Pay Closer Attention to the Work That Still Gives You Energy
What years of tech consulting taught me about meaning, usefulness, and the human side of work
I turned 47 last week.
Birthdays used to make me audit my life. I would think about career progress, financial goals, unfinished plans, and whether I had accomplished enough for my age.
For a long time, I believed good work needed to look important from the outside. I was drawn to high-pressure projects, recognizable clients, packed calendars, and work people immediately think highly of when you describe it at parties or networking events.
After almost two decades inside corporate environments, I learned how to manage projects, support global teams, train users, handle clients, and survive engagements where priorities changed every week.
I became good at translating technical language into language that business teams could understand. I learned how to walk into messy situations and help people organize chaos.
I’m grateful for all of it.
Still, this past year surprised me.
Some of the moments that gave me the deepest sense of fulfillment had nothing to do with title, status, or scale.
The Moments I Value
One morning, I was helping an adult ESL student at the Bergenfield Public Library practice English pronunciation.
Another day, I was inside a public school classroom helping a student work through a Math problem after she became frustrated and convinced herself she “wasn’t good at Math.”
A few weeks later, I walked into school again, and the vice principal smiled and said, “Hey, Miss Salinas, I’ve seen you twice in the last 24 hours.”
“What can I say?” I laughed. “I love this school.” Later that night, I realized how sincere my answer was.
At 47, I’m paying closer attention to moments like that.
For years, I assumed fulfillment would arrive through achievement and momentum. I kept aiming towards the next role, the next challenge, the next opportunity. Yet the work that continues to give me energy looks far simpler now.
I love being part of the moment when things finally start making sense for someone. Whether it’s a student, a client, or a business owner, helping people untangle problems gives me a different kind of satisfaction.
That pattern kept repeating all year.
What I Heard at Agentforce
The Salesforce conference in NYC was full of conversations about AI, automation, intelligent agents, and the future of work.
I enjoyed learning where the technology is heading. The tools were impressive, the conversations were ambitious, and the energy inside felt optimistic.
Still, the more technology advances, the more I notice how deeply human most workplace problems remain.
Underneath all the excitement, I kept hearing the same frustrations I’ve heard for years.
Teams felt overwhelmed by disconnected tools. Leaders struggled with workflows that had grown too complicated. Employees didn’t trust their reports. New hires kept asking the same questions because onboarding remained inconsistent.
People spent too much time searching for information buried across email threads, Slack messages, shared drives, meeting notes, and multiple versions of the same document.
None of those problems sounded unfamiliar to me.
I’ve spent years working in environments where good people were exhausted because the systems around them became increasingly difficult to navigate.
That realization followed me throughout the conference.
For all the conversations about AI transforming the future of work, I kept thinking about how many employees still struggle with the basics: communication, trust, ownership, and operational clarity.
The Team in Ohio
In 2017, during a consulting engagement in Akron, a client asked me to help prepare for their Salesforce admin’s maternity leave. My responsibility sounded simple: learn her processes, document the workflows, and support the transition before she stepped away.
One day, she opened the custom reports folder.
Hundreds of reports appeared on the screen. Many had nearly identical names. Some contained filters so specific that nobody else understood how they worked. Several reports were duplicates created over the years due to urgent requests.
At first glance, the system looked overwhelming.
But I didn’t see a broken team. I saw employees keeping up with rapid growth while responding to constant pressure and shifting business needs.
Most admin folks are doing their best inside structures that evolved too quickly. Workarounds become permanent. Documentation gets postponed. Reporting structures multiply. Communication spreads across too many channels.
Then the mess becomes normal because nobody has enough time to rebuild the foundation properly.
What Operational Chaos Does to People
Once I understood that, I also stopped judging myself harshly for feeling drained in environments filled with friction.
A messy operation drains energy fast. People lose hours searching for files, fixing preventable mistakes, recreating work that already exists, and remembering which version of a document is the latest one.
Over time, employees lose confidence because they no longer trust the systems around them.
This happens in large corporations, small businesses, schools, and nonprofits.
Different workplaces, same human frustration.
Why I Love Teaching
Whether I’m helping a third grader with fractions, supporting an ESL learner at the library, or helping small business owners with their workflows, the deeper work remains similar.
Most people walk into learning environments afraid of looking foolish.
They fear clicking the wrong thing. They avoid asking basic questions. They worry people will judge them for not understanding fast enough.
I know that feeling well myself.
Good teaching changes the atmosphere in the room. You can see it when a person stops shrinking back and starts engaging again.
What I Value at 47
Earlier in my career, I believed my value came from knowing the tools.
Now I understand my strongest skill is helping people make sense of systems that have become overwhelming, disorganized, or difficult to navigate.
I’ve spent years translating complexity into language people can understand, creating structure inside chaotic environments, and helping teams regain confidence in workflows they had stopped trusting.
Many organizations do not need another platform, another dashboard, or another complicated implementation project.
They need cleaner workflows, practical documentation, communication structures that make sense, and systems employees will use.
These days, I appreciate usefulness more than ever.
I appreciate the manager who organizes information well, the teacher who explains concepts patiently, the consultant who simplifies complexity, and the employee who documents processes clearly so the next person doesn’t struggle unnecessarily.
Those contributions rarely receive public attention, yet they improve people’s daily lives in real ways.
Final Thoughts
I listen to my body, mind, and spirit more now.
I know which environments drain me, which conversations light me up, and which work I gravitate toward again and again, even if there are unexpected life changes around me.
I keep the type of work where people regain confidence in themselves, their work, or the systems around them.
Sometimes that work happens inside a classroom. Sometimes, at a library table, during a client call, or in a conversation with a business owner, holding too many things together.
The environment changes, yet people are often asking for the same thing: support, understanding, and a little less friction.
After all these years, I’ve realized good work has less to do with status and more to do with what happens to people after interacting with you.
Do they leave feeling better, more hopeful, more willing to keep going?
That question means more to me now than titles ever did.
One of the gifts of getting older is learning to pay closer attention to how work feels after the meeting ends, after the classroom empties, after the client call is over.
Some work drains you long after it’s finished. Some work leaves you feeling more alive.
P.S. If your business needs help behind the scenes (too many tools, confusing processes, files all over the place), I created a focused offer to make things simpler and easier to manage. You can learn more here.