How often do/did you enjoy your job?

[Satchmo Distel]

As a university teacher, I think I have moments in every lesson when I am really high on enjoyment - in the zone - and moments of acute temporary anxiety about whether it is going well and if the lesson plan got the timings right. Equipment failures are also a classroom menace, as are students chatting. Finally, there's the need to self-censor and the paradox that I am more likely to overstep a boundary of bad language or partisanship when I am super relaxed than when I am more cagey, but I also teach far better when I am super relaxed but in that danger zone of potential inappropriateness.

Office jobs I have done were mostly tedious and sometimes stressful to the point of wanting to walk out and drive home, which I did with one job and almost for a second. How did people cope before they could sneak a few minutes on the web, even if only to get the cricket scores?

[Amor de Cosmos]

I consider myself lucky. For the most part I've had jobs I really liked, for differing reasons. I've had some duds but seem always to have had the instinct to quit, or get canned, before they, or I, became a liability.

In some ways there's less at stake these days, certainly very little financially. With now (unbelievably) twenty years in the classroom, I'm generally comfortable with teaching my subject. Fortunately the program, and type of student, have changed with enough frequency to prevent any complacency. They keep me mentally sharp, and provide intellectual benchmarks that, I hope, will let me know when it's time to jack it in.

The previous twenty-five years as a graphic-designer were brilliant. Mainly because of the kick provided by producing a concrete end-result, and providing often instant visual problem solving. Working as part of a small editorial team was also a blast. I also worked for a totally mad year as an interior decorator. Which will constitute the bulk of any film of my life

[Satchmo Distel]

Amor, how do you deal with self-censorship?

[Amor de Cosmos]

I'm not really conscious of it. Which isn't to say it doesn't happen of course. I don't use bad language much in any case so it's never really come up. So far as inappropriateness goes. When I began teaching I was single, and did date a couple of students, but only after they'd completed my courses. Otherwise not a lot to report. There was a comment I made to student in class a couple of semesters ago that, retrospectively, I wish I could take back but, so far as I know, only I noticed it.

Class material is mostly visual, and consists mainly of advertising or documentary images/clips. There's unlikely to be much that offends anybody, and when there is I usually give a heads up.

[elguapo4]

Thankfully I've never had any problems with my jobs, like all of us there are times when I'd rather do anything else but I'm sure everybody feels that way at times, I got a thank you letter written to the company and printed in the newsletter recently which cheered me up, I work with generally decent people as well which helps

[EIM]

My new job is mint

[WOM]

I've always enjoyed the job itself....writing. Never disliked it, and likely never will.

But I've disliked a) the agency where I've done it, or b) the client I've done it for, or unfortunately, both. Currently it's a bit of b), but I think it's just that I've seen the same pointless bullshit over and over and over for twenty years now that I've just gotten grumpy.

[San Bernardhinault]

I almost always enjoy what we make - I think it's awesome. But the process of getting there can be excrutiatingly dull. But I've never encountered a job I'd enjoy more, I don't think.

[Femme Folle]

I love my job. I don't feel like it's fulfilling some kind of noble purpose, but it pays the bills. I have the kind of job that isn't easy to explain in just a few words to anyone outside of the insurance industry, but industry people know exactly what I do. I love that my job challenges me to think, sometimes outside the box, and I even enjoy the crazy times when we are under an impossible-seeming deadline. I also love that I am given the opportunity to learn new things. I love that our upper-level managers value my opinion. I can't imagine working anywhere else, and I hope that I am able to work here until I retire (or die of old age, whichever comes first).

The company is quirky and I am quirky and that's why we belong together.

[Hot Pepsi]

Not often, tbh

[HORN]

IT contracting means in theory working on short-term projects to help get an organisation out of a hole. It suits me. Not much politics to worry about. Just get out there and create something. Quick.

But then sometimes I find I’ve landed in a role where I’m a pseudo-permanent member of staff. Like right now. The weight of expectation, the politics, the project plans, the working from early morning into evenings and weekends... my guts are in a semi-permanent state of cramping because of the pressure.

Five weeks to go.

[hobbes]

Working sucks. If I won a substantial amount of money, I'd never work again. (Maybe some volunteering aside,)

I don't particularly enjoy my job, but I wouldn't enjoy anything else more, I probably couldn't do anything else anyway and this pays relatively well. It's all about the Benjamins.
The place I work makes up for it, they're a good bunch really. So it's a shame I'll be out on my ear sometime early next year when they close to "unlock shareholder value."

[Tactical Genius]

Don't like my job. As an IT expert I am in a minority that hate computers. The best part of my job is I get to travel the world and get paid (although I don't get to see much of where I visit).
My current role is pretty disheartening. Full of the usual middle managers who's job seems to be either finger pointing or pulling people into meetings to discuss stuff you agreed on last week.
The money is great but after 9 months of back and forth between the UK and Amsterdam. I finally handed in my notice. This hasn't gone down well and they have gone out of their way to make my exit as difficult as possible.
I really envy people who love their job.

[ad hoc]

I love my job. I don't feel like it's fulfilling some kind of noble purpose, but it pays the bills. I have the kind of job that isn't easy to explain in just a few words to anyone outside of the insurance industry, but industry people know exactly what I do. I love that my job challenges me to think, sometimes outside the box, and I even enjoy the crazy times when we are under an impossible-seeming deadline. I also love that I am given the opportunity to learn new things. I love that our upper-level managers value my opinion. I can't imagine working anywhere else, and I hope that I am able to work here until I retire (or die of old age, whichever comes first).

The company is quirky and I am quirky and that's why we belong together.

You work for quirky insurers? I am all in favour of quirkiness, but I'm thinking that perhaps my insurer is someone I don;t need to be that quirky

[ad hoc]

I've been freelance for 13 years now, which means that I can't complain about my boss (he's, frankly, useless in many many ways, but that's something I'll have to live with). For the most part I do enjoy my work very much - but the thing I enjoy the most about it - being in the physical classroom with students/trainees - is the part that I can see rapidly declining as more and more training goes online. And online training is something that doesn't give me anything like the same sense of achievement and satisfaction and energy. It will be good for my family and for the planet if more does go online, but it won't give me the same sense of fulfillment.

In the last couple of years, I've started being invited regularly to do keynote/plenary talks at international conferences. This takes me out of my comfort zone considerably (which is not a bad thing, but it does stress me out), and I don't really believe in it as an educational medium (give me a training session over a talk any day), but I need to say yes because in the end it leads to more work that I do enjoy.

[Snake Plissken]

I'm lucky in that I turned my childhood fascination with computers into an actual job. It hasn't been all wine and roses, although since being forced into contracting 14 years ago, life has been a succession of interesting gigs. It was the permanent stuff before that, including an 8 month stint at Time Computers manning the tech support phones that led to a breakdown and subsequent general hatred of humanity. As a contractor, I think that the shortest I've been in a gig is 6 months and that was my choice, so it seems to have worked itself out. My new client is also running at a pace which can charitably be described as glacial and introducing Office 365 is like giving a Formula 1 car to someone who has only ever used a Model T so we're actually work well within our capabilities.

If only I could shift this writers block. The documentation that I've been writing is by my standards a pile of shite. I mean, it's accurate, but it reads terribly. It's just a load of sentences.

[Patrick Thistle]

My job has stressful times and can get frustrating. There's some politics especially working with other organisations. But generally we are making progress on things and that should make a difference for poorly people. That gives me a sense of self worth even on those days when I feel people have queued up to give me a kicking. (Those days are rare but I have a few)

[Guy Profumo]

IT contracting means in theory working on short-term projects to help get an organisation out of a hole. It suits me. Not much politics to worry about. Just get out there and create something. Quick.

But then sometimes I find I’ve landed in a role where I’m a pseudo-permanent member of staff. Like right now. The weight of expectation, the politics, the project plans, the working from early morning into evenings and weekends... my guts are in a semi-permanent state of cramping because of the pressure.

Five weeks to go.

Messrs. Bodgit and Scarper

[Wouter D]

I'm on the tenure track. On the one hand, there is loads of pressure to get too many things done in too little time, and for that reason I am counting down the working days until we reach my Christmas holiday. As of now, there are 35 left. On the other hand, each of the things to be done are really rather amazing. Do new cutting-edge research, teach cool stuff to intelligent people, distill and help develop the specific talents of each PhD student under my supervision: it's all good.

I guess the management summary is: I love my job quite often, but I'd love it substantially more if days had 48 hours.

[Sits]

For many years we've been ever-increasingly controlled, monitored and constrained by Head Office. This year for an assortment of reasons the grip has been consciously loosened and the difference has been amazing.

And surprise surprise, we've performed better.

[S. aureus]

I really lucked out by stumbling into a job that I love and am pretty good at (I don't think the two are unrelated).
I've also been mostly lucky with the people I report to - probably most importantly at the beginning of my career where I worked for someone who was able to let me get on with stuff fairly independently but effectively shielded me (most of the time) from the BS that was happening elsewhere in the company. This gave me the confidence in my own contributions to be able to deal with the BS myself as my career progressed. Since then (apart from my last job) I've worked for people who value my input and abilities.
Even at my last job, which had a truly horrible work environment, I still enjoyed the actual work part, just not the personal interactions part.
Otherwise I've mostly been with a great bunch of people, with whom I get along very well, and I think that I've timed my job changes reasonably well - on the whole I've been able to find someplace new around the time I'm feeling jaded and losing interest in the previous one.
There are definitely aspects of what I do that I don't enjoy (anything patent-related, for example), but these pass pretty quickly.

[MsD]

I love my current job, just wish I could go part-time. It's been talked about but I haven't managed to get to the point where I can do all my work in 4 days or a 5 hour day.

I'm still self-employed, officially, and am required (legally) to freelance for other people, haven't really got round to it yet.

The best things: autonomy - I have to rrrrun tings, but I can arrange how I do it; I can nip to the pub or the park if I feel like it (within reason). I can have lazy days when I'm not feeling great and busy days when I'm buzzing full of energy.

The very best thing: clever people (who all happen to be male) asking for my input and giving me credit for it. I can research into interesting things, and reading the news is part of my job. I should write some articles (again, once I get faster at the routine stuff).

What would improve it - listening to music more; I should sort that out, as I'm on my own a lot and it wouldn't be a problem.

Oh, and starting an hour later would be cool.

I'm thinking of moving closer to the office, that's how much I like it.

[Femme Folle]

You work for quirky insurers? I am all in favour of quirkiness, but I'm thinking that perhaps my insurer is someone I don;t need to be that quirky

I don't work for an insurance company, I work for an insurance consulting firm. Most of our clients are major insurance companies. We do a lot of data analysis and loss projection and allocation work, among other things.

[Sam]

I used to love it, now I'm fed up with it and am training for a change of career, because it's hard to be enthusiastic about writing far too occasional stuff that no-one reads, and the only new enquiries that come in being from places without a budget to pay writers.

Still, I have dodged a small bullet by hearing recently that one place I was thinking of sounding out for a part time job is apparently, in spite of quite a few nice people being there, a horrendous place to work which doesn't update its employees' pay on a regular basis (which is quite a bit of a problem when you bear in mind inflation runs at anywhere between 20% and 40% p/a here). Don't think I'll be going to them after all.

[Uncle Ethan]

I'm very lucky - have a job supporting people who do important things to help those going through a tough time in the workplace. Enough high-end strategy and campaigning to get me through the day, plus the chance to have a positive impact on the people who report to me. Outside the day job I still get to do some football-related bits and bobs. Every now and again I get complacent about it but reading about people who don't enjoy their work is a timely kick up the arse.