It is true that people now spend a large chunk of their life working, and therefore job satisfaction is becoming more important for each and every individual than ever. I believe that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to job satisfaction and argue that most jobs often fail to meet the expectations of job holders.
From my vantage point, most of the factors that influence one’s levels of job satisfaction are extrinsic. The most important is perhaps material needs, such as income, housing, paid holiday or bonus, to name but a few. These are the main elements that an employee will normally 100k into when evaluating whether a job is desirable or not. In addition, people often crave for a positive self-image and to have their contribution valued and appreciated.
Also, some other important factors are intrinsic. For example, employees who are optimistic and have a positive outlook on life are more likely to achieve higher job satisfaction irrespective of the job or the workplace they are in. This is because optimism allows individuals to function well under pressure, while pessimism leads people to worry about unreasonable things and feelings, causing them to waste time and derive much less satisfaction from their work. One may argue that rewards can address the extrinsic factors mentioned above; however, not everyone can receive such privileges since only those with the best performance are rewarded. This excludes a large part of workers from getting the said external motivation. As well as this, people are intrinsically different, and therefore, it is impractical to expect everyone to be optimistic to obtain more satisfaction at work.
In conclusion, most jobs cannot live up to workers’ expectations due to several inner and external factors that contribute largely to their levels of job satisfaction.