[Closed] Do you enjoy your job?

footflaps - Member

chewkw - Member

That's our Plan B.

Do it if you have the business acumen. Take charge of your lives.

My main concern is that we'd get bored of doing endless cooked breakfasts every day for the next 20 years....

Ya, if this is your answer then ya, no business acumen there I am afraid. Don't do it as you will Not survive. Seriously. 😯

You can hire someone to cook etc or you can hire someone to look after one premises while you retire to another etc ... if you think carefully.

yes. The work is interesting, keeps my brain ticking over. WFH 4 days a week makes the one remaining day's 30 mile each way commute via Bradford City Centre, M62 & M1 a bit more bearable.

I really enjoy my job mostly. However, after a nice long Christmas break, I came back to two new business meetings in the first two days (along with another two this week), a really heavy workload (that I had been putting off 'until next year') and subsequently hearing that we have won another two big jobs has left me wondering WTF to/how to do it all.

Still, it's nearly the weekend...

It's an odd one.

I like the people I work with and the fact I can work at home most of the time. Occasionally I get interesting projects and interesting travel opportunities. I joined the company with the aim of making it a 1-2 year role to pull some funds together (I left the bike trade for extra cash) and I'm still here six years later.

Unfortunately it's now quite dull and I live in a part of the country with limited opportunities. While I like the company, its leadership and its culture, I have no interest in its product and really feel I should be doing something to positively impact people other than business travellers.

Consequently I am looking to change, but working out what to change to is proving the tricky part.

Mafiafish ... get out soon and get out quick.

I suspect there are a few on this forum who have completed PhDs/Postdocs then left asap (I'm one of them) after an extensive Costs (lots)/ Benefit (few) Analysis.

I'm not saying the corporate world is easy in comparison - as others have posted, the politics can be every bit as terrible and the hours just, if not more, long. But you should at least be getting recompensed - academia expects you to put up and shut up, with miserly financial reward.

I generally enjoy mine despite being inherently lazy and a world class procrastinator.

Self employed fitting woodburners for the past four years, it seems to be a good little niche to be in at the moment. Dealing with the admin side can be a drag but my procrastination makes this worse.
Money is great but I need to be careful not be greedy and overdo it. It can be hard to say no though, I'm sure other SE folks can identify with this.
September - December tends to be manically busy, I was totally knackered by the time I stopped for the crimbo break last year.
Being high up on a chimney stack on a nice day never gets boring 🙂

During the summer I do six weeks or so for a local music festival, building large sculptures mainly in metal. It is challenging and appeals to my inner showoff 🙂 Always ends up stressful for the few weeks before the fest as the worrkload ramps up but there is a great sense of cameraderie and fun though.

I'm aiming to do a lot more four day weeks this year, starting now!

Yes, mostly. I'm a freelance architect working school hours + evenings to suit workload. I get to work at all scales from one-off house to major masterplanning schemes, so that keeps it varied and interesting.

Only downsides are when all the varying deadlines clash, then it's a massive push with lots of late nights.

Never really enjoyed what I do but totally appreciate the hours, benefits and OK money, although the money is a constant frustration because I feel I should be earning more by achieving more. It's a vicious circle of being stuck in a comfort zone rut with nowhere to progress to even if I wanted to but I don't want to but I'm stuck if I did want to but I don't want to but I do want to etc

The dream of owning a pub / restaurant I know is more likely to be a nightmare. Maybe that's the 'retirement plan'.

chewkw often spouts some nonsense on here, but on university life speaks sense.

I have less and less idea why people would remain in academia. Pay is awful, the bureaucracy mind numbing and the politics more vicious than the House of Cards.

Yes I do, have never minded any of the jobs I do, the nice thing with my current job is it's virtually impossible to bring work home, so work/home life is very nicely balanced.

Only downside is the reputation that goes with it, not out to rob anyone despite what the majority think, just keep you on the road and safe.

ourmaninthenorth - Member

chewkw often spouts some nonsense on here, ...

😆 That's because you have decided to be selective of the information you processed without thinking through ... You need to install more RAM otherwise there is limit as to the amount of information you can process. Information overload, does not compute. No multi-tasking I am afraid.

I am the TRUTH! (just like the voice from above ... 😈 )

... but on university life speaks sense.

Now bow down and ask for forgiveness ...

I have less and less idea why people would remain in academia. Pay is awful, the bureaucracy mind numbing and the politics more vicious than the House of Cards.

Because they all got sucked into the hype of the perceived "benefits" i.e. the holidays, the easy comfy life at work, the casualness of work and the "intelligent" people that challenge their thinking etc ... all hypes. Once you got sucked in there is no escaping ... you will regret it. Most do.

😯

I get to meet nice people and some a bit indifferent, all types and all social clasess all treated the same hopefully, get to hear about their family work life problems for some reason and get paid at the end.

Enjoy what i do and like meeting new people,andhelping them out.Oh and having a laugh with most and crying with others but only occasionaly

Hate my job. Company is a joke, poor customer feedback from most of them. Long hours driving, no time to myself from Monday morning to Friday night. No benefits or decent overtime rates and the boss thinks he's lord and master of us all!

Because they all got sucked into the hype of the perceived "benefits" i.e. the holidays, the easy comfy life at work, the casualness of work and the "intelligent" people that challenge their thinking etc ... all hypes. Once you got sucked in there is no escaping ... you will regret it. Most do.

Garry_Lager - Member
I don't, myself. It's a hard road, and you need a lot of luck to make it, but that's no different to any creative pursuit or really anything worthwhile. I think the zombie maggot mind virus with which you are afflicted is distorting your view of the world. Chewkw's glass is half full. Of depressed maggots.

You are the lucky zombie maggot bar-stewart! You got luck on your side.

Ya, other jobs might not be different or worthwhile but they get to be zombie at home (switch off) and get paid accordingly.

How long have you worked there? More than 25 years yet? See if you can break my friend record as he is coming into his 30 years (he is the last one standing) ... others legged it for early retirement. Brilliant minds but got fed up with zombie maggots spreading viruses ... 😆

Ah ha ... You should be half full (half empty depressed, half full optimistic) then cheerful zombie maggot ... 😆

I enjoyed the first 18 months. After those, it has been a low. Now i'm entering the third consecutive year which will feature major redundancies and unnecessary corporate restructuring. The atmosphere is a little like this... [img] [/img]

I love mine. Would most likely do it for free. I usually start at 7 am and finish at 7pm work through lunch. My contracted hours are 8-530 with an hr for lunch.
The restaurant serves better food than you would find in the best eateries, I get loads of perks including champagne for breakfast up to 20 times a year depending on how hard we all work as a team to achieve our goals.
The guys and girls are the best in the business and it's always been a childhood dream to work there.

Real carlsberg job.
Oh and the pays pretty good too.

On balance, yes. It's the fact that there's too much of it (long hours) and worst of all is the commute, which just sucks the life out of me. If I could work from home I would love it.

I recognise it's got a definite shelf life though. I will get bored with it at some point.

Cant stand it.. Work offshore, so the hours are long (and feel longer when you have nowt to do) Long time away from the other 1/2, bikes & pastimes. Most of the time I don't feel I'm capable of doing the job and when I try & bring this to the attention of supervisors etc at the job they tend to ignore it. My lack of motivation & laziness (as well as recognising that my job is fairly well paid for what I do) Means I'm never going to look for further employment till working offshore no-longer suits (starting a family etc) by this time I'll have ruined my chances of developing skills or a a CV that could be applied elsewhere.

Good job I answered this earlier. Today politics have got me so wound up I hate this place so much I could kill.

Because they all got sucked into the hype of the perceived "benefits" i.e. the holidays, the easy comfy life at work, the casualness of work and the "intelligent" people that challenge their thinking etc ... all hypes. Once you got sucked in there is no escaping ... you will regret it. Most do.

+1

Seriously, it makes "Marche ou crève" seem like an attractive sane and rational choice.

I liked my job in academia while it lasted (postdoc and temporary lecturer in a Russell Group geography dept). Students are generally cool, it was a nice working environment and I got to go on field trips to amazing places like the Mojave Desert, South Africa, Sardinia, the Lake District. That went a long way to making up for the less good bits.

However I didn't have any particularly earth-shattering ideas research-wise, so it sort of fizzled out. That's fine though - fortunately politics is pretty interesting too 🙂