Songfacts®:

• The lead single from Coconut Telegraph, Buffett's 10th studio album, has a simple message: Always take pride in your work, no matter what your job is. Unlike most of Buffett's songs, this didn't feature his name in the songwriting credits. It was written by Mac McAnally, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter Buffett took interest in.
• After working as a session musician in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, McAnally moved to Los Angeles in the late '70s to pursue a recording career, but his first few albums went nowhere. In a Mississippi Public Broadcasting interview, McAnally explained how Buffett gave him the confidence to keep going. "I didn't know Jimmy, but I knew he was a guy from Mississippi who had done well, and I'd learned 'A Pirate Looks at Forty' on the guitar and I respected him. And he sent me a note during a time when I was scared to death out there, just might as well have been on Mars. He wrote me a little note that said we're gonna be friends, and we're both storytellers and we're both from Mississippi and, you know, I'm gonna be an advocate of your songs, and we're gonna write music together… He went way beyond the call of having heard somebody's first record."
• This was inspired by McAnally's personal experience working an unpleasant job. He explained: "It is easy to be happy about your job when it is your favorite thing. When I wrote 'It's My Job' I was working on the highway in Mississippi in the middle of summer. It was high 90s every day. I was a new hire so I didn't know what I was doing. My first day on the job, I was wearing Converse tennis shoes that literally melted off my feet. It was not a job that I was excited about… But, this is the best time to figure out that it is important to do your best. It is important to take pride in whatever you are doing. It makes the day go faster and is the shortest path to a job that 'sucks less.'"
• Some listeners misinterpret the meaning as being a "Take This Job and Shove It"-type anthem. McAnally doesn't mind as long as the listener still gets a good message out of it. He recalls a particular example: "My banker in Muscle Shoals, I'm going through the drive-through bank one day, the little old lady's the teller sitting there and she's giving me my deposit slip back and she says, 'Mac, I just gotta tell you. That song of yours, 'It Ain't My Job,' I love that song. It ain't my job, either.' She got totally the opposite message, but she got it. You know, it meant something to her, so I'm grateful."
  
• McAnally, who also provides backing vocals on the tune, continued his association with Buffett. He officially became a member of the singer's Coral Reefer Band in 1994.
• This was Buffett's sole Hot 100 entry of the '80s.