That's someone's job!

I have a habit of looking at everything through the lens of the job, or the work, behind the subject. For example, I might notice an interesting track lighting setup in a restaurant, and my mind quickly goes to "That's someone's job to design lighting like that." In fact, it's also someone's job to sell the lighting to restaurants, someone else's job to market the company that sells it, etc.

I feel similarly when I take my cats to the vet, although I can more directly see who's behind the scenes. Wow, there are a bunch of people who have dedicated this part of their lives to helping cats like mine. Who else is back there, running the lab tests, developing the medications, designing the scrubs with smiling multicolored cats and dogs?

If you're hoping to change your career direction, or if you're entering the workforce for the first time, see if you can cultivate some of this curiosity toward the human labor behind everything. Questions like "Who did that?," "Where do they design that sort of thing?," and "What goes into making that happen?" can lead to a creative train of thought that could lead you to do some research in areas you had never thought about.

Look around – examples of interesting work are everywhere!