Discussion on:

Hate your job? Ask yourself why

WHY is the huge existential question.

If so many people hate their jobs, which most people spend about 1/2 of their waking hours doing, then we have a serious problem teaching people how to manage their lives and be happy.

I spent 25 years working at a school that trains adults how to manage their lives and be happy. And we never ran out of willing students!

The answers, however, are not what you might expect:
1) Is the work you are doing on-purpose? This is the factor most people think of. It's not necessarily the most important,though. I've had cool jobs that were ruined by other factors.
2) Does the work involve terminology that you have never bothered to really understand? Like a law or medical office, or a software or electronics firm? Lawyers, doctors or engineers can stand around talking and it sounds like Chinese to most people. And that is alienating for less-trained people around them. But the solution is to just keep a list of misunderstood words and get them defined.
3) Your senior never told you what the purpose of your job is, or what you are supposed to produce? I hear this really happens. It's the basic stable datum for a job. If you don;t have it, you will never feel stable or powerful at work.
4) Is there a crazy person in your organization screwing things up for everyone else? In an honest organization, reporting criminal behavior could get you a bonus or a promotion. In a dishonest organization it could get you fired or marginalized. People shouldn't work for dishonest organizations that are willing to protect predatory personalities in their ranks. This is a tough one, as, after all, a job's a job. But organizations like that only survive because the honest people who can do real work cooperate with them without seeing to it that the out-ethics gets corrected. Such behavior has huge implications for your personal future and our collective future. If the dishonest person gets on your lines and sucks you into the deception, your hands become dirty and that can literally ruin the rest of your life unless you come clean.

what i really wonder is if someone actually gets paid to write ths stuff?

crazy... and more surprising that i'm skimming it and haven't unsubscribed.

pointless dribble.
can tech repub anti up?

...mentioned that the ideal job for anyone is one which relates directly to whatever one was most interested in at ages 9 to 11 years. It makes sense that a 'minimum core interest' in your field will allow you more latitude to roll with the little vicissitudes endemic to work (of any kind). At 9 through 11 I was all up on HO-scale slot cars, music, and art; I became a complete wierdo---but I LOVE my work (and my 'job').

Someone else said, "The best job you can have is doing something you'd have been doing anyway if you'd stayed home that day". ("Yes, son, some folks DO get paid to go fishing with their pals....")

If only I had a job I could hate. Being unemployed kinda makes some things about work more palatable.

Seriously, I've had jobs for which I loved the work, and location, but had bosses so bad it simply wasn't worth staying there. I had a job where my boss was great, the location was great, but the work was absolutely the most boring thing I've ever done. I haven't had a job I've enjoyed since 2008.

All I ask of a job is a) decent commute, hopefully on a bus line, b) a boss and teammates who are both respectable and who respect me, and c) above all, a job which gives me problems to solve and lets me find problems to solve. Is that so much to ask?

Well for me, (and it probably doesn't pertain to anyone else here), if you work for the Post Office, you need not ask yourself that question at all!

but I would much rather be doing it somewhere else. In light of the current economy, I'm just glad to have a job and do what I can to make each day bearable.