We do exactly the same job.

To me the idea of enjoying a job is an odd one: I don’t want to work, I only work because I need the money. If I had money I wouldn’t work.

I don’t know if this makes me the oddest person on earth, but where I am my coworkers sometimes make me feel so.

She asked me if I enjoy my job. I looked at her surprised while thinking to answer her with a regular blanket manager answer like ‘it is such a honor to work here, fuck yeah, I’d love to work here for free!’ or being completely sincere.

I was in a good mood, so I chose being sincere: ‘I don’t enjoy working, I work because I need to pay for the rest of my life, I enjoy cooking, writing poetry and walking through a forest.’

She looked at me a bit surprised and replied: ‘but you have to like your job.’ My answer? ‘As long as I earn money all’s good.’

This happened in a big room with like 9 coworkers hearing the convo.

Now I don’t know if I just committed job suicide where I work at, but it was liberating saying out loud at the workplace what I think a job is.

And why the fixation that you must like a job? It’s a job for fucks sake. Why do you have to like it?

To me this only confirms my current job is a cult. Am I exaggerating?

If every workplace is like this I should stick with the devil I know…

  • Boisterous [he/him]@hexbear.net
    2·
    12 days ago

    I enjoy aspects of my job:

    • I’m a public servant and I do think I give value to the people I serve.
    • my job is complicated. I’ve only been here for just over a year but I’m involved in training people (we’ve been hiring a lot recently)
    • somedays I like to get away from my family for a few hours, somedays I don’t.
    • I’m not micromanaged. We have specific targets to hit but no one yells at me for taking a longer break or harasses me for being a couple minutes late to work. This also motivates me to stay a few minutes late somedays to make it up (shocker who would have guessed that it improves morale).
    • I’m unionized, with sick time, vacation, and benefits. Plus another guaranteed raise next year.
    • I get 1 paid EDO every 2 weeks and recently was approved to work from home 4 days every 2 weeks.

    These are all great! However there’s aspects I don’t like :

    • I don’t like the rigidity of schedule. Having to wake up every day at the same time to work for 8 hours.
    • I have to drive in and I resent that. That also means dealing with parking.
    • there’s plenty of small things I don’t like. Also our workloads are insane right now and we’re doing a lot of coverage of coworkers.
    • previously I was in health care and direct patient care and I miss that.

    I try to enjoy the good things and quiet down the bad with any job. Don’t ever mute the bad completely though, it’ll let you know when it’s time to leave.