Does anyone *like* their job?

[BooMerengue]

EK? I don't know you so I hope you don't think I'm speaking out of turn, but here goes...

Theres sort of a common thread runnin through here. Tha happiest people are doing work they love, not working for the money.

I've been a Jackess Of All Trades all my life. (and a Jackass, too!) Had some crummy jobs that paid well, and had some really perfect jobs that I almost had to pay them to let me do. And I've had the opposite of those.

I think being your own boss is key. Then you have no one else to blame. Heres an idea for you. You love doing hair. Old folks in Nursing Homes would give anything to have their hair done well. Here in the US old folks on Soc. Sec. are only allowed approx. $30.00 a month out of their checks. It's amazing how many manage to save money that way, but if they don't smoke or get out to shop the money sits in the Bank. A lot of Nursing Homes already will have a little salon all ready. Maybe you can start calling around to find an opening, and have your own shop by proxy and save til you do get your own. You'd be your own boss, and all your clients will be so grateful. You won't have to hear all the BS you're putting up with now. And in an Old Folks Home the sunnier and happier you are the better everyone likes it.

I'll get naked and dance under the next full moon for you to find your dream, but in the meantime maybe this idea will help.

Boo

 

[The_Fool]

Having had a wide variety of jobs doing all kinds of weird shit, I have grown to understand that it is the people you work with that make the difference in a bad job being tolerable or a good job sucking ass. That being said, if in your case, you are working with people that bring you down, look around for another shop that is more upbeat, or as Boo says, start your own shop.

 

[stonedfox]

I like my job and love all of my co-workers except one. She is the bad apple of the group. She always has a shitty attitude about everything, and it got to where she was dragging all of us down. So we rallied together to get her ass out! We kept notes about everything she did wrong and every she treated a client like shit behind the boss's back. We are still in the process of bringing her down, and strangely, we've become closer and a more efficient team because of our combined efforts to out her.

I feel for you in your current situation. I've left many jobs because of what you're dealing with. No job is worth my happiness, and it shouldn't be worth yours either.

 

[ElizabethWest]

I love it; I hate it.

I love the hours, the freedom, the fact that my boss is two hours away and not breathing down my neck, that my car is my office, that I can work alone if I choose or with a group if I choose, that the pay is fantastic.

I hate that it is demanding, requires tough decisions that can impact lives around me, that I am constantly under fire for these decisions, that the buck stops here and I must shoulder the burden alone.

I talk every week about quitting but could never leave it. I am great at what I do.

E

 

[oggbashan]

Jobs? Work for yourself?

I used to work for a large corporation. I was senior enough to enjoy the job because I could control what, when and where I worked and influence the working environment of many people. The job didn't like me because the constant travel exacerbated back injuries I'd dismissed in my 20s. Eventually I was medically discharged.

I went to work for City Hall. I hated it. All the things I didn't like were unchangeable because 'that's how it is'. I kept fighting the system and won more than I lost, so much so that the system spewed me out as grit in the works. I'd 'wrecked' their accounting system so it actually presented managers with the financial consequences of their decisions in forms they could understand, and what is worse, in forms the politicians and the public (horror!) could understand. The days of fudge and 'we don't have that information' were gone. I was fired but they even messed that up and are still paying compensation 14 years later.

Then I opened a secondhand bookshop. I loved that job but it didn't make money. It paid its way - just, in that I didn't have to subsidise it but it made NO contribution whatever to our family income. It gave me somewhere pleasant to spend my days, to entertain my friends, to sit and write stories for Literotica but no profit. If I am honest there was a little profit. In nine and a half year's trading I made 3 hundred pounds total. If I had paid myself? Less than a pound a week?

I closed the shop before Christmas 2004. Now I am back at my hobby - annoying City Hall. I'm good at it.

Og

 

[EmeraldKitten]

Wow! I leave for an afternoon and come home to this! Yay!

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to reply.
I'm glad that there are really some people out there that are happy with their jobs.
It seems like anymore, all I hear is about how everyone hates their job.

The idea of running off and opening my own shop now is fantastic! I so wish.
But I'd sink before I got a chance to swim. I don't have the clientelle to support that as of now. There is only so often people will come in and get their hair cut/done/etc, lol.

As far as doing hair on the side in my house goes~ I would, but one of the women from State Board lives here in town. I can just see her getting wind of it. They'll fine your ass and yank your liscence so quick it'll make your head spin.
(When I was still in beauty school, if we got 'caught' doing hair "illegally" at home, we could get expelled from school and not be able to continue/finish schooling.)
State Board is pretty anal when it comes to that stuff.

Now, as for working in a Nursing home, there's one here in town, and yes, it has a beauty shop in it~ along with a resident hair stylist. Sometimes people will call the shop to see if someone can come down and cut so-n-so's hair, but it doesn't happen all that often.

Another thing I've briefly toyed with, but I'm not sure I could handle- is getting a job in a Funeral home. Yes, doing dead hair. I'm not sure if I'd be able to do that though, lol. There was a woman I went to school with, who was learning the trade because her goal in life was to go work in a Funeral home. I thought she was creepy and morbid.... but I see her reasoning.


I think I just need to tough it out a little longer, then go elsewhere. The girls I work with- although they're bitchers too, have mentioned having a shop meeting and voicing our concerns/complaints.

I don't think that shop will live forever. Customers are already not coming back- the reason?
They either won't say or they say that they'd rather go to a place that was more warm and friendly.
Boss lady mocks their new choice of shop, instead of thinking, 'Gee, we oughta make this place better. Make it a nicer place to be."


I don't know. It'll all come out in the wash I guess.
I'll make a choice one of these days, and hopefully, I'll be a happier person because of it.

It was interesting to read what everyone had to say. This subject really meant/means a lot to me.

Thanks you guys!

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I love my job. I work for great people doing something that I enjoy in an industry that I care about. My boss gives me a task, then leaves me alone to get it done. He knows that I will do the best job I can, and he supports any decisions or recommendations that I make.

I quit a higher paying job to take this one and have never looked back.

 

[SlickTony]

It sounds to me, Kitten, like time will eventually take care of some of your problem at your shop. Other than that, have you considered moving for a while to a larger town where they have chain beauty shops? I get my hair cut at one of the Hair Cutterys near where I live, and I have three favorites, but over the years, I've lost them, too. The places seem to have more turnover than the Pepperidge Farm thrift shop, but it seems to me like you'd probably learn a lot and deal with a whole lot of different people, and you wouldn't have to put up with the mean SOB situation you've been complaining about.

I have found something to like about almost every job I've ever had. Even when I didn't like the job, I learned something from it. I'd say one of the most interesting jobs, that I liked the best, was at the nonprofit I was working at from 2001 to 2003. It was a shame that the pay sucked.

Right now I'm working for a legal publisher, and for all I know, I might stay there until I retire. For the first year plus I was working in the courthouse, because I had to work with all the documents people file there, that are public record, but then the courthouse decided they wanted the space I was working in, and now I'm in the office with everybody else. I'm sorry I didn't get to work with them before, only seeing them at parties; most of them are nice and fun to be around. Also, the obsolete equipment and older-than-my-son software has been replaced by top of the line stuff. The tech wizard in charge of it is in the next office, and if I say that I want something like one two fields reversed, he'll tweak the system right then and there and it will be done.

The only kind of work I really, really don't want to have anything to do with is any kind of telephone work. I worked for the 1990 Census, where I not only had to telephone people, but had to knock on their doors; these were people who hadn't responded to the census when the questionnaires first went out. And based on my experience in the Census, I then got a job as a canvasser for the City Directory. I would say that if you have to take a slug of Vicodin Tuss before coming onto the phones to do your job with efficiency and enjoyment, you probably ought to look into another line of work.

 

[cloudy]

When I worked for Bugle Boy, I absolutely loved my job. I had a wonderful team of people working for me, that actually functioned as a team (rare nowadays). The people I worked for were outstanding and supportive (and didn't mind if I told them to kiss my ass once in awhile), and as far as retail goes, I couldn't have asked for a better environment.

Every job I've had since then has paid better, but if the company were to open up again tomorrow, with the same people, I go back in a heartbeat, wouldn't even have to think about it.

The key, I think, is not only enjoying what you do, but having a group of people to work with that truly are a team.

 

[BigAndTall]

I like my job. I fall backwards into them. But I thrive in pressure and choas so i fit right in.

My personal rule of thumb is if a job gets to irritating I move on. I have never regreted moving on. I like change, and trying things out and taking risks.

I also am not in retail (including anything hands on customer service) which I think makes a difference. I have done that and it is rather difficult I'll admit.