“I think it comes through in my work, as well. Like with
corporate America, I’ll get bored very easily because there’s no
more thrill-seeking. It’s interesting when you were talking earlier
about people who seek chaos and thrive. I think I’m very much
like that. I think I need to have like 10 or 20 things going on at
the same time to be able to almost be successful. Like if it’s just
one thing, I would get bored. If I’ve got multiple things, multiple
problems, I thrive in situations like that. I think all throughout
college I was like that, as well. If I’ve got to write a paper and I’ve
got three weeks to do it, it’s too boring for me to be able to have
the motivation to do it. But if, I need to do this now, it’s like
okay, let’s do it. I think it’s interesting because I enjoy new
experiences. I scored high on the thrill-seeking, but not, super
high. It’s just that I always want new experiences and I’m not
afraid of risk. I’ve left four corporate jobs within four years of
graduating because I literally get bored to the point where
I think, you know what? I could do better than this, and I move
on. So it is very interesting when you said you got the self-trust.
You got the fearlessness. I leave jobs with literally just the self-
trust of I’m going to find something better because I know I’m
worth it. In that sense, I’ve got the thrill-seeking down.”~
Talking to these high sensation-seekers about their work life and
looking at the research led me to a new and unexpected under-
standing about the interface between the HSS and the workplace. In
some cases, it is probably true that high sensation-seeking is an
important pre-requisite for job performance and satisfaction. Jason
(the underwater Indiana Jones) is a great example of this. I can tell
you from personal experience that a low sensation-seeker would
not only loathe a job that required them to tie heavy weights to
their bodies and sink to the depths of black water during hurricane
season, but they also flat out wouldn’t last long in the position. But
how many jobs can you think of where this kind of extreme beha-
vior is required? Not many.
It is more often true that thetypesof sensations an HSS seeks
are connected to job satisfaction. A sous chef in the latest nose to
tail restaurant almost certainly has some experience-seeking ten-
dencies, you’d have to be adventurous about what you eat. And the
local circus just wouldn’t be nearly as fun if the clowns weren’t a bit
disinhibited.133 / All in a Day’s WorkDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:18:48, subject to the Cambridge