Do you like your job?

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by auggie242

I spent a summer picking rocks and bailing hay.

Too late. I remember bailing hay in the hot sunshine until I was so exhausted I was sick. The farm owner's wives would always cook up a great supper for the crew and I'd always be too nauseated to eat. Paid well, though.

Bob

[jrs146]

I own my own business. Two of them actually. So I love it and hate it all at the same time. But it’s mine and I’m the only one responsible if there’s something unpleasant about my job. I’m a wealth manager focusing in retirement planning so it can be very stressful at times since you are dealing with peoples money.

[cattzap]

My job is great and easy. There's nothing about it that is hard for me to do. I've been doing it a long time and I like doing it. The bad part is the mgt. Our direct boss is a child that has never done what we do. He got his job because he was in the same my little pony club as the guy above him. He's an arrogant ego freak, and with them being best buddies gets massive raises all the time. He constantly puts us down like we don't know anything, yet most of us started doing what we do well before he was ever born. I've heard it said that people don't quit their jobs but instead they quit their bosses. That will certainly be true in this case. The only reason I'm still at this place is the investment that I have towards my retirement. If it weren't for that I wouldn't be here today. I just tell myself every morning just x more longer and it'll be over with.

[00Buck]

Originally Posted by auggie242

I've worked since I was 12.

My first job was mowing the lawns of empty houses for a real estate company (back when houses used to take months to sell, not hours or days). Great job. Then I added a paper route. Horrible job. It had many disadvantages including cold, snowy mornings and biting dogs, but far and away the worst was collecting for the paper. Door to door each month getting paid for the prior 30 days. They should have called that part of the job Introduction to Human Psychology 101. I discovered the world has people (unlike my parents) who are not honest. The world has people who are really creepy. The world has people who are really mean. The world has people who complain about everything. The world also has people who get their newspaper for free because they are some combination of the above.

I spent a summer picking rocks and bailing hay.
Do not ever agree to do these jobs.
Ever.

From ages 16 to 26 I worked in a factory, first scraping mold off of aged cheese before it was cut, sliced and packaged (not as gross as it sounds) and later in the shipping & receiving warehouse, loading and unloading trucks and box cars, cleaning toilets and floors, freezing in the basement cold storage area, sweating in the back of semis on the loading docks in the summer, freezing there in the winter, and infrequently living the life of luxury driving a forklift. I learned more from that job than I ever learned in 8 years of college. I learned you can be uneducated but wise. I learned you can be a bit "rough around the edges" and still be classier than I (or most doctors and CEOs that I know) could ever hope to be. I learned you can have a 3.5 GPA, set the curve in your college Analytical Chem class, and still be dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to fitting 61,000 pounds of cheese into a box car without it being damaged in transit. Mostly I learned what Jimmy Stewart's character says so well in It's A Wonderful Life. "Just remember, Mr. Potter, that this ''rabble'' you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying, and living and dying in this community." I would have gone through my life an educated but foolish twit, looking down my nose and thinking I was better than blue collar workers if not for those years. Some of those people embodied so much more of what I hold valuable in an individual than I ever will. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a total romantic. There were, as well, some people there who were total idiots with the IQ of a field mouse, the morals of a second story man, the interpersonal skills of a hermit and possessed of no redeeming social value whatsoever. Still, it was quite a learning experience.

For the last 39 years I ran a solo dental practice in the same small semi-rural town of 7000 people that I graduated high school from. Almost no one moves away from here, so your successes, but also your failures are always on display right in front of you. I pretty much hated that job. OK, not even "pretty much". The upside is that financially, it's as lucrative as you choose to make it. The downside is you're on call 24/7/365 unless you're out of town. IMO, the whole system is wrong. I'm no socialist, but health care should not be a "for profit" proposition. That is just so wrong.

Retirement? How can you not like retirement? I've been retired now for 4 months. It's like summer vacation in grade school. Every day! My income has been halved, but if that's the price of freedom it is well worth it.

So right in every respect, but especially the last sentence. I took a similar income hit and haven't had a moment of regret.

[RP]

I rather envy those of you who landed in careers that you enjoyed. In the light of day and at the age of almost 68, I can plot what would seem like a more satisfying career path for myself than I did at the age of 18...

Originally Posted by PorkPieGuy

...I wish I could go back in time and tell a few things to my 20-something-year-old self, but I try not to live with regrets.

Amen to that....

[PorkPieGuy]

All you retired guys remind me of the "Good economy Steve" meme. I'll let you Google it yourself. For a middle-aged Gen X'er, I find them pretty funny. Others may not.


Do I enjoy my job? Absolutely. I work at a small community college, and I teach English and work in the writing center. I love teaching, but my favorite part of teaching is working one-on-one with students, and that's what I get to do the majority of the time in the WC. I love the people I work with and the students as well. I've washed enough dishes and thrown enough hay to REALLY appreciate my job.

I'm 43, and I can retire with full state benefits when I'm 63. In three years, my wife and I will be 100% debt free except for the house (this has been a major climb out of a hole due to us trying to farm, home school, and having really, really bad luck with cars for 15 years). After this, we should be able to pay off our house within about 12 years or so, if not sooner.

I wish I could go back in time and tell a few things to my 20-something-year-old self, but I try not to live with regrets.

[cotten]

I honestly couldn't have imagined at 18 how much joy and deep fulfillment my career has brought me, even amid the pain of working with people sometime. I am blessed, I know, and most thankful!

cotten

[VTexan]

...to find amazing, talented people doing wonderful things...then telling people on the radio about them. I'm an Arts and Culture Reporter at my local NPR station. Life gets far worse than this, let me tell you.

[Nyghthawk]

I love the job of social worker at the state hospital. I dislike the culture of micro-management that has taken over during the last 3 years or so. As it is, I will be glad to retire in 10/2019. I am too old for silliness.

[Mr. Jelly]

Interesting thread. Me? I hate to work. To me work is doing something I'd rather not be doing. I like to play and be side tracked with different directions, thoughts and subjects. My profession was very dynamic and pressure filled 24/7 365. Allot of it I enjoyed as I enjoyed overcoming the challenges. When the challenges became solving unneeded problems on account of bad management I retired. I'm partially retired now and I am a little frightened of having so much time on my hands in the future. Making busy work even for a good cause won't work for me. I'm looking forward to not living by a schedule though. It'll work out, or not.

[AX17609]

A lot of the people in this thread who say how much they love retirement aren't actually retired. They just cut back their hours, or they switched to a job they like better (and that pays less). Some went from working for someone else to being self-employed. In my business, no one actually retires. There's a negative social stigma to that. Everyone consults...even if they don't have any actual clients.

[auggie242]

Social stigmas are for people who still have a job and friends at the workplace.

[the architect]

I love my job, it gives me another creative outlet in my life. I design Skilled Nursing and upscale Senior Housing developments. In between those, I get to do projects targeting the homeless and low income, subsidized developments.

It's nice to know that when I'm done with a project, the sick and/or needy will have another place.

Also makes my job easy when I have to talk to city officials. No one turns down these type of projects.

[HOF dad]

I retired in May of 2016 so...going on 2 years. I retired from working for 42 years on the railroad. The majority of that career involved being on call
24/7.
I can't say I hated it but it was extremely demanding and I worked for some real doozies.
I was in mid management most of my career and while I enjoyed being the leader of about 100 employees (all union workers no less), I detested having to be responsible for what some of them did. Probably the best part was the payoff. It's one of the few places that still has a pension so I'm covered.
Oh well...that was then and now....retirement is even better than I had hoped.
I play lots of guitar and golf and have evolved into my wife's personal assistant.
Pretty good gig


Dan

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by PorkPieGuy

I wish I could go back in time and tell a few things to my 20-something-year-old self, but I try not to live with regrets.

Amen to that. Playing the 'what if' game is a worthless endeavour. I wouldn't be where I am today without those mistakes, errors in judgement, or just plain screwups. Recognize, learn, and don't repeat.