Who Has a Job He Actually Loves?

[captainsousie]

I realized today that I didn't just like my job, I love it. I get to work with kids who have been through hell and are trying to keep going in school. We had our traditional Thanksgiving dinner and even though I had to put out a few proverbial fires, it was a great day.

Not a lot of people get to do a job they don't just like, but one they wouldn't give up for a $100,000 pay bump and I'm blessed to be one of them.

Anybody else have the same feeling right now?

 

[ashdigger]

I love my job. Everyday I go to work I see death and destruction BUT I get to solve another puzzle and give answers to disaster.

 

[woodsroad]

I took my father’s advice from when I was a kid, and pursued a job that I love. No amount of money can fix a life consumed by a job you hate.

 

[serpentx]

I work in IT, and while I don't love it as much as I used to, I still can't imagine doing anything else. I love people, but I am not a people person, I'm afraid

 

[didimauw]

I was a stay at home dad and homeschool teacher for all of last year. I work part time and my daughter goes to school part time now. I make much less money these days, but I've never been so happy.

 

[VDL_Piper]

I love being a farmer, wouldn’t trade it for anything.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

When I was 100% freelance and doing illustration, I would say I loved my job—making your living by making pictures is nothing to complain about.

I’m not sure I can say that with the 9 to 5 gig these last six years, but it could always be worse, so I’m grateful I’m able to do what I do. In some ways, graphic design is more like playing than illustration. With illustration, you would get a sketch approved, then the process was very linear—you take the sketch and methodically go from A to Z and render it until it’s a finished painting. With design, it’s like moving building blocks around until they seem balanced—much freer in many ways.

 

[warren]

I could not wait to get up, put the bag on and go to work. I helped people in physical and sometimes mental anguish. I put my nose into other people's business, usually at the request of one of the involved parties. I found lost kids and returned them home. I saved a few lives along the way, But, mostly, I realized that wherever I was people felt safer or, sometimes threatened, rightfully so. I was the predator at the top of the chain, protecting the prey. Extremely rewarding.

 

[shanez]

I enjoy my job when I get to do it. Unfortunately I spend an exorbitant amount of time dealing with people who don't know what their really doing and cleaning up their messes.

 

[HRPufnstuf]

I used to love my job, I'm a horticulturist at a golf course, everything that is not playable is my domain. The last year or two time has been creeping up on me and the inevitable knee, back, and hip and shoulder erosion is gaining momentum. I do everything from bed design and arrangement to tree plantings and removals, up down and all around. The only thing I would really change is to have the work year round, it is seasonal work here in Winnipeg and I don't want to leave it for something less varied or less physically active. I guess I still love the job, my gripe is with time's relentless march.

Big plus, I am outdoors all the time and I have the liberty to enjoy a pipe whenever I please. I frequently get compliments on my pie, sometimes even for my work.

 

[kcghost]

I had a lot of jobs I really liked, but none that I really loved. Now I'm retired and it is just okay.

 

[Coreios]

I was a stay at home dad and homeschool teacher for all of last year. I work part time and my daughter goes to school part time now. I make much less money these days, but I've never been so happy.

I've been in the same role. I'm happier than ever too.

 

[Gimlet]

I've no idea what loving your job must be like. I hate mine. Actually, that's not true. I hate the industry I work in (construction). I've been trying to get out of it for years but it keeps sucking me back in.

 

[sardonicus87]

I've no idea what loving your job must be like. I hate mine. Actually, that's not true. I hate the industry I work in (construction). I've been trying to get out of it for years but it keeps sucking me back in.

Similar-ish boat.

I never had anything that could be considered a career. All my jobs sucked for various reasons. Most of the jobs themselves sucked (restaurant dish pit, pizza restaurant cook/manager, construction, lawncare, etc). I never had the opportunity to be anything more despite absolutely busting my ass and giving 150% effort (couldn't afford school, didn't ever know the right people, had the worst luck forever, then becoming disabled).

One job was OK, HDMS measure tech. That's one of the few where the job itself didn't suck... it was the mf dumbass customers that sucked, and the worthless other techs I had to go out of my territory to cover when they screwed up or were generally lazy as hell. Well, even working my own territory, one other thing did suck... that every day was 200-300 miles of driving (rural area, I actually technically was over two markets, which had to be combined under one tech due to limited number of available customers and a minimum number needed in a day to be sent out).

I swore off customer service, which means I swore of 99.9% of jobs I could get. I was always a bit misanthropic, but dealing with people made me a nearly homicidal maniac.

Now instead of a disabled job hopper, I'm a disabled house husband. My life is chores, never ending chores. Still beats working with or for people though. I don't love it, but it doesn't make me want to commit murder either.

 

[Sigmund]

During my life I did not enjoy my time in construction and painting houses. It was ok. I didn’t hate it and it paid bills.

In my career in mental health it was a love hate thing. Mostly I enjoyed it but there were things that were not tolerable at times

Now I work at home for myself making custom saxophone mouthpieces. I enjoy it prey much all the time. It’s rare for it to bother me and its also rare to have a bad customer.

I consider myself lucky.

 

[Flatfish]

I have always suspected that when I am retired, it will suddenly dawn on me what I should have done for a living.

 

[WerewolfOfLondon]

According to Rick Roderick, the quickest way to know if you love your job, is to honestly ask yourself if you'd still go to it if you were given three months paid leave. I don't know about anyone here, but I reckon probably 99% of people would not. I can imagine one might, if they were, say a professional footballer, or a musician, but the vast majority of us, if we are honest, work jobs we don't like. Just a sad fact of life that under advanced capitalism, most of us do shit jobs that we hate and that waste our precious lives. It's even sadder if we tell ourselves some compensatory nonsense that we love this servitude.

 

[RookieGuy80]

Up until last year I loved my job. It was running a small warehouse for a plumbing company. It wasn't a big grandiose thing, but when a sizeable percentage of the company's profits tied up on my shelves it was important. And it was always a great feeling outsmarting the news (it was "fun" trying to keep my shelves full during work stoppages from the pandemic, during materials shortages due to the Evergiven debacle, or when  THE factory that makes the resin to make plastic into PVC burned down). There was a very physical concrete satisfaction walking up and down the aisles setting all those full shelves. It was a good feeling being on the phone with vendors telling them they a)need to come down 3%, or b) I need to wake up tomorrow morning and see that order of 5/8 maguffins waiting. I miss working with the plumbers over the phone getting them out of jams. That part may sound rather pedestrian, but the end of the conversations results in the customer (you might call them a family) has heat or clean water or hot water or waste water safely going away.

Beginning of the year the company took a different direction. I no longer have my warehouse. I really miss it. I like my company, I like my coworkers. But the job I loved doing isn't there anymore.

 

[tracerbullet]

I retired from academic medicine 4 years ago to take a teaching job at a private boarding school
loved medicine (40 years) but the business side of it was sucking me dry.
now in my fifth year teaching high school I love what I do and miss the kids terribly over breaks.
even over the summer I can’t wait to get back.
don’t get me wrong when I am of the age to really retire I will do so without looking back but I can honestly say I am one of the few that worked careers that I truly looked forward to going in.

 

[condorlover1]

I always wanted to be a Professional Condom Tester (PCT). When they started talking about Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DIE) I realized that apart from testing the product on nubile young blonde females with the latest offerings from Trojan I might also have to take on some 6 foot tall fellow requiring a prostate massage. At that point I decided that the law was a safer bet. That being said I hate my job and cannot wait to retire so I suppose I am still taking it up the arse which ever career path I had chosen!