Most US workers hate their jobs

[Buzz Killington]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/take_our_jobs_and_shove_em_us_workers_rzuYvHM4mIfa5qkmIcWxjP

 

[maxiep]

It's a generational thing. I started working in a pretty deep recession in my industry. It's made me grateful for any job I've ever had as the sword of Damocles was over my head every morning.

My brother and sister both started working during boom times. They've been frustrated by all sorts of things that are just facts of the workplace. In fact, my brother once said to me quite seriously, "Man, work really cuts into your day." At the time he was an associate at a law firm.

Yeah, work can suck. Big deal. Deal with it or start your own business.

 

[bintim]

I wish I still had a job I was supposed to hate.

 

[maxiep]

I wish I still had a job I was supposed to hate.

Exactly right. What ever happened to being grateful for having a job?

 

[Buzz Killington]

Exactly right. What ever happened to being grateful for having a job?

Entitlement! I deserve a six-figure job, secretary and an expense account. I went to college and got drunk every night dammit!

 

[Buzz Killington]

I think a big part of it is that menial tasks can be handled by computers, assistants, outsourced or put on hold with vague emails. So what ends up is a lot of free time all around and it gets fucking boring. I can finish all my work in under an hour usually, and the rest of the day I just have to look busy. oh look, i sent an email whoopee. now have to wait a day or so until I can take action!

 

[jlprk]

See Maxie, most people don't get to post their political thoughts all day on a sports board while being paid in the upper middle class. Most people come home exhausted from their near-minimum wage jobs, brain-dead from the repetition of stressfully not thinking all day. Sure, you feel lucky, but try an ordinary job and you won't. (On this board, we are all writers with spare time to write, but we aren't typical.)

By ordinary job, I mean not with the government, and not with a big (or even medium-sized) company. Certainly not in financial services. I mean where there's no health care, no pension, no benefits like vacation or holiday pay. Where they classify you as part-time permanently. Outside of the metropolis, that's what there is.

And it's not at all traditional to feel lucky to have a job. Tracts on dehumanization (how jobs make people brain-dead) go back at least a century. Now in the Depression, sure they felt lucky to have a job, if it's the Depression-era ethic in which you want us to permanently live.

Philosophers don't discuss this question: On the continuum between the extremes of happiness and unhappiness, where should the individual expect to be placed by default? In other words, how much happiness should be a right (with the rest of it a privilege). The same quetion in the converse is, how much hell should the system push onto the individual before it's time to change the system?

 

[THE HCP]

After high school, I worked a minimum wage job for 8 1/2 years. I absolutely hated that job and thought that is what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I now have a career that I love and am very grateful considering so many out there that are out of work.

 

[Buzz Killington]

I'd look for something I'd love doing, but all I really love doing is chillin' and travelling. How the fuck can I get paid for that?

 

[barfo]

I'd look for something I'd love doing, but all I really love doing is chillin' and travelling. How the fuck can I get paid for that?

Travel writer.

barfo

 

[Buzz Killington]

I actually tried that a few years ago. Video travel company..interactive video tours of locations..... but it fizzled.

 

[barfo]

I actually tried that a few years ago. Video travel company..interactive video tours of locations..... but it fizzled.

Well, you could be a cruise ship gigolo, then...

barfo

 

[Buzz Killington]

I don't have a mustache or a sexy accent.

 

[barfo]

I don't have a mustache or a sexy accent.

Any costume shop will sell you a mustache, and if you go on cruises with mostly foreigners, they may find you to have a sexy accent.

barfo

 

[Buzz Killington]

I'll have to explore that perhaps.

 

[barfo]

I'll have to explore that perhaps.

They don't call me career counselor barfo for nothing.

barfo

 

[Buzz Killington]

I already have the linen pants, so that's a start. that would actually be pretty fun. one of those weird fucking people you meet traveling and wonder "where the fuck did this guy come from".

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

We all can't have jobs like HCP

John, you lucky bastard.

 

[Buzz Killington]

that shit would be too intense for me during game time. not being able to see blazers games live and in person or drink booze or pound the walls would be torture!

 

[THE HCP]

It is tougher then you think! Live TV is pretty stressful. If I push a wrong button, a lot of people see it. You know, I get so caught up working, i don't even know the score half the time.

 

[Buzz Killington]

in the zone!

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

John, will Blazer broadcasting ever splurge and go out and get cameras like TNT/ESPN? HD looks good on what they use now but ESPN, IMO, is on another level with their cameras.

 

[Buzz Killington]

I was actually talking about this survey with a few coworkers as well as some friends today...alot of people I know personally are in decent jobs, good security but for the most part, the work is simply not fulfilling. For many jobs, there is no accomplishment or end point, just a series of updates and continuation of a status quo. It kind of blows not being able to celebrate milestones...well, you can, but they're pretty minor.

should feel lucky to be working, but anything can disappear anytime really..never know....just staying in mediocrity and a job that has extreme ups and downs (you wouldn't believe the year I had) without an end is kind of unfulfilling.

 

[THE HCP]

John, will Blazer broadcasting ever splurge and go out and get cameras like TNT/ESPN? HD looks good on what they use now but ESPN, IMO, is on another level with their cameras.

I'm not a wizard when it comes to the technical aspect of our equipment. I can ask our Engineers why they look different. I know we are 1080, so I would assumed if finally looked great.

 

[jlprk]

I'm a moron when it comes to the technical aspect of our equipment. I can ask our Engineers why they look different, but then they'd find out how I'm faking this job. I know we are 1080, so I would assumed if finally looked great. I finally used some technical terms, are you happy?

Fixed for you, John. Can I call you Johnny?

 

[NKT]

well guys i'd say a job is better than nothing

 

[Colonel Ronan]

Most people in the world hate their jobs?

I must be the minority, then.

 

[mook]

I love watching the program "Dirty Jobs." Makes me really fucking grateful for my job most of the time. Tell the guy who spends eight hours a day scraping coal off a treadmill, or the lady who opens oysters, or the dude who crawls under houses removing dead skunks, that they should enjoy their jobs. There are a lot of really fucking awful jobs out there that have to be done by somebody, and I don't blame them for not enjoying it. I know the gold standard for middle class high-school educated workers is the factory assembly line job, but have you seen most of those jobs? The pay and benefits are great, but it's doing the same god damned 30-60 seconds of labor for 8 hours of day, often for decades.

That said, just because you hate your job doesn't mean you hate your life. The coal scraper guy had obvious pride that he'd put two kids through college doing that shit. Like The Boss once said, you got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.

 

[bintim]

Fixed for you, John. Can I call you Johnny?

Now that definitely gets you some rep.

 

[maxiep]

See Maxie, most people don't get to post their political thoughts all day on a sports board while being paid in the upper middle class. Most people come home exhausted from their near-minimum wage jobs, brain-dead from the repetition of stressfully not thinking all day. Sure, you feel lucky, but try an ordinary job and you won't. (On this board, we are all writers with spare time to write, but we aren't typical.)

By ordinary job, I mean not with the government, and not with a big (or even medium-sized) company. Certainly not in financial services. I mean where there's no health care, no pension, no benefits like vacation or holiday pay. Where they classify you as part-time permanently. Outside of the metropolis, that's what there is.

And it's not at all traditional to feel lucky to have a job. Tracts on dehumanization (how jobs make people brain-dead) go back at least a century. Now in the Depression, sure they felt lucky to have a job, if it's the Depression-era ethic in which you want us to permanently live.

Philosophers don't discuss this question: On the continuum between the extremes of happiness and unhappiness, where should the individual expect to be placed by default? In other words, how much happiness should be a right (with the rest of it a privilege). The same quetion in the converse is, how much hell should the system push onto the individual before it's time to change the system?

I put in more hours working by the age of 35 than most people will put in their entire life.

And why do you assume I live in a vacuum? You don't think I understand the plight of the average person? Of all of your stupid assumptions, that one ranks at damn near #1.