Career vs. Job

I have a small confession to make. I have often told people that I have a career and my husband has a job. And it took awhile for me to realize how much this offended him. And I'm finally beginning to realize that I'm wrong.

To me, I have a career because I have a college degree...a degree in advertising, which is the industry I work in. I've been working in advertising since the day I graduated and I've never really thought seriously about abandoning the industry (and 'wasting' my degree). I'm passionate about what I do. I enjoy spending free time researching what other agencies are doing; learning about what companies are looking for a new agency and why they selected a particular group. One of my favorite hobbies is sitting around talking about advertising and what I'm working on (the good, bad and ugly). So, to me, this is a career.

My husband doesn't have a college degree. In fact, when he first went to college, he studied something completely different than the industry he's working in. He doesn't really like going to work. He has terrible benefits. He's doing manual labor at 35, and complaining about how much his body hurts all the time. And he seems to not really care about where he's working as long as he's making the most he can doing what he's doing. So, to me, this is a job.

But what I have failed to acknowledge is that he's been in this job over a decade (maybe more like 12 years). He knows a lot. He's always learning. He's respected by everyone he's ever worked with. And just because he doesn't like to talk about it all the time, it doesn't mean he's not interested.

So my lesson here is that there will always be people around who don't absolutely love what they do. And I shouldn't judge. I should just feel fortunate that we both have jobs/careers.