Who Has a Job He Actually Loves?

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bobomatic

Starting to Get Obsessed
Oct 11, 2023
120
510
Colombia
roberthunt.com
I admire those who found a career they love. That wasn't my case. I hated my job, but it was my fault. I went
for the money so my kids could have a comfortable life. I tried on a few occasions to break free, but I was
never successful. So I stayed with a job that was extremely stressful and left me unfullfilled. I learned to adapt.
There are times I reminence how I wasted the most productive years of my life doing something I hated, but it's water under the bridge. My kids are grown and living happy fulfulled lives. So, for that, I'm grateful. I'm retired now and living a pretty good life. I'm blessed, but geesh, Lord knows I paid my dues. Having said that, it brought me to where I am now, so I'm thankful.
 

LotusEater

Lifer
Apr 16, 2021
4,396
58,527
Kansas City Missouri
I was a carpenter and residential framer for years and enjoyed it but found it somewhat unfulfilling. I spent a long time earning a PhD and
In my second career I am a research psychologist. I usually look forward to starting work in the morning and I would say 75% of the time I really love my job. I’ve spent a good deal of my time this last year developing a computer adaptive cognitive assessment which has been a very rewarding project.
 

sham

(theSHAMOO)
May 20, 2022
115
386
Charlotte, NC
Corporate life is both great and miserable. I have fine pay, flexible hours when needed, and nobody looking over my shoulder. I've been given freedom to make many management decisions and done well with them at a young age. However, not satisfied. My job is far removed from anything that seems necessary to humanity. Its maybe a little dramatic, but the work just feels like deadweight. It doesn't help that I sit behind a computer with no windows for 8-9 hours a day.

I'm leaving this company in march to go work with my family company. Should be much less desk work and I think that will make me feel much better about my occupation.
 

Kobold

Lifer
Feb 2, 2022
1,447
5,140
Maryland
I’ve never worked a job that I completely loved but I came close when I worked for Games Workshop in their trade sales department. I loved the product at the time and my co workers and bosses were great but I’ve never felt like I was a true salesman and some of the businesses I had to sell to were pretty difficult to deal with.
I really liked working at wastewater plant because I was outdoors a lot and alone but there was too much drama there.
 

SBC

Lifer
Oct 6, 2021
1,638
7,728
NE Wisconsin
I managed a craft brewery's taproom, at one point, and at another point I taught medieval literature, but these days I track down stolen property for a rental company.

I once apprenticed with a stained glass artist who did restorations for historic churches. Boy do I wish that I'd been able to make a permanent go of that.

Various employments bring with them varying kinds and degrees of satisfaction.
Sometimes, you're just doing the right thing to provide for your family, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Those few who would do what they do even while on PTO -- who would not accept alternative employment even for a huge raise -- are uniquely blessed. Good for you!
 

K.E. Powell

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 20, 2022
610
2,265
37
West Virginia
I wouldn't go as far as to say I love my job, but I do like it, which is a miracle unto itself.

I'm a case manager at a regional jail. My responsibilities are largely focused on helping inmates get connected to various community resources and services to aid them in their recovery and reentry. I also work to build relationships with community providers and individuals so that we have a good working relationship with them. There's other stuff that I do, but those two aforementioned things are the bulk of it.

It can be trying sometimes, largely because the inmates I serve have major obstacles to success, and it is my job to help them navigate those obstacles. That isn't always easy or even possible, and not a small number of them are just surly and like playing games.

I do take pride in what I do, however, and I'm proud to say it isn't uncommon to hear back from an inmate thanking me for helping him find a job, or get into treatment, etc. That's very rewarding. I also get a lot of accolades from other community providers and have a great relationship with my local community because of my job, so that is pretty cool.

Beyond that, the thing I like the most about my job is it offers a good range of benefits and a lot of freedom in time-off requests, etc. Pay isn't where it needs to be, but I make enough to survive. Security details makes much more these days, but I used to work security, and even the higher pay now on offer is just not worth it. The things that suck about my job are kinda obvious (it is a jail, after all), but I'm mostly happy with where I am at and with what I do.
 
H

HRPufnstuf

Guest
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.
I would. I actually go in to the course over winter to groom x-country ski trails, unpaid. I always lend a hand with whatever else needs doing for mechanical and shop maintenance, too. The front office politics are a gong show, but the shop is a good place. It took me almost 35 years to find this nook, though. The frustration of making a living, finding your niche, is terribly real.
 

David D. Davidson

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jul 19, 2023
200
778
Canada
I love my job. Any fellow canucks here will attest to how predatory our telecom rates are - we price an essential service as a luxury good.

However, my job is bringing mobility and home service discounts to employees of companies as a compliment to their employee benefits package.

It’s a really laid back gig. A couple board room meetings with HR and IT directors, a verbal agreement, and that’s it. No contracts, no fees, no legal teams, just a friendly conversation of “hey, would you like your employees to be able to save money”. I have a team who helps out actual customers, I’m just here to chat with execs and get the program launched/supported.

I used to work in SaaS and I hated the endless grinding for targets, schmoozing, and contract revisions. With this, we can go from first contact to program launch in a single workday. It’s awesome.

Work from home, a month paid vacation, insane health coverage, very manageable workload, great pay, and most importantly to me - I’m helping people save money on things they HAVE to have. Can’t get by without a phone and internet nowadays.

This year alone, I’ve helped Canadians collectively save over 2mil! That feels really good. Times are tough and inflation is wrecking us. Any dollar you can keep in your pocket is important.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
21,023
50,388
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
I love working with color, always have, which has led to a nearly 60 year career as an artist. A super keen color eye, measured to be well in the the .0001 percent of the human population when I did my Industry physical, is about the only gift I was born with. Having that gift has afforded me a lot of interesting experiences and a few adventures along the way. I both love and hate my jobs, depending on circumstances, the people or conditions I'm working with. I don't have "a" job, I've had a couple of hundred of them. Every production is its own kind of beast. I'm at an age now, where time, what's left of it, is becoming more important, so I may retire next year, though there are productions that would like to employ me after I complete this show. Might be fun to do some personal stuff.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
21,023
50,388
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
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.
According to polling results, about 80% of those polled said that they work at jobs they hate. So if that's the case, you're in the majority.
 

carlomarx

Can't Leave
Oct 29, 2011
441
688
State College,PA
I admire those who found a career they love. That wasn't my case. I hated my job, but it was my fault. I went
for the money so my kids could have a comfortable life. I tried on a few occasions to break free, but I was
never successful. So I stayed with a job that was extremely stressful and left me unfullfilled. I learned to adapt.
There are times I reminence how I wasted the most productive years of my life doing something I hated, but it's water under the bridge. My kids are grown and living happy fulfulled lives. So, for that, I'm grateful. I'm retired now and living a pretty good life. I'm blessed, but geesh, Lord knows I paid my dues. Having said that, it brought me to where I am now, so I'm thankful.
Ditto
 

jaingorenard

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 11, 2022
763
3,439
Norwich, UK
I've worked with homeless people for a few years (all my working life), both for charities and statutory services, frontline, managing frontline, strategic. I used to find it endlessly entertaining, with great people. But over the years as many of our statutory services have been degraded the complexity has increased, with way less support out there. Hours crept up, and it became more and more expected that you would regularly work much longer hours than your contract. I always told my teams that we weren't an emergency service, but when there's no one to sit with someone in A&E and they'll just leave (with huge risk to life), or you see someone OD'd while you're doing your shopping, or whatever crazy situation you bump into, you don't really have much choice. Particularly if it's someone you've been working with for a while.

I left my job last week, and start my new one on Monday. It's a complete change - I'll be working for an ornithological charity, trying to help them recruit more volunteers and deal with some demographic challenges. It's a small office in it's own nature reserve, and I must say I'm more excited than I've been in a long time to go to work on Monday. The commute is longer, the money is less, but I've reached a point where that is less important to me.
 
G

Gimlet

Guest
I have always suspected that when I am retired, it will suddenly dawn on me what I should have done for a living.
That is very likely true. When you're working you're under pressure to keep working. There's no time out, you need to keep the money coming in. Anything that requires financial investment or a long period of retraining can be daunting, so if you're really unhappy in your work you're likely to look at something that offers an easy transfer whether it's really suitable or not. You clutch at whatever's in reach.

When you retire, you've got the mental space to think about it more deeply and the time to try new activities - even if you try them out of sheer boredom. That gives you the break to potentially discover the thing you should have been doing all along.

It's a bit cruel to find your life's vocation just as the light is fading, but it's better than never finding it at all.