Does everyone hate their job?

Parent Cafe
21

<p>Put me down as another one who loves what she does and wishes she could retire and walk away right now. </p>

<p>I own a retail pet shop – it’s the perfect spot for me – but retail is a tough grind and getting tougher. Customers (as a broad group) want fantastic, top of the line service, amazing selection, and low prices – all close to home. It’s not happening folks! And employees want convenient hours, generous paychecks, and easy work. That’s not happening either. The pets? They just want good, loving forever homes – and that’s also comes under the heading of not-so-easy!</p>

<p>I try to balance all of the above – and pay the bills.</p>

22

<p>I like my job a lot. In college I found a major I had never heard of before college (Operations Research) but which was great for me. Over the last 20 years my career has wandered a bit but using my analytical skills to improve businesses remains at the core of what I do. I get paid well, I am intellectually challenged, and work with mostly great people … I also work in corporate america so there are times when the politics and/or lack of pace of change drive me batty. Overall a pretty happy camper.</p>

<p>I said I like my job … not LOVE it. When I have enough bucks I willl get of the corporate rat race and move into what seems to be my true calling … which will pay much less but I believe be more rewarding. Five minor financial hurdles to go and I can make the switch … mortgage, kid #1 college bill, kid #2 college bill, kid #3 college bill, and retirement. However my current job (and my wife’s) are good enough that we can see the light at the end of this financial tunnel.</p>

23

<p>I also like my job, which I fell into by accident. I am a counselor/advisor in a support program for first gen/low income students. It’s extremely rewarding; I like the feeling I’m making a difference. It’s rather low paying, and I supplement by adjunct teaching, which I also like a lot (I actually prefer teaching.)</p>

<p>I would leave it in a second. Why, because there’s stuff I’d rather be doing. At the end of the day, there’s not much of me left for writing, which is what I’d like to be doing full time.</p>

<p>As Cangel mentioned above, my H quit medicine to be a HS teacher. He loved medicine itself and was tremendously good at it, but it wasn’t good for him. He find he loves teaching. </p>

<p>We are also seeing the light at the end of the financial tunnel. Mortgage done, college bill #1 done, college bill #2 half done, and strides towards retirement. Living under our means and not wanting much have given us a lot of flexibility in this.</p>

24

<p>Greybeard, LOL, I work for private industry, and have some federal government clients. I am not qualified to “head” anything the size of NSA - not even close. Plus I totally lack the patience and temperment to work in multi-layered organizations, or with large staffs, or in cumbersome, slow cultures. </p>

<p>But I am absolutely obsessed with my work, to the point of routinely working 12-16-18 hour days, and sometimes even pulling all nighters. I have not vacationed in over five years, and am nowhere near tired. Of course, I goof off quite a bit, playing around on CC etc., but, then, I get to make the rules :)</p>

25

<p>Frazzled, over the course of a career I have had two jobs that I have absolutely, irrepairably hated. Against all logic and common sense, I resigned from them both, without even having another job to go to. Both times it was scary and probably a very immature thing to do - resigning a position with no other job prospects and with financial responsibilities. But it worked out perfectly both times. </p>

<p>Since then I’ve taken a kind of a “leap, and the net will appear” position with regard to career decisions. Have vowed to never, ever continue a bsuiness relationship - if I am not happy. </p>

<p>There are soooo many different things to do. Lots of my friends in my age range work from home, traveling when necessary, and their employers and/or clients are in other states and in some cases in other countries. If you’re inclined to look for different employment, why not search nationwide and see what you can come up with that might be interesting? There are very few people in my social circle who work in traditional, report-to-the office-every-day type jobs.</p>

<p>Edit: I do have a very dear friend who is highly ranked in DEA, and now hates his job - because of politics etc., he feels he is not promotable beyond his current level, and he hates having so many people to supervise, but, he is eligible for retirement this coming April. He is going to try his best to stick it out another X number of years in order to get the max retirement, but meanwhile he is aggressively planning his next career, and he expects to be an entrepreneur.</p>

26

<p>There are a couple of professions which prize the elderly practitioner. Conducting orchestras is one, architecture is another. Not yet 50, I’ve had the most amazing projects present like Ali Baba in the past few months. It has to be the grey roots–I mean hair. I saw this happening to my famous bosses in New York in the 80s but I didn’t picture it happening to me. For one thing, I’m the wrong sex. For another thing, I didn’t stay put with my practice–I moved it to a suburb of New York–a suburb where you needed a plane to commute, LOL. Then I moved it to another continent–and hemisphere thinking, honest to God, I could make a little money doing kitchen additions.</p>

<p>Four years later I am in mega building territory–looking ahead (!) to the most dramatic part of an already dramatic career. Wild. </p>

<p>As for loving my job, parts of it are an absolute high–designing, visiting the jobsites, building up friendships with clients, having a laugh with builders–oh yeah and cashing enormous checks. I won’t lie. Big checks make the job really fun.</p>

<p>I hate the accounting and tax part. I don’t love staff management. Men make better managers. Employees are a bunch of whiny teenagers I don’t love. Nevermind. Time to staff up big time.</p>

27

<p>cheers -</p>

<p>That’s great that things are going so well for you. You are in a great place (except for parking). But at this rate, looks like you’ll be in Paradise for quite some time. Perhaps we can meet again one day.</p>

<p>–Dig</p>

28

<p>

I had never realized, until I had employees of my own, what a perfect employee I had been all my younger life. I’ve had some really good employees, but I can identify completely, Cheers. What a soap opera having employees can become!</p>

29

<p>Honestly, now I just love the money. I need lots of it. I don’t hate it, but have stopped loving it.</p>

30

<p>

Latetoschool, you are one gutsy dame! Your success is well deserved. Thanks for your words of encouragement. I have been thinking about moving out of state when youngest d finishes high school (whether husband wants to go or not!), so we’ll see what happens.</p>

<p>Lots of interesting perspectives on this thread.</p>

31

<p>Frazzled, thanks for that, but wait - you don’t necessarily have to move anywhere, and you don’t have to wait until anyone finishes school. Whatever your skill set/profession, someone out there will pay you for what you can do - and they do not have to be geographically located in your city or even in your state.</p>

<p>I have one partner that I see maybe once a month, as he is a citizen of another country, and he travels around the world. Another is based here but also owns another business. His wife owns another business still (graphic artist) and she works out of their rather palacial home. Yet another partner is based in Colombia, and another in London. We live on Skype and email, and we generally all manage to be in the same place at Christmas. </p>

<p>Another friend operates a newsletter website and writes for a living - he has three employees but is rarely in his office - prefers to work on the beach - and his reputation is global. Still another works from home editing for large companies - he isn’t very well known at all and does not make very much money, but he’s impossibly happy. </p>

<p>The largest revenue stream I had this month is a new client that is a completely virtual company - they have a staff of scientists/statisticians and 100% of them work out of their homes - all in different cities no less. The business is highly profitable and has an excellent reputation, but does not actually have a physical location. (I have an office, but haven’t actually been to it, or sat at my desk in weeks. I probably won’t wander back in until September-ish.)</p>

<p>And still another example - the financial intelligence unit of a very large bank has 25 investigators in 15 different cities around the world, and they all work from their homes whenever they want. They report into one supervisor based in an office here in the U.S., and every two weeks they have one huge global conference call. It’s a little hard on the guys in Singapore when the call is scheduled for normal business hours EDT, but, that’s as bad as it gets for them. I can probably think of dozens more similar examples. </p>

<p>My point is that if you are located, say, in NY, someone in Florida or California or perhaps the midwest region might want to have representation, or at minimum a contact, in New York - that might be extremely valuable to someone. I’d recommend looking at the classifieds, say, on monster.com, or careerbuilder, and search by a very broad range of cities, and see what you come across that might be interesting. Of course, it helps if you have something unique in your skill set - otherwise most companies will want to hire a local person for traditional positions, and they will want that person to work on site. But it’s the nontraditional opportunities you want to look for…and there are a LOT of opportunities available. I would expect such opportunities to increase, particularly with the cost of gas rising - it’s starting to make less and less sense to drive into an office every day.</p>

32

<p>Cheers, I like your job better than mine I’ve decided. Wanna trade?</p>

33

<p>I really do like all my teenage employees. it’s probably because we are so small, and I depend on them so much, that by the time they’ve been weeded out, the ones that are left are just <em>wonderful</em>.</p>

<p>I have two leaving next month for college and I will miss them – as much as I missed the one last fall, and the two the fall before that. They come back for Christmas (thank goodness) and summers sometimes and also just to say hi. </p>

<p>I try to teach them something new every day – but more importantly I try to hire kids for whom the job I have to offer is not just a paycheck, but a first career spot. So – that means I am looking for future retail tycoons and future zookeepers and future vets!</p>

<p>It’s the Cornell pre-vet that I miss the most – she was awesome and brilliant and talented with the animals! And i <em>will</em> miss my entering Syracuse business major who is spectacular at our POS system and does gorgeous merchandising displays. The Hobart future teacher is wonderful with the kids that want to hold a bunny … and just great with the baby birds. The Delaware Valley College future zookeeper – and the SCAD artist and sculptor were some of my first teenagers to work in the shop – and they can come back any time!</p>

34

<p>I’m not crazy about my job. I’ve been trying to get fired and my boss just won’t take the hint!! :wink: My boss is my husband!!!</p>

<p>No seriously, he had a gal at the office that wasn’t working out, and I opened my big mouth and said I could do her job, thinking it would mean until they found someone else. I guess I have worked out better than she did because I’ve been here for 9 years now! When I graduated from college, I was an accountant until I had my s, then I was a stay at home mom for 10 years, now I am a glorified “Girl Friday”. I do just about everything, helping out salesmen and the bookkeeper. Some days are great, some days are BORING (that is why I am on CC some days). There are some advantages to working for my h, I can leave and do Mom things when I want to, and I get more vacation than a normal employee, but I try not to take too much advantage so as to not cause complaints among the other employees. It can be strange sometimes to try to walk the fence between being the employee and being the wife. It works though.</p>

35

<p>By the by, I want to say that I have nothing but admiration and respect for Garland’s DH - it says a lot for a person in many ways that they can go for their passion when it means financial sacrifice, retraining time, explaining a decision that many people won’t understand, giving up anything that you have invested so much of yourself into - Garland and spouse are 2 of several regular posters that I would love to actually meet and have dinner with!</p>

<p>Latetoschool, I want to forward this thread to my daughter! She is looking to hopefully build a career that will look very different from the paths her Dad and I have taken, and the idea of building unique skill sets in your early jobs that allow you to be competitive for unique, flexible jobs, sounds like exactly what she wants to do.</p>

<p>I wonder now though, I just read a blurb on FoxNews or AOLNews about a superhacker who became a security consultant after 5 years in the local minimum security prison - how exactly does one obtain these unique skill sets :wink: - is that Jack Bauer I’m talking about???</p>

36

<p>LOL, Cangel, would you believe I had to google Jack Bauer to even know who you were posting about. But like many people, I defaulted into my career by accident. If I were to plot a course to get here, I would suggest starting with a broad liberal arts education, and supporting it with enhanced language skills, and strong technology knowledge. It helps to have an obsessive interest in other countries and cultures, especially their political structures, and it’s critical to be curious about very weird people and/or groups of people - at least for me.</p>

37

<p>Cangel, what a nice thing to say! If you’re driving through Jersey on your way to Dartmouth some day, just give a shout out :)</p>

38

<p>I like my job a lot. Sure, it sucks sometimes… and sometimes you just want to walk out the door or scream … but you just shrug and move on. I love working for a huge company and having all that room to advance and move every which way in the organization. I recently became a trainer at work which is really neat and it really makes me look forward to coming to work in the morning. I’m also in charge of our sunshine club which is for boosting morale and stuff like that and I come up with weekly games and things like that to keep work interesting. Like word puzzles or suduku’s and every week i give a gift card out to our weekly winnner… I also organize group lunches and outings and stuff, i really have fun with it… my boss always says how “i keep her young” with my outgoing personality and quirkyness. :)</p>