Why are jobs so hard?

[Angie7F]

I enjoy my job.
But I only enjoy it because everything surrounding it works just right.
I have a great relationship, cute dog, my mom is not crazy any more.
I cut off bitchy friends and now even if work sucks I dont get caught up in the drama.
I am there because I am there and it wont stress me out.

 

[Miyenne]

I was a store manager, and I hated it. I hated the customers, I hated my self absorbed employees, I hated working 12 hour days without breaks, even bathroom breaks because my employees didn't feel like coming to work and my company had a no firing policy (I know, wtf is that?).

So I quit.

I am probably the luckiest person alive though, because I could quit my job. I live with my twin @IndomitableSam and she works for the government at a shit job, but it pays well and she gets loads of benefits and vacation days and such so she tolerates it.

We also were very lucky to be raised to be smart about money. We have a beautiful townhouse that we rent and two fully paid off cars, and even though I dig into my savings every month to pay off all the bills we're still good. With inheritance (which I haven't yet touched for being off work for 7 months now) I could possibly not work at all for another year or two, but I'll find a job in a couple of months. She wants me to work part time, and that would pay all the bills and have us save some money too. Then I can continue to be a housewife (cleaning, cooking, shopping, Sam doesn't do anything as it's only fair since she works) and not worry about leaving the old cat alone all day.

I quit to write. I wrote a good book, if I do say so myself (the link's in my profile if anyone's interested). Going through it again now with more edits, but the few people who have bought it and given me feedback all say it's good. We were hoping I'd sell more books and be able to live off that (not rich or famous, just enough to get by) but so far no luck. I haven't even made back as much as what I paid the cover artist.

Jobs tend to suck, but you do them because you usually don't have another choice. Even trying to sit down and write all day is very difficult.

 

[WanderingFool]

Ever heard the phrase, "If you're doing what you love, you never work a day in your life."? Yeah, what that phrase actually means is that if you are doing what you love, you're not being paid to do it.

Im currantly working as a store clerk in a PA state store. Not glamorus, theres a lot of work that needs to be done, and when the holidays come around and everyone want booze, guess where im gonna be. But, one does what they can to get paid and to not fall behind on the bills, so I keep at it. Besides... it was still better than the last job I had...

 

[HardkorSB]

stuff

Assuming that you don't have a rich and influential family/friends (which is the case for most people), here's how you get your dream job:
You work as hard as you can, all the time.
Before you go to and after you get back from your day job, work on your dream. Don't go out with friends, don't play games, don't relax, don't enjoy your life, there's no time for that. You have to work hard all the time, otherwise you'll get old and die before you'll achieve anything.
Forget about eating and sleeping properly, you need to focus on working hard.
It will be depressing, stressful, exhausting, soul crushing, all that good stuff. It will also probably take a very long time and you'll want to kill yourself multiple times before you'll see any results.
Do you think all those millionaires and billionaires (and I'm talking about those who built their fortunes from scratch), professional athletes, leading scientists etc. take breaks and have fun? No, they don't have time for that. They're working as I'm typing this and as you're reading this. Everyday, all the time, that's why they're successful at what they do.

You want a job you love? Work for it.

 

[Norithics]

I've worked all kinds of jobs, even management, where I've earned more than enough money to live on. But you know what my favorite job was?
Dairy Queen.

I'm a simple guy, so I like hard work and doing little things to make people's day. I'm a milkshake wizard and I can 'feel' how much is too much oreos in your ice cream. I can run a dozen burgers and baskets and all that, it's fun! But it paid $6 an hour and I got fired for taking a single day off in a month. Because of their greed, they lost the most productive worker they ever had.

And that's really the moral of the story. Any job can be fun, fulfilling or even just tolerable to be at. People fuck it up. You're never really mad to be selling clothes or flipping burgers- you get mad when customers are assholes or your boss does something dickish to you. It is almost never the actual job that's unstandable, but the morons surrounding it.

 

[lacktheknack]

At least you HAVE a job. I live in the best place on the continent for employment (Alberta, Canada in the midst of economic recovery), and I applied to literally EVERY job I could find that was offering a summer position working with electronics, and not one - NOT ONE - even called me back. I had experienced people check my resume and cover letters and everything.

In the end, my Dad decided to ask his boss if he was willing to take me in for the summer, and now I have a new job, but literally NONE of the jobs I actually applied to even looked at my resume, presumably.

And the job I got isn't even that amazing. But hey... it beats the crap out of my grocery store job.

 

[silver wolf009]

Because there are very few jobs that are entertaining/awesome enough that people WANT to go to work.

Pretty much this. Stating the obvious really.

How many people consider cleaning toilets a dream job?

As many people as there are that take pleasure in making things clean.

OT: No idea what I want to do with my life, and it's one of the major worrying factors. To that end, thanks for upsetting me guy.

 

[The Funslinger]

Join the military... you will never ***** about sitting at a computer pressing a few buttons again!

This xD

OT: I guess I've been pretty lucky in that I know what I want to do. I'd like to become an author, but I also want to serve in the Royal Marines. It's even plausible I could do those two things simultaneously.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

I've come to the conclusion that any job is better than no job at all. It sure beats being broke. I'm sorry but I don't believe in being poor and happy/rich and miserable. Also, if you work in advertisement, surely that's an interesting area, no? In theory, I'm a product designer, but I also try my hand at graphic design whenever there's freelance work. However, my REAL, ACTUAL job is this: I work the graveyard shift in a bakery. The paycheck is alright, but it's not what I had in mind 10 years ago when I was 17. Working in a bakery is boring? Kind of, but I decided to make it interesting by treating breads, cakes and stuff like something that I'm CREATING OMG, and today I have to admit, I actually like it sometimes.

I'm currently gathering the courage to try to turn my life around, though, because all things considered, I'm not really that happy with what I have achieved. Which is to say, I've achieved nothing.

In the end, I think jobs aren't "easy" or "hard", they're just something you HAVE to do, and 99 times out of 100, you're not going to like it.

 

[Pipotchi]

After five years in crappy sales jobs I currently have a great Job, I earn over the average salary and don't have to do much of anything most days. Also lots of paid vacation and pension.

However the writings on the wall and it wont last forever but I'll be here until they force me out.

Don't need a degree to do it either though I do have one

On topic, most jobs are rubbish and you are not meant to enjoy them, there's a few golden nuggets out there but few and far between

 

[Terramax]

Because there are very few jobs that are entertaining/awesome enough that people WANT to go to work.

Pretty much this. Stating the obvious really.

How many people consider cleaning toilets a dream job?

As many people as there are that take pleasure in making things clean.

OT: No idea what I want to do with my life, and it's one of the major worrying factors. To that end, thanks for upsetting me guy.

But would they take as much pleasure cleaning things as they would any other glamorous job out there?

If you can't figure out what you want to do with your life, often, the best thing to do is to narrow things down by noting the things you don't want to do.

 

[silver wolf009]

Because there are very few jobs that are entertaining/awesome enough that people WANT to go to work.

Pretty much this. Stating the obvious really.

How many people consider cleaning toilets a dream job?

As many people as there are that take pleasure in making things clean.

OT: No idea what I want to do with my life, and it's one of the major worrying factors. To that end, thanks for upsetting me guy.

But would they take as much pleasure cleaning things as they would any other glamorous job out there?

If you can't figure out what you want to do with your life, often, the best thing to do is to narrow things down by noting the things you don't want to do.

There comes a point of almost pathological obsessiveness when it comes to cleanliness.

When you reach that point, you're happy when you're cleaning anything, situation or payment be damned.[footnote]Goddamn The Sub ad, on the middle of my fucking text box. I can see half of my post and I will NEVER watch your shitty show you obnoxious, stupid ad.[/footnote]

 

[Orga777]

Yeah... That is life, I am afraid. More often than not, people just are not going to like what they are doing.

 

[Karhukonna]

Anyway, ranting aside; how did you decide what you wanted to do with your life? Or are you in the same depressing boat as I am?

I'm currently working on preparing for my application into a military academy. It sounds rough, but it's mostly academic. I could go as far as getting a doctorate in the field of "military sience". Still, the application exam is physically quite requiring, so I have to do a lot of cardio.

Hopefully, after schoolin' I'll be working in a job I enjoy (military) for the rest of my days. I'll buy a house, marry the missus and settle down. Might also happen I won't enjoy the work at all. In which case, I'll try something else, until I get it right.

I got the spark initially during my mandatory military service. I enjoyed it quite a bit, so I figured I gotta get more of this. Tried civilian life for a while, but it just isn't the same. I like the organized nature of the military, how everything has a place and function in a greater whole. And I'd like to help that process along.

 

[Gavmando]

To quote Red Foreman from That 70's Show, "That's why it's called work. Not, happy fun time."

Nobody actually likes their job. We just get used to it and think we like it.

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

I decided I didn't like my job selling insurance policies over the telephone. So, I took an evening course for three months and became certified to teach English as a foreign language. Within a month of that, I was working in a school in South Korea, which was

a) a fantastic job
b) surprisingly easy to get into.

If you want a change of scenery, but don't want quite the same danger of death that the armed forces brings, then teaching abroad is AMAZING.

I've wished my country was in the JET programme, since I study English too. I didn't want to become a teacher in Sweden either, since I didn't exactly enjoy my own time in school back then, and there's a lack of respect for teachers here too. So I don't actually study to becoming one here. However, becoming a teacher abroad or even at university level sounds pretty cool.

OT: I've been in uni for longer than it takes to get a degree. I'm still in university because I don't want to start working a depressing job or be unemployed. The thought of my future and jobs honestly makes me depressed. I could get a masters I suppose, but I don't have enough student loans left to take, so I'd have to get a job or become unemployed soon enough anyway. It's one of the few reasons I'm glad I live in Sweden, because we seem a lot better when it comes to student loans than other countries. It also doesn't cost me anything to go to university, so I could keep doing it for the rest of my life if I found a good job on the side.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

A job is something you hate that you do for money. Thats just how it is.

 

[goodman528]

That's quite normal, after a long time of not working you need some time to get used to it. My advice is this:

1) stick with the job you hate for now
2) look for another job you might like better
3) go back to step 1 and iterate until you find something you like

Generally speaking it's acceptable to change job every 2/3 years. That's what everyone does!

Edit: Don't listen to those people who say a job is something you hate but do for money. The only job you can succeed in is a job you like.