How do you cope with work?

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! Mooted. 😉

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…