[Closed] How do you cope with work?

erm..... fun stuff costs money (mostly)

I work to live.

Being in this office funds my (and my family's) lifestyle.

When it's boring it can be hard going, but I cheer myself up by looking forward to what I can do outside the office when I leave the office.

Currently i just get it done and dream of being a hippy on costa rica or somewhere nice with a small house and minimal belongings.

I think if I were designing furniture and products as opposed to buildings I'd enjoy work, or perhaps if I were designing buildings that looked different.

Yourself molgrips?

Working pays for me to be able to play out on my bike and go on holiday
No work
No money
No bike
No holidays

Sacrificed security, pensions and more money and instead chose freelancing, part-time hours and quality play time. Wouldn't switch back for anything.

Whilst there's a whole world of fun stuff, there's also a world where most of the people have f*ck all. I thank my lucky stars that by sheer fluke I was born in a country where the worst thing I have to do is go to work for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

"cope" 🙄

It's a means to an end, that's all.

I'm a contractor, but it's 6months or a year (or 4 years) at a time.. and that definitely helps. I'd be suicidal otherwise 🙁

Woody - good point 😳

I ride to work, which is fun, then I do a job that is fun, working with interesting people on cool projects, then I ride back, which is also pretty fun! In my spare time, I do fun stuff with family, fun biking stuff etc.

Sometimes I have to hoover. That is pretty dull. Or wash up. That is worse, or tidy the garden. I don't mind cooking. Other than that sort of basic hygiene / human needs stuff, generally I enjoy most stuff I do.

Yes, I'm on way less pay than I could be, but we own (about 40% of) a nice house, in a lovely town with great riding on our doorstep, and I generally don't work ridiculous hours*, so I get to see the kid which is nice.

If I had my old job, I'd probably live in a bigger house than I needed, or have massive savings, but it would suck in comparison.

Joe
*with the exception of tomorrow's 06.30 - 19:15 day, but these are pretty rare.

We live in a society where, unfortunately, money is an essential part of living a life. I work so that I can live. Work gives me money (call it a bride if you would) to do my job and, using that money, I pay for things that make my existence outside these four walls bearable and/or enjoyable.

That recently included a new bike, although i have recently found out that, contrary to what I was told by someone in finance, we might be considering the cycle to work scheme. So, that could be a proper commuter bike for me in the next few months then. Nice.

I ride to and from work, which is great.

I only do 4 days per week anyway.

I try to give as much as possible to my job, so I get personal satisfaction from it. More often than not, my work is interesting. I have very little real responsibility yet earn not bad money.

I like most of my colleagues. My managers are all great.

It pays for lovely shiny bikes, dog insurance/food/medicine/toys etc, my car, red wine, Jack Daniels.

We have nine different kinds of tea, eight different kinds of coffee, plus hot chocolate, all free, all day. All kinds of benefits, nice warm office to sit in, allowed to use the internet and email. Cope? Gods, it could be so much worse!

one of my colleagues put it quite elegantly for me ...

"terry - work is just something you do to fill up time when your resting from cycling isnt it "

- after id described my weekends activitys of cycling 500k and sleeping in a ditch (near urban bivy)

Riding to and from work for me was nothing but a chore. No excitement or interest.

I can't get any personal satisfaction from this job as any possibility of success is completely crippled.

But yes, you are all right insofar as I am lucky to be in a job in a recession and not be fighting for survival. Very much so.

Can you not vary your route to work to get some jumps in, or a bit of nice swoopy track? Something to get a smile on your face before you get to the office, or after you leave?

If I could, believe me I would already have done so!

Try throwing yourself into your job. Put everything into it, for its own sake, rather than for the prospect of promotion. I found it remarkably satisfying.

Where do you work?

a blowjob from the temp receptionist breaks up the morning
pub for lunch destroys the afternoon

I work on a project on which it is extremely difficult to achieve anything because of the way it's being run. I am not in a position to improve it either.

Hence throwing myself into work is not really an option.. 🙁

Am I the only person here that actually enjoys my job?

i enjoy most aspects of my job, the income will pay for things I want to do, i work part-time, but hate some of the human detritus i have to work alongside

Am I the only person here that actually enjoys my job?

i imagine your job becomes very un-enjoyable when you realise your engines on fire!!

Keep treading water mate, I feel dead guilty about complaining about my job when fundamentally I'm trying to make the world a better place (well my city anyway) and make double my sallary at my last job.

I'm still skint as I went from renting to owning and feel very frustarted at new managment systems and ConDem cuts, not to mention the lack of £s to spend on... well anything at all really.

However I intend to live a lot longer than my 31 years so far and as such know that this is just a blip and one day I'll look back and laugh.

That's what keeps me going. 🙂

I enjoy my job, but I'd still rather be doing other stuff. That's never going to change, and that's why I shrunk my hours.

Head down, get in get out. My job is dull dull dull but I'm out at 4 / 430 and weekends to do whatever.

But yeah, there's tonnes of places and things out there I'd rather be doing.

I have a job I enjoy doing. I don't have to cope with it.

Love my job. Paid to do stuff I enjoy, work with some great people, get paid to go out and do stuff, and good holidays. Pay and pensions not bad either.

I think if I were designing furniture and products as opposed to buildings I'd enjoy work, or perhaps if I were designing buildings that looked different

Get real, if you were designing furniture you'd wish you were designing buildings. If you were designing individual buildings you'd be annoyed at all the little details and the amount of time wasted thinking about the design and how nobody ever appreciates your ideas and how it takes so much longer than designing something standard but you never get any more credit for it; oh and wish you were designing standard buildings!

People either enjoy work or they dont. Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory. They'd be able to go on for hours about the different textures of the knob and who if you approached it from +/-0.1 degree you might not put it on so efficiently and that this would change the efficiency of the factory by up to 5% a year. Which also happens to be the profit margin of the product and how if they didnt do their job properly the whole factory would not be profitable and would close destroying the local economy and just plunging the world economy over the edge and how their job is the most important job in the world.

Unfortunately most of these people actually end up with a decent job and your forced to listen to them as if they really are somewhat important.

The rest of us would hate our job even if it was flying round the world partying all night and sleeping with a collection of the world most beautiful women. We'd still find something to complain about, oh no sorry I cant party/sleep with entire team of hot celebrity cheerleaders tonight, this work is really tiring me out, I just fancy a night in with a cup of tea and some hob nobs.

I'm resigning 🙂

things change when you have kids. before you do a bit of work and have a bit of spare time after and everything's grand.
with kids you don't have a spare second and begin to resent your job stealing your life. me and mrs turnip spend hours thinking of strategies for early retirement.
often the idea of selling everything and moving somewhere cheap and doing something lame (for me) like teaching english is muted but you need money for security, healthcare etc etc and no where is really cheap now.
i have resigned myself to being a wage slave at least for the time being and try to get out the door at work at least by 6 to have a bit of ownlife. will revisit when mortgage is paid (a couple of years unless the interest rates go crazy)

How do you cope with work?

Easy. I think back to last August when I was made redundant, out of the blue, after 14 years. I remember how upset my wife and daughter were. I then think about six months of sending off emails and letters only to hear nothing back. I remember signing on every two weeks and telling someone who's thoughts were obviously elsewhere how hard I'd been trying to find work.

Now I'm back in work I find I cope with it just fine thank you very much. Next time you are thinking of all the fun stuff and "struggling to cope", consider the alternative - it sucks.

I'm self employed and finish by dinner time most days, i spent 24 yrs working in factories thinking i had to earn top money, i now love my job and should have set up on my own earlier.

I feel really sad for my work mates i left behind..

People either enjoy work or they dont. Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory. They'd be able to go on for hours about the different textures of the knob and who if you approached it from +/-0.1 degree you might not put it on so efficiently and that this would change the efficiency of the factory by up to 5% a year. Which also happens to be the profit margin of the product and how if they didnt do their job properly the whole factory would not be profitable and would close destroying the local economy and just plunging the world economy over the edge and how their job is the most important job in the world.

That's kind of what the (very popular in psychology) Flow book ([url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0061339202/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060920432&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=19EYQSYTZYGDAG960WAA ]this one[/url]) says.

It is kind of possibly right in some ways, although I'd say that one thing you find about people you meet who enjoy their jobs is that they have often followed weird career paths and moved around a lot to find them. I don't think it is purely that some people just enjoy doing anything, it is more than some people are more motivated or willing to take the risks required to find what it is that they will enjoy doing. As someone who has done things from cleaning to filming people riding rollercoasters, to writing audio processing software, I am 100% sure that some jobs are better and more rewarding than others by a long way. You can take pleasure in doing a cleaning job well, but to be honest, once you've done it fow a few weeks, there is very little optimisation possibility left, and it gets pretty tedious.

Joe

scu98rkr.. you have a point, to an extent...

I figured out a while ago that I was never going to enjoy a job I was likely to get, so I thought I'd become self employed and work for only some of the time.

Doing ok so far but spent far too much money. It only recently dawned on me that a high salary is not a high salary if you only work half the time...

Had some good jobs and some shocking ones, now run a company with my wife from home using a network of freelancers (and our own work). Loads of time with our little boy, plenty of flexibility. The downside is very little holiday time but we have a lot of fun at weekends/evening/mornings.

My motivation is our little one and buying silly toys as well as the aim to buy a house outright soonish. A comfortable lifestyle that has plenty of time for surfing, MTBing, running, etc.

Had a very long patch of cr4p jobs and wondering what to do - stick with it and you'll get there.

Mat - how old are you, if you don't mind me asking. Just wondering how long it took to get it all sorted for you.

I switch off when I'm at work and go in to robot mode, when I'm not mucking about and taking the mick out of anyone who seems to warrant it.
Also a notebook where I can write my thought and ideas in, as well as lists of what to do when I clock off.

Mol - 35 (just)

Took a lot of cr4p jobs (e.g.farm and building site labourer anyone?!!) to get here though and my very talented wife has a lot to do with things going well right now. It could end any time though - never ever going to be complacent.

How do you cope with work?

I drink.

My name's Steven, and I'm a workaholic.

I've had what would be considered grim jobs in the past, for nothing more than food/lodge, working with idiots and slackers. I was grateful to be given the chance to work. Now I'm in a job that I can meet and talk to the people I'm helping, and see the change I'm helping make in their lives. The money helps me do more things in my free-time, but I'm not doing this for the money. I do this because I LOVE WORKING.

I'm lucky to have a really good job.

Mat you are almost the same age as me, and by the sound of it more sorted with work!

Won't be paying off my mortgage for a while yet...

As most people have said already, it's a case of "having" to work in order to fund one's lifestyle and commitments.

Personally I enjoy my work; lots of benefits in terms of interesting projects, working from home 75% of the time, good money, being able to finish early to hit the trails etc.

Have earned more in the past (but that came with far more baggage), and had lots of disposable income. Have also had some sh1t jobs. I now have a greater respect for everything in my life as well as that of those around me (and also those who have it harder).

Life (and work) is pretty much what you make of it

work to live here aswell, just had a baby so more important than ever.

but i do get myself down with regards a career... and finding the ideal job, its all gone pete tong lately though

one mate who is 36 has been in the same factory since he left school, he just sits in front of the same machine clocks in and clock out and has the amazing power to totally forget about work and not take it home with him. out of all my mates he's the happy one!

i had to laugh at the comment above...

me and mrs turnip spend hours thinking of strategies for early retirement.

me and mrs monkey do this all the time....

Mat you are almost the same age as me, and by the sound of it more sorted with work!

Might not be - easy to assume someone else is better off. Yes we're happy with our lot but not everyone's cup of tea. We got a bit lucky and followed our ambitions - at the moment it's working out but who knows what might happen? Compared to the majority of people, you are much more "sorted" so don't worry about others that might appear better off!

I am fairly well sorted, yes... needed more discipline tho 4 years ago..

I'm reasonably well paid with more job security than I can shake a stick at and an almost guaranteed promotion in the offing. I quite enjoy working with my colleagues etc but tbh as soon as I walk I'm counting down till it's time to go again.

I've told them I'll be leaving in about a year and am currently looking at retraining etc etc in the field I want to move into.

I've no kids, no intention of having them so no real responsibilities and tbh I'd rather take the hit moneywise and do something I want.

I cope with work by jacking in the job i grew to hate and was robbing me of time and money (106 mile round trip every day!). I then spent 3 months riding alot and thinking about what i really wanted to do with my life. Applied for a few jobs but heard nothing. A big bike shop in Bristol got in touch and i will be starting a new job, in a new industry in 10 days time.

I'll earn less but have a pleasant 20 mile cycle commute every day and learn alot about something i have a passion and enthusiasm for. I don't have to be nor need to be a slave to a high wage as we have no kids and don't plan to either.

It's all about getting the balance right i suppose.

Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory

What a load of p1sh.
I have a job I enjoy. It's varied and interesting, but my last job ground me down so much I walked out taking the risk that "something will turn up" rather than endure another day. I expect to be offered a promotion in the near future which will move me out of where I am to a more pleasant environment, more travel and substantially more money, but i don't know if I'll take it because enjoying it is worth more to me than a but more cash. I know that from experience.

'll earn less but have a pleasant 20 mile cycle commute every day and learn alot about something i have a passion and enthusiasm for. I don't have to be nor need to be a slave to a high wage as we have no kids and don't plan to either.

exactly

Thoose who do would think there job rewarding even if it was just sticking on a dial on a radio in a massive factory
What a load of p1sh.

Did you read the rest of the post ? to be honest it was meant to be funny rather than factual.

But I think there is a certain amount of truth in it none the less, it was really meant to address the fact that certain people(myself probably included) seem to think the grass is greener on the other side and if they were just doing something slightly different their job would be great. When they could probably enjoy their current job and get alot of satisfaction out of it if they could apply themselves to it as much as they do their hobbies or other areas of their life.

There are also some people who do love working and with in reason will strive to do as well as possible and enjoy work even if the job is actually a bit rubbish. Personally I would wonder whether "some" of these people will put so much effort into other areas of their lives.

My post was full of generalisations and generalisation will always be very inaccurate but maybe there is something behind them.

Obviously in the real world there is a difference between being a sweat shop worker and a CEO the pay for a start !

teaching english is muted

Ahem! [b]Mooted[/b]. 😉

I have ups and downs with work just like everyone else. The ups are when my interest is piqued. The downs are when I'm bored.

I've always been easily bored. As a five year old, my teachers said that I needed a bomb to get me going. I'm inherently a dreamer, never more content than when lying on my back thinking of somewhere else.

I enjoy work most when I'm under pressure - I used to thrive off the adrenaline when I was a corporate lawyer (all those all-nighters and stress). But that isn't sustainable, and parts of my soul died as a result.

Now, in a steadier environment, I have the chance to reinvigorate parts of me that would otherwise never have been revived.

So, my relationship with work is complex: it gives me structure and, if balanced right, gets me to enjoy my life outside it more than if I was idly staring at the clouds.

Right, early finish and off home - might ride the long way if it isn't going to rain again. 😀

I'm dealing with work by leaving in 2 months and going on a round the world climbing and biking trip with the mrs. Planning on self employment when I get back, not a wise idea securtiy wise but hey it will make me even happier and I went to a few friends funerals last year,if nowt else it made me determined not to stick at something I dont like for the next 20 years.

Badly

Well, the last full time job I had, I didn't. So approaching what felt like a nervous breakdown I handed my notice in with no job to go to. I then started doing youth work almost by chance, realised that I wanted to work with difficult and vulnerable young people, and have just started a new full time job doing exactly this. This process from beginning to end has taken nearly 3 years though, working several p/t jobs at once, and a £10k drop in pay to not very much. Prospects for career progression are good though, and I'm happy. I'm also very glad I had the opportunity to choose happiness over money and would make the same choice again.

I'm a bit trapped in a stressful job but with decent money (thats if you call 29K decent money!) I work with 50 prisoners & ONE other member of staff. All the prisoners are the only ones in the jail, they don't realise there's 650 others & want everything doing NOW.
For instance one night last week there was a power cut at 17.30 & the genny didn't kick in (which had been tested that day)we nearly had a riot as loads were saying 'we're entitled to electricity in our cells' We lock up at 18.50 but it was 19.30 before we managed to get them all away. The lecky came on 10mins later (after works had sorted the genny)
On my wing we currently have some very obnoxious, needy, time consuming, problematic, stressed out, poor coping, childish prisoners, & today we got some IDTS (on methodone) which ups our workload even more. Then I'm sometimes working with certain staff who have little or no interpersonal skills & talk to prisoners like sh!te, which makes the job even harder for everyone as theyr'e too idle to sort out prisoners problems so It's left to those who can be ar$ed, like me. Etc etc etc.
Then I come home to a lovely missus, a wee dog, & G&T & the thought of my Orange 5 that's on order!
PHEW!!

My work is fun and I only do 20 hours a week 🙂

I work in charge in Intensive Care, been in the same hospital for 24 years, work 3 out of 4 weekends, do 5 weeks out of every 14 on nights, watch about one third of the patients we get die. See the stupid waste that some lives turn into, listen to the dysfunctional families squabble, watch as about £100 an hour of high tech, high quality care is wasted when it's about 5 years too late, listen to politicians wanting to cut my wages and my pension, watch as we bring 500 nurses over from the Phillipines because workforce planning in the NHS is never done well, get to deal with the end product of a 'nursing degree' who can't string sentences together and can't add up, placate consultants who behave like spoiled children, eat shit from the canteen, sit and tell people the worst news they've ever had, get spat at, punched, hugged, kissed, insulted and praised. I do drug calculations at 3 am on my 8th night at work, I wash my hands a thousand times a day, I try to set an example to my staff, I get phoned on my days off, I help out on other units, I act as the senior nurse for 6 critical care units on a rota, I swallow down the vomit because I can, I blink away the tears because I can, I take some lunch breaks sitting on the toilet because I don't want to hear about that holiday or those kids or that upcoming wedding, I shout at muppets, I praise good practice, I hug people when they are upset, I make people laugh when they are sad.

Above all these days, I don't hide behind my uniform and my position, I'm a person and I treat everyone else like they are people too.

£30,000 a year...

Crikey> That sounds to me like a special kind of hell. I don't know how you lot do it and stay standing I swear to god.

I'm a paid geek. This mostly makes me happy, cept when I work with difficult people, so I'm moving Depts to fix that. So I'm going to be paid to do a different kind of geeking. I've done some horrid jobs though, and I got through them mostly through setting myself my own little targets I didn't need to just to get to teatime. Used to do data entry and see how many insurance direct debit forms I could set up. Turned into a competition for all of us, made the day pass. Silly but effective.

The vast sea of boring bits are a bitch. But an interesting problem washed up on my desk this arvo. So interesting, I'm going to sign off here and make a start right now.

Crikey indeed.

..sorry it turned into a bit of a stream of conciousness thing...

I cope because I work with great people who care like I do, and I consider myself privileged to get to do the stuff I do. I never believed in all that "it's a vocation, not a job" stuff, but the people who are good don't really do it for the money. It's a bit like the riding a bike thing; there is a certain amount of satisfaction, maybe even pleasure, from being able to do something well.

I get to work with ladies a lot too, which is occasionally an issue twixt myself and Mrs Crikey..

I'm a sucker for a thread like this .
It's very interesting .

If you are'nt happy where you are , then it's very possible you will never be .

Previous post .Big shout out , and all that . Why on earth didnt you just go and get a job in finance or IT , or something . What with all that energy , you 'd have cleaned up ....

I was going to be a geologist, but oil prices fell at the wrong time; its my comeback for awkward questions...

🙄

essel & crikey - you both sound like you deserve a lot more recompense for the shit you have to deal with.

I didn't cope with my job (40k p.a. 20k company car, pension, healthcare etc) so ditched it.

I'm in danger of repeating another thread, but I took redundancy voluntarily, set up on my own and haven't looked back inspite of being back on the manual side of the workforce. I have no stress (until I hit a dry patch possibly), have a big 4 x 4 as my company van and am on course to hit 70-80k turnover in my first year. This week (an above average week) my gross will be 1.5k for works carried out personally and 9k for works I've sub-contracted out. Net profit will sit at around 3k for the week.

Downside - I'm working away from home at the moment (mon-thurs) and missing my family & my bike.

I really enjoy what I do, I just wish there was more of it to do.

To me endless planning for very short term projects is not what I'm into - the way things are in my new role despite being told something entirely different by the boss when he lured me into it.

Crikey, you should've been a poet! Sounds like you & Mrs Gruntfuttock do the same job, She's a senior staff nurse on a childrens orthopaedic ward at Leeds GI & faces the same as you have described & more. She's had flowers, thank you cards & hugs from grateful parents along with the worry of complaints from parents for 'drinking a cup off coffee at the nurses desk' at 4 am while she's solely in charge of an High Dependancy Unit.
Us 'screws' however get little or no thanks from management, prisoners or the public & certainly NOT the government. ( I'd love to watch the prime minister on a wing in a Cat C jail for a day!)
Still, I chose the job didn't I? Only myself to blame.

If you are'nt happy where you are , then it's very possible you will never be .

Nah. I don't want whatever I haven't got. I want something specific that I don't currently have.

One thing I would like is to be like crikey.

STR - what is your business?

STR - what is your business?

Sparky, working mostly on street lighting.

interesting thread.

I'm slightly bemused at those listing salaries and turnover. Surely that's not really on?

I'd never consider listing our t/o or net profit - ever.

I do only have to do 3 or 4 shifts each week in a job that can be stressfull although I find it pretty good fun, but the customers can be a bit of a handful. I love my city bike commute and have enough cash to fund whatever I fancy. I'm in the NHS so things could get a bit choppy, but I'm in a bit of a specialist post and the recession has probably increased my work load, so fingers crossed. I'm a pretty happy user of life really and consider myself very fortunate to be so.

Surf mat, I bet I could go through your STW posts and work out what your company is, then look up your company accounts on companies house direct.. 🙂

But yes - I wouldn't give out my income info.

To the contrary I've never understood the British hang-up with being open about salaries/income.

I've nothing to hide on the business side of things and on a personal level it's not a bragging issue, as there are probably plenty who earn far more and I'm 100% certain there are many who earn a damned sight less yet have a lot more disposable income - which is the important bit.

I'm another one who doesn't get the hang up with revealing salaries; it's just what you earn, not who you are...

Don't see the problem with talking about salaries etc either.

I currently earn about 12k a year before tax for my 20 hours a week. Working reduced hours due to illness (PVFS). Enough to live on for me but I'm not exactly rolling in it. I enjoy my work though.

To be fair crikey, when you work in the NHS everyone knows what band you are on, so keeping your salary secret is a bit of a mute point...

moot

[/pedant]

I think if I spread about how much I made, some folk would get jealous and it'd be only a matter of time before someone made a snide personal remark in an argument...