Do you like your job?

I stay at my job because I get paid well and have the flexibility I need to take care of my family. I feel stuck, but constantly remind myself of the benefits.

Yeah, kinda, it pays the bills anyhow.
I’m a locksmith…it’s opened all kinds of doors for me :D

I’m a nurse. I used to love it. Every few years I get bored and change from one area of nursing to another. I’ve done cardiology, internal med, worked in complimentary medicine for awhile, hospice, oncology, home health, OR recovery, ER, cardiology-pulmonology-diabetic research, disaster work for Hurricane Andrew and the Haitian earthquake, psych… everything but pediatrics and OBGYN. I could never handle losing a kid and there are things about women I don’t want to see. I got so disgusted with the drift in focus from the patient to the dollar that I quit and drove a cab for awhile. I got a captain’s license and sail six months or more per year. Love it. I’m in no hurry to go back, it’s all very different now. If I do return stateside, I’ll probably do psych or research. I’m lucky to be in a profession that is always in demand, but you have to be passionate about it and if you lose that passion, even temporarily, you must take a break. Your patients deserve the best you can give and if you can’t deliver, you have to have the balls to get out and do something else for awhile. So, I sail the Caribbean until I am ready to go back. If I ever do.

@Espiritus_Corvus Thanks for being a nurse! It’s such a difficult job, but you really touch patients’ lives.

I’m a full-time student (and wish I could continue to be forever) but I do work part-time on campus as a tutor for differential equations. It’s a walk-in type deal, so I sit in the room for an hour every day and can have no students show up or 20. Most I’ve ever had is about 25 right before a test. I have no desire to be a teacher full-time but I do love my job as it stands now. I get paid to help out my peers with a subject I enjoy very much, so what’s to dislike?

Are you kidding?! Getting paid for freelance writing and audio-video work in my home office—what’s not to love! Just don’t get me started on my previous in the corporate world.

@Mariah, I’ve always wanted to be a “professional student!” I’ve settled for being a “professional volunteer.” Luckily I don’t have to work for a salary.

I love working in the library. I love the reference and research work. I loved my student teaching in high school and elementary school libraries as well. In early August I begin my second (and final) semester of student teaching; teaching special education in high school. I’ll have to get back to you on how I like that.

I am with @Mariah, I thoroughly enjoy being a full time student and as soon as I graduate I might go straight back and earn a masters of library science.

Some days yes, some days no. Today is a ‘no’ day.

I do, for the most part, like my job.
If you saw my question about rude people, you’ll see why I say “for the most part”.

@Katniss I did, the public can be pretty shitty can’t they?

@Headhurts Omg yes!!!!! The longer I work in retail, the less faith in humanity I have.

I am bored with mine and want out of construction.

I haven’t started my official career yet. I work at a coffee shop now (just graduated from school) and it actually isn’t that bad. I didn’t like teaching (I was a student teacher) to the point where I’d do it for free, or where I’d always be happy getting up in the morning going to class. I guess I’m still working on some side projects, like a novel, that I hope will one day bring me enough of an income to sustain myself. I’ve already gotten a few things published and I think I can actually make it in this market as a writer.. that’s what I wanted to do all along. The ‘career’ stuff was because of needing something to pay the bills in the future.

My ideal, now, would be finding a job at a private school or maybe a College, where you’re not dealing with bratty kids all day and coming home with a headache and a half.

My job has evolved over time,and I still love the industry, and the macro view of my job, but in the last few years it has become very unenjoyable.

We were taken over in 2005 by a dynamic company that was great, but then that company was bought a year later by an old, well known, national institution, full of entrenched bureaucrats and siloed departments. Now we have a “Global” leadership group with lots of talk about creative partnership and cross departmental cooperation, but at the departmental level there is as much turf protection as ever.

I am very lucky to be in a field that I love. I am a full time graduate student in history, and I earn my bread by introducing undergrads to their own historicity and showing them that history is not the boring list of facts and dates that they have been lied to about in high school… I love teaching and think that I am pretty good at it. I earn enough money to get by on, and I have health insurance, which is nothing to sneeze at in the U.S.

The worst experiences I’ve had in my job so far involve entitled students who think that just because they made it into a state university and their parents can afford to pay their way, that they deserve an A or even a B in anything they attempt to half-ass. But the good experiences I’ve had, getting to see students’ minds being blown, or learning from them, far outweigh the bad.

I have a niece who went to school and chose to get a teaching degree. We all questioned why because she did not like or tolerate children well but she did it anyway, mommy and daddy forked over the cash for her education. She could not get a job in the town she wanted to stay in so she is working in the floral department at a supermarket. Sad thing was this was what she did before going to college and part time during college.

See what a good education can do for you?

@bookish1 That sounds like great work. I have a graduate degree in philosophy and I was a T.A (teaching assistant), which I preferred a lot more to working with school-age kids.

@sparrowfeed : It is indeed good work if you are into it. I view it as a responsibility, especially because I teach introductory classes. Unless students are history majors, they are most likely going to take one history class their whole time in college—and so I only get one chance to show them what history actually is, and why it’s important.

I hate to hear some of my colleagues complain about teaching. We are apprentice professors, pretty much. No one should get into this field if they don’t like teaching.

@bookish1
That’s great! My son is a history buff and wants to major in history when he goes to college.

I love my job. I do freelance writing and editing, and I love it!

I’m an engineer doing R&D and get to work on the coolest stuff around. I love it – except for the days I have to spend writing the quarterly reports and doing the budget.
Those are the days when you will see me here most often.

I like my profession but dislike my current job because of the very weak management. I’ve worked in 5 different medical center labs and this lab is by far the worst. I absolutely dread going to work. I’ll be submitting my retirement papers in one month from now. They can take this job and shove it!

My last job was mind-numbingly boring. But it was in my field, and I got paid more there than at any place else I worked. I would have never left voluntarily.

I love being a nurse. I’ve worked in several different areas of nursing and some of those haven’t been for me, such as working in a doctor’s office. I really enjoy working in a hospital setting, which is where I currently work and I love it. If I get tired of where I am at, I’ll switch to another area of nursing. Eventually, I’d like to teach.

I wonder if @zenvelo and I work for the same “Global” unit of a large multinational company..those words & the timing sound about right..

I’ve been with the same company since early 2002. 11 years feels like a lifetime in the tech-world and nearly 3 years ago I moved to a role where I get to travel and talk to prospective customers. I have to say..I really love it.

While no software is perfect, our solutions are better than anything out there (for the industry that I’m in) – and I have a lot of passion for them. Also, I get to travel and meet new people and I’m compensated very adequately for my work.

No two days are alike, and when I’m not traveling I get to work from home, which for me is a huge positive. I love my home office.
I feel incredibly fortunate..because I really love my job nearly all the time. Sure, there are minor annoyances (paper work, expense reports, status reports) and occasionally I feel like I need to play Buzzword Bingo when people get too sales-y…but most of the time I feel really lucky & like I’m in the perfect job for me.

I adored my work and would have done it for free if I didn’t need the income. If I had not become disabled, I’d still be doing it.

@Katniss: Cool, I’m always glad to hear when the younger generation is into history. ;) Best of luck to your son! If you PM me about what kind of history he is interested in, I’d be glad to pass along some cool reading suggestions :)

My actual job is as a bank teller. I’m on call, so I only work when I can, around my school schedule. I won’t be going back until August. I don’t particularly like the job. It’s customer service, so it sucks most of the time. I like the pay and the super flexible schedule I have being on call. However, getting up to go to a branch is a huge effort.

For the next two months, I am doing an internship (my second) at the local probation/parole office. I love it! It’s what I really want to do after graduation. It’s an unpaid internship, but I don’t find it difficult to get up and go there every morning. I get to do a lot of the things actual agents do and it’s great experience. Plus, I don’t have to kiss the offenders’ asses all day. :)

My job is just a dull office job. I have no particular skills so I just do what I can. That said, I do like the company I work for and the people I work with. That makes all the difference

I liked my job and was laid off because I was making too much money and am 66 years old. I intended to work until I was 70. This really f***ed up my plans.

Except for getting paid about 60% of the median wage for my field (CNC Machinist), yes.

There is enough variety that it doesn’t get monotonous for more than a small handful of hours at a time, I get along with most of my coworkers (including management), and it’s fairly relaxed so long as you do your job correctly.

@jerv I worked for a manufacturing company. They laid off engineers but not the guys that program the CNC machines.

The last place I worked was stressful. I worked closely with the boss, just her and me in one small building. She’d give me instructions to do something a certain way, then change her mind a couple of days later and tell me to do it a different way….but a week down the road she wouldn’t remember telling me to do it the other way and holler at me for doing it the second way she told me to do it. So was SO inconsistent, except with the reprimands, all of which went back to her own confusion and memory problems. I was constantly in trouble with her.

I’m torn. There is a lot of bullshit but the pay is pretty good. Some days you bust your ass but other days you just sit around all day with literally nothing to do yet the boss gets mad if you just sit around so you have to just “look busy” all day. It pays the bills though so whatever. It’s nothing I could do for the rest of my life but then again I have no plans to do this after I graduate so I suck it up, deal with it and patiently wait until the day I can do what I feel passionate about.

I have three jobs at present, and I pretty much love them all. I’m happier, career-wise, than I’ve ever been!

Job 1: Manage Fluther. Most days, it truly is a joy. Even when it’s not all pancakes and parties, the customers (you guys!) are the absolute best.

Job 2: Freelance editor. It seems like this is what I should have been doing for my whole life. It feels like home, somehow. I adore it!

Job 3: Freelance administrative support. I just recently started this one, and have been surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. In my pre-mom life, I’d always done administrative work. While I didn’t have any strong feelings about the work in the past, I was good at it. It’s actually pretty refreshing to get back to doing something I feel very competent in.

All three jobs have very different things to love about them, but one thing in common: I do all three from home. <does a happy dance>

Damn. How do I get a job like that @augustlan?

@Dutchess_III I don’t think I could recreate the circumstances that led to them if I tried. Pure luck, so far as I can tell!

Meh, it’s a job. I don’t care. It’s better than nothing.

Maybe you could PM me what lead to what and how, so I’ll know an opening when I see it?

@augustlan Soooooooo envious! :0)
Keep up the great Fluther work. You rock. I love this place!

I used to like my job a lot more, I still like the people in my immediate team.
I have more responsibility (accountability) and less authority than ever.

In recent years there are new procedures that are supposed to make everything more reliable but instead have compartmentalized everyone so hardly anyone knows how things work. Everyone is increasing the cover-my-ass posturing and reducing the sure-I’ll-help attitude.

I still like this job much much better than I did my last one.
That was a complete suck-up environment.

@Ron_C That’s something that makes me like where I am; they’ve never laid anyone off ever, and all of the firings were for reasons that I would’ve slapped the offending ex-employee for. Pro-tip : If you’re going to smoke weed at work, don’t blow the smoke in the VP’s face as he walks by. I think that firing was justified!

@jerv…any open positions there?

Yes. I have times when it causes me stress but mostly it’s a great job.

When I have been unhappy in a job, I’ve found something else. You spend way too much time there each week to be unhappy. It might take time to find something or to retrain so you can do something else, but I don’t believe anyone is stuck in one job for life if they aren’t happy.

For the most part, I adore my job. I work in Disney World and, as cliche as it may sound, it truly is a magical place. I get to do what I love (work with people and create magical moments for my guests), in a field that I adore (hospitality management), for a company that has more opportunities for advancement than one could possibly imagine. I started here in 2009 as an intern and have also worked in other places during and after college, but I always knew I had to come back because this is where I belong and am at my happiest. I came back at the end of last year, was hired full-time in December, and haven’t had a dull moment since.

Now, this is not to say that I never have bad days, but they are so few and far between that they’re easily forgotten. I plan on staying with the company (whether here in FL or elsewhere) for the rest of my professional career and want to try out as many roles as I possibly can (I’m already on my 4th role within the company). Oh, and the perks are pretty sweet too! ;)

@jordym84 That sounds like a blast.
Many years ago I was took a tape-recorder (yes, that long ago, actual tape) to a six flags and I asked people there “What’s the best idea you ever had?” The employees I asked all uniformly answered “Working here!”
[ Most of the park guests had a hard time coming up with something…anything. ]

@dabbler Yea, I really do love it here. I did a stint in the parks during my second internship, but my heart belongs in resorts, which is where I am at the moment. Nothing like being indoors in the a/c when it’s hot as hell (pun intended) outside.