is more internal: I do not feel particularly invested in or passionate about the work itself.

Importantly, I am doing the job properly. I respond promptly to emails and messages, meet deadlines, attend meetings, and carry out my responsibilities professionally, accurately, and efficiently. I also recognize that I was not brought into this role to make organizational changes, so I am not attempting to do so.

What feels different is that, throughout most of my career, I brought a much deeper level of emotional investment, initiative, and personal energy to my work. This time, that drive simply is not there. Interestingly, I find that passion and commitment are instead being directed toward the volunteer organizations and boards I serve on.

I suppose my question is whether this is necessarily wrong. Is it acceptable to simply do competent, professional work without feeling deeply connected to it? Or is this detachment something I should be more concerned about?

It’s not wrong. It’s fine to do competent, professional work without feeling deeply connected to it. In fact, that’s how many, if not most, people spend their entire careers. Not everyone connects to their work in that way, or needs to, or wants to.

But since you’re someone who normally does bring more emotional investment, it’s almost certainly absent here because your organization hasn’t shown any emotional investment (or even interest) in you. It’s possible you would be feeling like this anyway, after the profound life changes you went through — or even without those changes, since sometimes people’s relationship to work simply changes as priorities and interests in their lives shift. But in this case, given the fairly startling lack of interest toward you from your office, it’s a lot more likely that your own feelings of investment are simply mirroring theirs, which is a natural thing to happen too.

My big question is how you feel about it. Would you prefer to be working in a job where you did feel the same type of connection you’ve felt previously in your career? Or might you come to see this a welcome change? You mentioned that you’re directing your passion toward volunteer work instead; can you be happy with that state of affairs long-term and even see it as a benefit, or will your job come to seem like an unpleasant slog that you increasingly dread showing up for? Or, even if you don’t grow to dislike it, will there be other negative impacts on you — for example, will you feel like your skills are stagnating because you don’t feel compelled to take on challenges, and will you care if so?

If you can be happy with this state of affairs for a decent period of time, carry on! There’s nothing wrong with doing your job well but without passion for it. But take an honest look at whether this particular office is likely to work for you long-term.