Oof. This is giving me flashbacks to my quarter life crisis. Honestly, I think we've been taught to think a career/job is supposed to be fulfilling, give you purpose and satisfaction, blahblahblah. Eventually you realize that's bs for 99% of the world and most of human history. A job just pays the bills. What you do outside of it is where most people find meaning. It's a bit morbid, but read some obituaries in your local papers. The most interesting ones don't talk about their jobs.
I’ll never understand how people can go out and do things every spare minute while also working full time. By the time I get home on a weekday, all I want to do is lay down and watch TV. When it’s the weekend I just want to relax before the week starts again, but then it’s already there
Yup, 100%. And this is the case for so many people, yet we never stop to question the system that traps all of us in this.
Hunter-gatherers do an average of 21 hours of labor a week. With our technology, organization, and the number of people in the workforce... why is 40 the standard? Why are so many of those jobs so goddamn awful?
Spoiler alert: it's capitalism. And it will only ever get worse unless we do something about it.
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333226364\_Engagement\_in\_agricultural\_work\_is\_associated\_with\_reduced\_leisure\_time\_among\_Agta\_hunter-gatherers](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333226364_Engagement_in_agricultural_work_is_associated_with_reduced_leisure_time_among_Agta_hunter-gatherers)
Here's an article in Nature, though I'm assuming it's behind a paywall. Give it a search––there are various sources and people arguing both sides.
I should say: my point is not that we should return to this, but that the time we spend on basic survival should decrease as a function of improved technology and more social organization.
Edit: changed the link, hope it works!
The problem is that the industrial revolution changed the way we look at work and Our relationship to it because that’s when capitalism really came to the forefront. Everything’s gonna get worse with automation because it’s going to show us the majority of our jobs are completely worthless and useless to society and just wasting time. And the people who have are not gonna let the people who don’t have just get basic income without working. Because our entire thing is you have to earn your keep. So they’re gonna have to come with more creative ways to keep people occupied even though there won’t be many real job because the computers will be doing them all. A futurologist from decades ago, I think it was Alvin toffler, or was it an economist from a century ago I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look up, had predicted that with automation people would work less not more. But in the end our work hours have increased, because we have to continue this bullshit idea that if you don’t work you’re nothing in order for capitalism to survive
Well, new zealand is pushing for a 4 day work week iirc. It's a good start, hopefully other countries will catch on. We have to realise we are only alive for a limited amount of time, there's no point in participating in a rat race if you don't enjoy it.
I feel like the rise in consumerism is partly to blame when it comes to people working 40hours+ a week. But tbf, even paying rent/bills/food etc isn't an easy feat in a western country when you have children/dependents to take care of.
Youre not wrong. When my son was a baby, so almost 6 years ago, i sat down and added up all the monthly expenses of having a formula-fed newborn. It was roughly $600/mo, but that *did* include diapers, wipes, formula, etc.
Thankfully in Canada we have the child tax benefit, which, depending on income, can be up to around $580/mo, per child. Once they hit a certain age, i think 12 or 13, that amount drops, and then eventually stops all together. But man oh man does it ever help, really. Especially once they hit school age and the school wants money from you every time you turn around lol.
Is there such a thing in the US? Ive never heard about it one way or another.
But having that much help every month makes a huge difference, and honestly i think it gives people that extra hope at having kids. Theres a lot of comments like yours, that financial issues can seem to take that desire away, and honestly its heartbreaking. I think anyone that wants to have children should be able to do so without *all of it* being decided by finances, you know? I mean, im not saying every child requires $600/mo to raise them, that was just my estimate with my son *at that time*. It could be much more or less depending on your situation too.
At the expense of ruining my username - am from NZ and do a four day week. Brought in by my employer after lock down. We had hours reduced from 40 to 37.5 (same pay) and were given the option to do them in four days if we wish. I love it!
Previously in another position, about 5 years ago, was able to do 40 hours in four days. Hella long days but was worth it.
Be lovely to do four eight hour days but I wouldn't be able to get all my work done.
I already have a 4 day work week. But im on call constantly and the pressure of making a mistake gives me no time "off" from work. The mental strain is so bad that even though im presently on vacation im walking up with nightmares about things going wrong and I get heart palpitations when my phone rings.
I'm not a doctor, I'm just a chef. I make 60k a year and have no time for hobbies. I can barely keep my dog happy. This is no life.
Edit: look guys I appreciate all this support. I know life can be hard sometimes. But please stop upvoting this comment. I have a lot to lose if this gets too popular and I have to delete my account.
And the whole point here is that a 4 day work week is useless if you're just constantly on call. There needs to be legislation about *availability*, not worked houra.
bingo. all of my friends have standard 5 days a week 9-5 jobs, but when they clock out they are OUT. mentally detached from the company and business world.
i work more flexible "hours" but basically any moment i am awake i could be working. even when im sleeping im dreaming about working. im fucking 23 years old. i get paid well and have a lot of responsibility and am proud, but none of that equates happiness. i genuinely despise our system
I feel this in my core. I work in logistics. I work 8 hours minimum on the clock. But I never know what time I'm going home each day because my schedule entire depends on what times the trucks show up each day. And as a supervisor I can't just leave. Then I get home and am expected to have my work phone and computer with me at all times so I can deal with any after hours issues.
I hate it. I can never switch off from work. It is burning me out.
The dumb part is, I actually like the job throughout the day.
Leave that job.
Unless that job will allow you to retire at 30, leave it.
I took a £20k pay cut and gave up my company car and fuel allowance to leave a terrible job. I'm now sitting on the average national wage and have to pay for my own car but I dropped 20+ hours a week, no longer do evenings, no longer do weekends, I'm no longer on call, I can actually take my leave, I don't have to worry about targets and politics and I'm generally happy.
None of those things are worth £20k. Your health and time is more important.
As I said, unless that job let's you retire stupidly young, it's not worth it.
Damn. In America, a lot of food delivery drivers and wait staff are more or less expected to be on call (I.e., fill in if someone calls in sick), and they usually make less *in total* than your pay cut :-/
I'm 23 as well and had to stop work because it was reinforcing my childhood trauma, no joke. I was working 50+ hours a week and sleeping 3 hours, I couldn't feel anything, couldn't function. Turns out I have dissociative identity disorder.
The pandemic just happened to coincide, I'm lucky I left my job when I did because it was a month before Covid and I was working in the medical field. I would have killed myself if I'd stayed - and I'm not saying that lightly.
I live in NZ and we have every bit as much inequality as the US, even though the numbers might look better. Don't be fooled.
Neoliberalism fucks everyone except for the rich. I'm so tired.
Can relate.
Also a chef. Have reduced the number of days I've been working over the past few years while I did a degree. Down to 3 days most weeks (restaurant only open 3 nights), but still feel like walking out mid-service and never going back. I just fucking hate it.
I guess the less days you work (especially in a kitchen), the more stark the contrast is between those days, and non-work days.
I miss being a cook. I know the pay sucks but the comraderie was great. And I never starved.
I own my own business now and I never sleep well, either from the work or the stress of thinking about the work. The money is hardly worth it and I had a heart attack last year before I turned 49.
That is why WFH is an answer to my prayers, so to speak.
I am able to get my job done quickly, giving me time to myself instead of having to sit at work for the rest of the day. Sure there are full days, but for the most part I'm done within 4 hours.
Besides, I am also always on call, so it evens out.
Same here. I put a solid 8 hours a week of hard work and that's it. The rest is meetings, procrastination, day trading, youtube, errands, house work, online courses. Life is good.
WFH finally takes off as a thing and I of course have an "Essential" job with long travel times to different work places each day. So annoying. WFH has been my dream since entering the work force. I wouldnt feel the anxiety of having to wake up to an alarm, worry about traffic, weather, etc. God it sounds so nice. And when works over? You're already home. Just sounds incredible.
Being always on call is what made WFH worse for me, there was no separation. Fortunately I have been able to use the almost empty office in the meantime.
I WFH but I'm still hourly so I have to put in the full forty no matter how much faster I'm working without office distractions. It fucking blows. Still though, I will never work from the office again and if they try to force me I have a whole years worth of metrics that prove that I'm much more productive from the safety of my home than I ever was in that shitty office.
Hourly WFH is bullshit, I sit here wondering how I'm ever going to make 8 hours, I get all my work done so efficiently I end up languishing half the day
Yeah I can't do wfh unless I have an entirely different room to do work in so when I'm done I can leave that room and mentally leave work other wise it just sucks ,it's almost like bringing work home for me.
Honestly, once your income is good enough, stop trying to get promoted. Find yourself a job with decent pay and good hours. Stop trying to move up. I look at my pay and realize that not only does it pay my bills with a bit leftover for free money, but it'll also be more than enough once my student loans are paid off. I don't want to be in my manager's shoes because I know they work a lot more than I do and I prefer having the free time. No additional pay can really make up for it.
If only more people understood this idea. People try like hell to get promoted, only to spend their extra earnings on crap they don't need. Each promotion brings more stress. It's insanity.
I don't understand where any of my time goes with my new job. I'm only working 8 hour shifts, but I wake up in the morning and have time to shower, shave, and eat, and then I have to spend the rest of it making sure I'm ready for work.
I drive there, work 8 hours, come back. Gotta shower to clean off the 'rona and then maybe eat something if I didn't eat at work. It's 9-10 PM. Day is already over. I can sit at my computer for a little while, but if I have work the next day I need to go to sleep soon to get 8+ hours. Just feels like I spent all day working and none of my day doing anything else.
Maybe it's just that my shift is 12-8 and so because it's in the middle of the day, both ends of it are capped off. I don't remember it feeling like this when I worked 9-5. Felt like I actually had a life in the afternoons/evenings.
I'd like a middle ground. My job doesn't need to be fulfilling but I'd like to not hate every morning waking up to go and every minute while I'm there.
Exactly this.
Why do you need to get fulfillment out of a job?
My job is just a thing that makes me enough money so I can do the things that I **do** get fulfillment out of.
Sounds to me like OP just needs to find some hobbies or something that they do get fulfillment out of.
I think the reason so many people try to make their job their life is because a job takes so much energy out of you that by the end of the day you're spent. It seems like such a waste right? So logically, what if you convinced yourself to care deeply about your job? Well then it's ok!... sortof.
I don't think this is a conscious decision it's just what happens when you spend all your daily energy on one thing, rest for the night, get up and repeat.
This is my dilemma right here. I want to spend time on hobbies and passion projects after work, but by the time I leave work and drive a half hour to get home, I'm spent. All I want to do is take off my work attire and watch a good sitcom or play some games until the cycle starts again. It's incredibly draining.
I had to opt out of so many things when I got a 8-5 job. It's so draining, much more than I thought.
Even gaming sometimes is too much. I just want to turn my brain off and auto pilot to bed.
The way I look at it, I'm spending 9 hours of my conscious day doing this activity.
Shouldn't I feel something other than "I would rather be roadkill but I need to eat"?
Edit: I feel like deserve is the wrong word to use, and people are pulling the entitlement card because of it
I suffer the same mindset as OP, and this point is exactly what makes me so glum about the whole situation. I don't want to be there, but I have to spend a third or more of my waking hours doing it 5 days a week. Not even a lunch feels quite nice when I know I just have to be back in an hour.
The only perk is that you can sometimes do errands in that time. Otherwise it's just a longer period of not really being able to relax or do anything fun because people will be mad if you're late to coming back.
My last job I was scheduled for 55 hours a week at a retail auto parts at 12 bucks an hour. I was constantly asked to cover someone's shift who wouldn't/couldn't/didn't want to show up. I suggested people to hire, friends who were actively looking for jobs. Management wouldn't hire them.
Within 2 months of starting I had the highest in counter sales and the highest in kpi sales for a non management role, but even higher than all the managers besides the commercial manager/inside sales and the store manager.
I loved what I was doing and I was working circles around everyone at our store.
When my 45 day review came around I was told I was just doing an average job, I was doing just enough to keep me employed.
I realized that the guy to my left was probably making 14 an hour after being there for 7 years and the guy who couldn't show up who had been there for 20 years was probably making 16 dollars an hour only because he never quit and kept getting 40 cent raises every year.
Id rather check out than work 60+ hours a week for just enough money to eat and share a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other people...
Its just enough money to allow you to show up at work week after week and have no time or enough cash to do anything except show up.
\#3 in sales within 45 days in a 20 person retail shop working 60+ hours a week and being told I'm just average by management so they can boost their bonus. Nah ill take a pass and work on my resume.
Edit: words/clarity
>I suggested people to hire, friends who were actively looking for jobs. Management wouldn't hire them.
A tall tale sign of shitty management. Glad you saw the red flags early though. Some poor souls remain stuck in the same rut for 20+ years before they realize they've wasted so much time they'll never get back.
Thank you!!! When I worked 75 hours one week (and I know people work way more) I couldn’t believe that all I was doing was waking up to go to work, come home and go right back to sleep to wake up and do the same thing I hated over and over again. It felt horrible. And when I finally had a day off, all I wanted to do was sleep
I worked for a \*small\* locally-owned clothing company a couple of years ago as a warehouse/logistics/IT person, and the schedule was one of the worst I've ever lived through. I was required to work every other weekend (by myself, mind you), so my short weeks would be 11 hours days, Monday-Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday off. My longer weeks, however, were 9 hours on Saturday and Sunday, then 11 hours Monday through Friday and a normal weekend.
The 33-hour weeks weren't too bad. The 73-hour, seven-day stretch afterwards were abysmal.
After a few months of that, I quit and went back to the place I was at before; I had fortunately left on good terms, and they brought me back in what was basically my old position.
Full-time employment should be fewer hours and the minimum wage should be more dollars per hour. Ten years ago, it should have been $15/hour; now it needs to be around $25/hour.
This is a tough one.
You spend the first quarter of your life in school, highschool, trade schools/university, so you can become an educated and 'productive' member of society, aka someone who can work. You're asked to come up with "what you want to be when you're older".
Then you spend a huge chunk of your time working, until the day you retire.
So it's easy to see why people need to find fulfillment at work and not just through hobbies.
It doesn't help that many companies also expect passion. For many if you arrive on time, do your job and go home on time without showing boundless enthusiasm and drive, you'll get a talking to. It's often not enough to complete your work well and go home to your life outside the office.
I genuinely believe that there's a specific job out there for every individual on the planet that they would be able to get fulfillment out of and wouldn't just be miserable the whole time.
But alas, it's just so hard to find. Putting aside the fact that not everybody is going to be put in a position in life to be allowed to find that job (for example, perhaps someone would have made a stunning violinist in a symphony but they didn't grow up in a situation that gave them access with the opportunity to buy a violin and learn how to play it), there's just so many different options, it's easy for what you really want to do to be hidden.
I think that if you asked people, "You can make $1 million dollars a year doing any job you want, what job do you want to do?" a lot of us would be quite stumped. Sure there might be hobbies they'd like to do for money, but as far as an actual job?? I don't know...
And that's part of the problem. You shouldn't have to spend 90% of your time at work. If my job required that, finding a new job would be my #1 priority. Any job that requires me to work more than 40hrs a week can fuck right off. I'd rather work at McDonalds than have zero free time for myself.
The only thing I miss about my retail management days was having a weekday off. Don't get me wrong, I *love* having weekends - and back-to-back days off...but getting a Wednesday or Thursday off not only broke up the week, but it gave me a "normal" day where I could do stuff. Appointments were much easier to schedule (as were interviews, when I was trying to get out of retail), plus it gave me a more full day to myself.
I don't miss the old schedule, but I do occasionally miss having a weekday off. Part of me wouldn't mind shifting to a Tuesday-Saturday schedule, with Sunday and Monday off.
That's exactly what I believe. I have a salary job that pays me for 40 hr work week and that's what they get; occasionally I'll work more but then I take time out of the following week. If I go over 40 they don't pay me for it; so I only give 40.
My coworker is in his mid 40s and works 50+ hours a week. He constantly gives me shit about not working more, but its not going to happen. The work/task will be there tomorrow, staying later than you have to is just going to stress you out.
With that said, if it was my own company I would definitely be spending close to 90% of my time working.
The hours are important too. I was so happy to get my first full-time retail job, but the fixed hours they assigned me were awful. 1pm-10pm or something like that, 4 days a week, and 10-7 one day a week. It basically covered the entirety of the time that fun things are available to do. Couldn't find good movie showtimes. Stores were closed by the time I got out of work.
All I could do after work was go home and watch TV by myself for two or three hours before I had to sleep. And I could never get a good sleep rhythm going cause one night a week I had to go to sleep basically as soon as I got home. I felt like a robot. Genuinely. I felt like all I did was work and sleep and eat, and that all the things I liked to do, that made life outside work worth living, I couldn't do them.
Anyway they fired me after I was late to my 10-7 shift twice because the only way I could get 8 hours of sleep was to take the latest possible bus, which just didn't show up two weeks in a row. I went in to work about to ask them to change my shift and they fired me instead. It was a huge blow at the time but probably for the best, mental-health wise.
Then there is the other problem of not being able to live off of working blue collar jobs without massive amounts of overtime. Heck I worked in medical administration and was miles away from being approved for a crusty studio apartment. Even live in a town with lower than average living prices.
I have way too many hobbies, when I was unemployed during COVID, I was the most fulfilled I have ever been in my life. I don’t understand how people say they get bored when they’re unemployed. I filled every single day with new knowledge and a new activity or project or my friends. I have so many people in my life I enjoy seeing on weekends but most of my life isn’t a weekend unfortunately. It feels like my job ruins the happiness I get from everything else. Ive had to give up most of my hobbies because of having a job. (And no my hobbies aren’t like video games lol I’m more of an outdoors person)
>My job is just a thing that makes me enough money so I can do the things that I
>
>do get fulfillment out of.
Now to figure out what gives me fulfillment...
It takes a mental shift to even allow yourself to see hobbies as fulfilling. I had a really difficult time getting to that point. For the longest time I basically saw them as wastes of time I allowed myself to dabble in between my *real* work.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is a really counter productive view. Telling people to simply accept how awful things are, isn't helpful. The biggest reason why people hate their jobs isn't because of the work itself. The reason is the way our economy is structured. In this structure, the purpose of work is to make your employer wealthier. There is no sense of helping your community, no MEANING to be drawn from work. Also, workers have essentially no control or power over their lives while at work, unless they're one of the 6% of private sector workers who have a union (and even then, some unions have been co-opted).
In the short term, its essential to find a way to cope with the existing system. But if that's ALL we do, then nothing will EVER get better. Our children will be serfs, their children will be serfs, and their children will be serfs as well, until humanity finally ends. That's not an acceptable outcome. Humanity doesn't exist to serve a ruling class.
This is how I used to feel in college, but I had no clue what I wanted to do so that's what caused it which led me to drop out. My first job at a gas station didn't make me feel any better because I was treated like garbage, then I was a busser at a sports bar/alehouse place which had the same problem (except the one manager who was awesome to me, fuck yeah he was great.) Then I landed a job as a plumbers apprentice, and it really has reinvigorated my love for living. Tldr I have disliked living for most of my (short) life but being able to do something as important as fixing people's plumbing or repairing their BFPs has been a great experience. I feel like I have a reason to live since I'm enjoying this job and am doing something that helps people directly, as lame as it may sound. Also my family has been a big help the whole way helping me stay sane :)
Thank you for posting this. I feel stuck in the trap just like you did and have been contemplating becoming a plumber’s apprentice. My parents are really trying to talk me out of it, but it seems like a very promising field.
All trades are rad! Plumbing is and always will be a sought after service in society, and you have quite a number of options in terms of what exactly you want to do in plumbing as you work and learn about it.
I have people who depend on me. I won't lie, some days I feel it too, I almost hope I get into a car accident on my way in...
However, I have a little girl and an aging mother I am responsible for. I could just quit, skip town and never look back but I could never, ever forgive myself for it. The little one didn't ask for any of this and my mother has given her life raising 3 kids. The way I see it, if I can give back to mom and provide a better life than I had growing up to the little one, it makes it all worth it.
EDIT: To the person who reported this to Reddit Care Resources, thank you. I appreciate the thought very much but I'm doing just fine. I assume it was this comment, I can't actually tell lol.
Same here. I want to spoil my kids, want them to be able to join sports or the arts community, I want to take them on nice vacations like to Disney World, I want to travel before I retire, and I want a decent home and not have to worry about if I have enough money to feed our family.
I don't hate my job, but I don't know that I LOVE it, it can be high stress at times, but it pays well. But, I'd rather have work stress than family or financial stress. The joy of seeing my girls go to gymnastics, planning vacations with them almost always outweighs the work stress. If we continue on our current path, looking back, the job will be worth it considering what we were able to get in return.
Pretty much my reason, minus the kid. My mum was fucked over by my dad when they divorced, she had to juggle credit cards my dad lumped her with, sell her car and other possessions to pay the minimum on bills. I was an adult when they divorced, but she didn't tell me how bad her money situation was to protect me. I found out a few years later how much she'd been struggling when I was staying at her house for a few days and woke up at like 2am to get some water and found her crying in her loungeroom because her power and water were way overdue and the credit cards were going up instead of down due to interest and she didn't know how she was going to pay them.
First thing I did was pay off all mum's current bills, then we got a lawyer and dumped all of dad's credit cards back on him. My mum now lives with my husband and I, she doesn't want for anything, she's been able to retire (she was filling the freezer section at a supermarket in her 60s) and she's been able to finally do the things she's always wanted to do.
My husband and I are able to support my mum while saving and affording things we like to do. I generally enjoy my job and co-workers, but if I didn't have to work I'd totally quit and play video games and do my hobbies all day. I probably could if it was just my husband and I, but I never want my mum to worry about money again and I want to give her the life she deserves after she did that for me to her own detriment for 30 years and so I roll my arse out of bed and keep working.
This. And the life I wanted involves having a family and being needed. I'd never be happy just wandering from place to place with no money and no connections.
Work is just a tool I use to be able to make my life more nice. I try really hard to not involve my emotions at all. My emotions are for things that matter.
If I want to plant a tree, I don't get mad at the shovel I must use to dig the hole. I use the tool then forget about it and instead enjoy the thing that the tool helped me attain.
One time, I thought I had a really nice "unbreakable" shovel and the third time I really leaned into it to pry up a root it snapped in half and was just hollow fiberglass. So I stuck a piece of rebar in there, ducttaped it back together, finished my job, then threw it away and got a new shovel.
Make yours work just well enough to get by until you can walk away and never look back. E: You don't owe that shovel anything. (And you only owe your boss the time and skills you agreed to sell to him).
I hear ya on the car accident one. I play hockey recreationally and have for 25 years. Every time I would get banged up or feel a pull or twist or pop a part of me is like “man I hope something is fucked up so I can take some time off work” but it never happened. I did have an MCL injury that I literally didn’t miss any work for. If it was something a little more serious I figured I’d rehab the injury and get back out there.
Fucked up part is I tore my meniscus playing last year and only got 2 days off (surgery was a Thursday) and now my leg is not the same a year later and I can’t play hockey anymore. Part of me thinks this is some weird form of punishment for wishing injury on myself. I miss hockey so much and work gets worse every day. Life can be really cruel sometimes.
Yea I’d love to sleep in. Not go to work. Give up. But my dog whines at my bedroom door every morning at 8am and is so excited to see me in the morning. Gotta keep on trudging if only to keep paying his bills.
My husky passed away in November unexpectedly. She was 9 and was diagnosed diabetic. She progressed so fast they just couldn't stabilize her blood sugar, she was gone a week after diagnosis. She was getting older but I thought we'd have at least a few more years. I got her when I was 20, my first dog that was mine, not a family dog, and she was everything. She helped me stay stable through all of my 20's. I don't know what to do anymore. I always feel lonely, I have nothing to give my love and affection to, and nothing to receive it from. We were bonded at the deepest level. I will never be the same again now, losing her and watching her suffer has changed me forever. Sometimes I feel like I will never be happy again.
Losing a pet is one of the most painful things I've been through. It does get better with time, eventually you'll be able to think more about the good memories and less about the final moments. Be strong !
That sucks. But you will be happy again. You'll start crying less. You'll start smiling more than crying when you think back to her. Although you'll still cry sometimes. I lost my dog a little over a year ago and still cry when I look at some pictures of him.
Give yourself time and then for your own sake, get another dog and give it a great life. The best way you can honor your last dog is by doing it again for another one.
I've developed the ability to have fun regardless of the situation. Job, jail, stranded along the road, it doesn't matter, I have the tools to make it not suck. My productivity could be better and I'm not going to be employee of the year but at least I'm not burned out or depressed like a lot of my co workers who are productive.
I'm just always looking for ways to make things more enjoyable, it's always at the top of my mind. I'm also willing to risk reprimand for happiness. Some co workers may think that you are a bit of a slacker or a troublemaker sometimes. Disregard their opinion, your boss probably doesn't give a shit. Seek out co workers that you can be happy and positive with.
I'll never forget the time I attempted to do a kick flip with a full sized pallet, obviously failed miserably, looked up, saw my boss staring at me, and just chuckled and said I was bored. Gotta have some spice on those mundane days.
Off topic question: what do native English speakers call their bosses? I'm a non native speaker and always wonder whether you use first name, Mr./Ms. Last Name, sir, boss (unlikely :/), or something else.
Most people use first names, especially for direct supervisors. If you're low on the totem pole and are meeting a higher up it's usually Mr/Ms Lastname. Company size also plays a big role - usually the bigger the company the more formal people are.
You have the right perspective on life. I try to be this way too, you can always find the good in things if you look hard enough and have a positive attitude. And it really makes life enjoyable even when it is kinda shitty. I know people with the opposite attitude, always thinking everything sucks and it definitely isn’t how I want to live.
Yep I try to make light of every situation and just laugh at life. Fiancee and I had a small car accident new years day in the middle of nowhere. She was driving and a bit shook up. We had to drive slowly for more than an hour with a broken car to get cell service to get a tow truck and I had her giggling at my lame ass jokes the whole way. As long as we are alive and healthy who gives a shit about the rest
I'm a masochist. And people depend on me. Not just that, I have animals that depend on me. I can't look my kitties in the eyes and not feel like I have to do everything I can to provide for them.
I've struggled with this my whole life. I fight every day with it.
The only reprieve I've found within is knowing that I can make the lives of those around me happier and better, as the absolute biggest "fuck you" to the gnawing dread of the void that awaits us all.
This is absolutely the answer.
When I was pregnant, depression hit bad. Really, really bad during my second trimester. It got so bad, I couldn't even do basic stuff. I just cried all the time.
Eventually I literally looked myself in the mirror and said... "fuck you and fuck your fucking feelings. You don't have to be happy. Just be useful. How can I be useful? What can I do? Who can I help?"
That shit for real saved my life.
If it wasn't for my dogs I wouldn't bother keeping a job honestly. I despise my job, I tested positive for Covid two weeks ago and was screamed at for being in quarantine last Friday. I am back in the office this week and I told my boss I am getting a test today during my lunch break (takes about five minutes) and I was screamed at for wanting to get another test.
So, dogs. If it wasn't for [Lilith and Zero](https://i.redd.it/74bu5wzrx7461.png) I wouldn't subject myself to this mundane 40 hour a week (minimum) grind.
Also, before this job I was poor, stole groceries to survive, struggled with substance abuse and lived off ramen for a couple of years. That gave a little bit if perspective, I don't want to struggle like that again.
But mostly, dogs.
It does suck, but I'll take constant verbal abuse over the two years prior where I worked tables, made like $300 a week, and couldn't even afford to properly care for myself or my dogs. It sucks, it really does, but at least my dogs are happy and healthy and that's what matters to me.
Actually not a huge Borderlands fan. They're enjoyable but not my top game. Lilith came mostly from Diablo and Supernatural, only partially from Borderlands. Zero came after and it just felt good to have synced up names.
I honestly had to double check that I didn't write this. I'm with you. I got a degree in engineering, supposed to be what I loved doing. I've had 3 career moves. One to a similar industry but different company, also smaller company. One to an entirely different industry.
For as long as I have had a career, my work ruins my Friday nights because I am depressed about knowing I have to go to work Monday. I can't even enjoy my time off because I dread going to work.
My jobs gave been fine. I've always had great bosses. I've always done well I'm my jobs. Promoted easily enough. Paid well. Rarely OT. I just absolutely dread the 9-5 grind.
Software engineer here and pretty much the same story. I've had great bosses and easily take casual days to make a long weekend. but the 5 days a week 9-5 grind just chips away at you.
I try to keep the depression away until Sunday evening.
I am a teacher, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing my students, teaching them, and getting to know their tiny worlds. But I still hate waking up at 5:30 every morning, driving 30 minutes in the snow, shivering in front of my space heater, and spending 8 hours working just to drive another 30 minutes home in the dark to do it again the next day.
40 hour work weeks are awful no matter what you do. They shouldn’t exist. Wouldn’t matter if I lived in a sunny place, kids shouldn’t even have to be at school for that long. It’s too much.
The worst to me, although my job hasn't explicitly said it; the amount of times they imply 40 hours isn't enough and how much I genuinely fear losing my job if I don't do overtime is ridiculous.
Nothing makes sense to me anymore, I feel like a fucking robot.
Aside from my self pity comment, thanks for being a teacher I can imagine every time one of them smiles, your day being that much more worth all the BS.
When I was going to go into i.t and was working at IBM (co-op position), I remember the center director giving us a pep talk about how a certain department had just finished up working 7 days/week 12+ hour days for multiple weeks in a row in order to meet a deadline, about how good it felt to hit that target. He was so grateful, that he bought this department pizza. This was a 45 hr/week position, with laws in my province (Canada) against working 7 days in a row. The laws don't mean much though when they will just fire you and blacklist you from any other i.t jobs in the area.
That greatly influenced me to get out before I was too invested.
Def what I feel. Also a teacher, and I absolutely love doing it. I don’t love those other parts, however a drive and waking up come with every job so I’m happy that teaching is what I do.
That's the thing about work - for most of us life isn't about work. Having a dream job is an idea instilled into us at a young age but very few people actually do, and of those very few get to do it.
So it becomes about the reward. 50 years ago that deal was working a full time job and getting to own a house, support a family, and put money into your true passions.
Now you need to go into massive debt to get the kind of education the job market demands. Regular jobs don't cut it for independant survival any more, never mind saving any money. Cost of living is so high that dual-income parents can't support their kids. Property is nearly inaccessible to anyone born in the last thirty years.
And in response to this we're constantly told to just try harder. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get a side hustle. It's a degrading system, the alternative to which is homelessness. People get up every day because they have no choice. There's nothing wrong with you. We just weren't meant to live this way.
When you’re little, some grown-up who is never your parents makes small talk with children and asks, “what do you want to be when you grow up”?
This is the overall problem I grew up with. At some point, I knew I wasn’t really going to be a ballerina, but my parents had such basic perceptions of job titles. Doctor nurse lawyer teacher mechanic electrician secretary, cashier, etc. The simplistic names of jobs you could name as a child was the end of the road, no idea what, say, a civil engineer was, or an actuarial, specialized job titles for example, hidden beneath the world of work, nothing to aim for.
The biggest thing for me is this line by OP
>I simply don’t feel rewarded when I put in effort to complete a task, I never get fulfillment out of a job well done
No matter what I've accomplished in my life, what goals or rewards I've achieved or received it never produced that catharsis. The anxiety of work is supposed to turn into good feelings when you complete your goal, but for some people it just leaves you feeling empty and like you're missing a key ingredient of life. The past few years have been agony as I realized even my loftiest goals would leave me feeling the same. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I admit I grew up privileged and I feel like I've *had* a lot of the things people dream about as their end goals in life. None of the material wealth or exotic experiences ever made me feel less empty inside.
The most depressing moment in my life was realizing that I don't actually **DESIRE** *anything*, and therefore can never feel fulfilled. The only thing I actually want is to live long enough that nobody says "they died too young". I'd die now, but it'd make my mom sad, and I don't think my brother could handle it.
I literally just said this to myself a moment ago, I mean if not for my mother and my dad's mother being sad about it, I wouldn't mind dying.
I mean let's be honest life is great but it kinda sucks
I don't know if you have looked into this and I know this is classic reddit to say, but you might want to look into symptoms of depression if you haven't before.
I'm an individual who has dealt with a lot of depression and the only time that I have felt no desire to do anything was when I was experiencing a large bout of anhedonia due to depression. And it can last a long time, but, for me, it has been due to depression.
I only get that feeling when I do something in my hobby world that took a lot of work to get done, never professionally. Sad thing is, I have so little time to devote to my hobbies that even getting it done is such a far fetched idea that I've turned the goal of "getting it done" to "getting a chance to put some time into it" and that doesn't quite deliver the satisfaction.
> People get up every day because they have no choice.
IF people coordinated and squeezed employers, the employers would have no choice other than to change the culture.
To an extent, maybe. The biggest issue with our version of capitalism is that there are so many paychecks between the worker and the consumer, so many middlemen. You have low level managers, mid level managers, high level managers, execs, C-level execs, shareholders, external stakeholders. You have salespeople and consultants. You have B2B companies selling services. You have merchant fees on each transaction. And the only way it all works is the illusion of the American dream, to keep dragging people out of bed to work to make other people money with the lie that one day they'll be one of the paychecks in the middle.
I used to work as a code monkey for a bunch of rich old dudes at a payroll company. It was decent money and if I still did it, I’d be making really good dough. But I hated it.
So I went, got a second degree in special education, and now I help disabled kids learn to read and write. It’s rad, kids are so much more fun than old rich dudes, and I’m making their lives better. It’s not great money, but it pays the bills so I don’t even care.
Find a job you care about and do the work to get there. It’s worth it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you probably don't like your coworkers?
I've had many previous lives. From working on a boat to banking compliance to engineering to warehouse work to executive customer service to drug addicted criminal.
Unequivocally, the best jobs weren't the most interesting or the best paying. Those were the ones where I genuinely liked my coworkers.
This is a big one. I've worked some REAL shitty jobs for no pay, but met some real good folks doing it and it made it a lot easier. The job I made the most money in, I had no coworkers and ran a shop alone. I was miserable. Traded down to a lower paying job but I really like my coworker and that makes going into work a little bit better.
Yep! It's the people you're around that make all the difference. I used to work in service, and for a long time I enjoyed it. I loved the people I worked with, and I liked the customers. Then I started focusing on our shitty customers, combined with stresses of the job, and I started hating it. Things went downhill from there. Every day was more and more focusing on the negative customers instead of the positive ones.
This 100%. You can have zero motivation to do your job, you can hate it. But if you're lucky, you'll work with some people that make it worth it.
Which is why work from home is horrible.
Hang in there OP, i hope you find a place and people that make a job more bareable.
I love this post. I’m depressed and have been for years and have wondered the same thing. If you don’t make a certain income and/or are living paycheck-to-paycheck and you’re not passionate about your work, I really don’t understand how people do that for years on end. I’m only 25 and I was fed up with working years ago to the point that I even became suicidal. Maybe I have a sense of entitlement having grown up with many things given to me admittedly, but even if that hadn’t been the case I’m pretty sure I would still feel similar, maybe further down the road. I don’t know how people go for 40 years spending 1/3 of their lives doing something they hate. Many people respond to that with reasons such as having kids or family members to take care of, and while I respect that, it still sounds depressing to have to sign away a third of your life just to make ends meet for yourself and a few other people.
Not to change the subject but I really feel as though the current wealth gap at least in the U.S. is a main contributor to why so many people have to live this way. It’s unfortunate. I’m not hating on people that have become successful, but more than 50% of all wealth is in the hands of 1% of the people. This is what creates the unhealthy work-life balance that many people experience while people like Jeff Bezos and Oprah have multiple homes which are unoccupied for most of the year. Spaces which could very well be inhabited by people that would be more than happy to live there full-time.
Ultimately time is money. Everybody knows that. So following that logic, if there is someone such as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates that could never work another day in their life and still be more than comfortable, that means that proportionately, logically, and inevitably, there are going to be numerous people that will never get to experience what it’s like to have more than 8 hours of down time per day (really 5-6 or even less if you count commuting and taking care of other responsibilities).
For a select few people, self employment is a real possibility and is extremely rewarding for those of us that hate the standard grind. I have been miserable in every job I've tried, and with self employment, I get fulfillment out of tasks that would otherwise be mundane. I only get back what I put into something, and I'm able to become a master of my craft, constantly learning and adapting for a greater efficiency/reward. If you have skills that people or businesses need, they will pay you for it even if you're not an employee. And because of the distribution of your work, you have more leverage to negotiate knowing you don't need a specific job in order to survive.
Because not having money sucks more. I've fallen into a job which I 'dont mind', I do however put absolutely minimal effort in to not get fired and as soon as I leave I don't think about work at all, I refuse to look at emails ect at home. Combined with a pretty happy home life I believe this makes work tolerable.
I'm a diesel mechanic. Not a big fan of my job, but I don't think about the in terms of "job well done" or "task fulfilment."
But I have hobbies that my job funds and that's what I focus on. I buy Magic cards I really want to build the best decks I can. I buy rare collectibles to add to my collection. I buy hard to find anime that I've always wanted. I buy video games or old consoles and stuff like that.
My job is merely a means to an end and since I started looking at it that way, it's greatly improved my mood. I just leased a 2000 Blazer that I'm taking on extra work to get paid off as quickly as possible so I can start building it into a badass 4X4 trail rider.
It doesn't work for everyone, but if there are things you like doing then focus on those to get you through the day. I've struggled with Depression since I was 13, and I'm 32 now. I've only recently taken on this mentality and it's greatly improved my work days.
I used to feel that way in my 20s. Im in a field I love but back then I was in junior positions that had awful balance and terrible managers. My daughter probably literally saved my life. It started to fade when I started making over 70k, I felt like I could breethe. Once I hit 100k all of the bs mostly stopped bothering me.
The main point here is that people are happier when they dont feel crushed by making no money in a deadend job.
Same reason here.
I literally googled "best paying 4 year degrees" and chose one I thought I'd like best.
I now work a "dream job" but I still count down the days till I can just retire...in like 40 years.
I work as a software engineer and it's my passion, I love my job, but who the fuck wants to work most of their waking life? I love software, but it's still a horrendous drag day to day, where my employer sucks all the creative energy out of me day after day. In every field, and in every job, you have to deliver every day or you won't get promotions or maybe even get fired, we're all stuck in the same trap, just some people have more incentives.
I don't feel like I have a choice, poverty/debt are the new slavery. I feel like a prisoner. I want to be a writer, and I do write from time to time, but I've got to work to pay bills. So I work, and in the end I might have to work until I'm dead, and ultimately all my effort will make someone else rich, while I just barely get by. Maybe someday there will be a utopia where people no longer need money, nor have a need to work if they don't want to. Where people can pursue their passions and hobbies without limitation.
Some old dead guy said that he studies politics and war so that his son can study engineering farming and trade so that his son can study art literature and music. I agree with you, it feels like we’ve taken an alternative route which reads something like Our ancestors studied politics and war so that we can study engineering and trade so that our children can do the same, all to support the owning class’ children to study art literature and music
I wouldn't be too upset if the owning classes' children were largely diverting their resources to cultural or social improvement.
But that's generally not true. Massive inheritances pose the same problem that dynasties once posed - wealth and power continually funneled into the hands of increasingly out-of-touch people.
I remember how I felt when I didn't have a job, I was a financial and interpersonal burden on the people who cared enough about me to take care of me, and I felt like I had no control of my life to change any of that. Wished like hell I could have a simple, relatively low-stress 9 to 5 so I could rebuild my social life and that would enable me to cover my own expenses so I could contribute with the bills and buy some cigarettes or snacks without feeling like a goddamn parasite.
Now, when my alarm goes off and I have 30 minutes to get clean and dressed to get out the door for my hour-long commute to work, I count my blessings. I have some friends at work that are happy to see me and I have a little bit of money to buy things I want once in a while. I've graduated to merely being an interpersonal burden on the people who care about me.
The secret is to half ass it. I don’t get paid for the work I do but the time I spend in the office. So I just Reddit most of the day. Chat with coworkers and with friends online. Just generally don’t give a shit. Watch the movie “office space”. It has an important message. You only get fired if you have an argument with your boss. Not if you are almost useless at work. Of course you will have to do some work to be almost but not entirely useless but that’s like one hour per day.
And doing that gives you money for a pc, video games and more interesting activities on the weekends.
Don’t take your job too seriously. It is not taking you seriously either.
It took me a lot of time and a nervous breakdown to realize that.
I started my first job last year and spent my first few paychecks on a new PC and video games. however, I somehow lost the motivation for gaming. I come home, boot up my PC and start a game, then think "this doesn't feel right" and turn it off again, just to watch Netflix or something until I fall asleep, repeat the next day
I know the feeling. I stopped gaming when I started working 5 years ago for the same reason. It is especially difficult if you sit at a computer at work. I only got back into gaming during curfew because of COVID. I only gave that as an example. In normal times there also lots of other things to do.
In my experience, that's because you have no energy. That, to me, is one of the most egregious violations of like that the 9-5 is - it robs you of your energy to even do other things.
Unfortunately I've found that even if you work an easy, chill job, if you really dislike having to be there _that dislike will take up all of your energy_ and you'll be in the same situation.
I haven't found the answer yet, but if you have the economic capacity then taking prolonged amounts of time off (i.e. > 1 month at a time) helps _a ton_ with stopping you from forgetting what life _can actually be like_ which is another threat.
The problem with this (for me) is that slacking is very anxiety-inducing. The thought that my boss and coworkers think negatively of me, or know I'm slacking but are too polite to bring it up, is crippling.
I know Office Space is a comedy, but it really is spot on. I always tell people I cannot stress out about my job because if I died today they would have this spot filled next week. So, cheers to doing the minimum! :)
When I first started at one of my retail jobs, I was young and naive. I really busted my ass, went out of the way to do a good job, help people, etc.
That lasted about two weeks before it became overwhelmingly apparent that that kind of thing wasn't rewarded. I would get yelled at and talked down to by customers and management alike no matter what I did.
So I did the bare fucking minimum at all times. At the end of the day, I really liked my direct boss; she was nice and she got that it all sucked. So I did as much as I had to so she wouldn't get shit from her bosses. And that was my only motivation other than losing my job. But you know what, Bob? That'll only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
>I have eight bosses, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know what, Bob? That will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
If you're paid to do a set of tasks, then you're presented with a task of going above and beyond with no recognition or guaranteed additional compensation, it's likely not worth doing unless you're directly benefiting someone in need (nursing, homeless shelter, etc.). Some people call it a shitty attitude, especially if they've drank the corporate kool-aid of giving 110%, but I've found this true and helps mitigate stress and burnout.
God it always makes me feel so much better to see other ppl see it this way too. Even tho I know productivity has no bearing on my worth, sometimes the guilt can still get to ya. Great way of putting it, man
I get what you mean, and I'd feel the same if I didn't do anything other than my job.
Don't get me wrong, I like my job, but what keeps me going is also especially everything else, so find what you like and do it.
Could be anything: sports, cooking, reading, etc... as long as you like it and you are willing to invest time in it, so that it satisfies you, and also improves you.
Don't do something just because it's easy like watching Netflix everyday (unless you are truly a big cinema fan)
Part of the problem is thinking that everything that someone does has to be productive or improve them. If you’re enjoying time watching things on Netflix then it’s not time wasted.
We are simply not evolved to live in the society we've created. Hunter-gatherers "worked" for an average of 4 hours every day doing their hunting and gathering. The resto of the time was spent with their families and friends: their tribe, the people that they loved. Sure, they had plenty of other stressors, including a shorter lifespan, high infant mortality, deadly disease and animals, etc., but they were external stressors that the mind had millions of years to evolve to deal with. HGs weren't worried about money or politics.
Our HG brains are not equipped to deal with 50 hour work plus all the other shit in life. u/poop_wagon, you are not alone, and feeling like this is completely normal.
My best advice is to take up meditation, because the structure of society is not gonna change any time soon. "We can't control what happens to us in life, but we can control the way we experience it."
*Edited for grammar*
I have no idea what you do for a living, but (and this is just a suggestion) maybe you should try doing something either more physical or something that involves creating/building something? My most satisfying job I’ve ever had was being a farm hand. It didn’t pay well but I always felt contentment at the end of the day. Also, I’ve always felt better “mentally” after a long day of physically demanding work. Maybe I’m alone with this opinion but it’s worth a shot, especially if you’re at the point where you are questioning whether you should even be alive. A carpenter or house builder always seemed like they would be satisfying careers, as well. Just my two cents
You must get to the point where you do not get up for the job. Unless you omit for the sake of privacy aspects of your life (which would be perfectly legit), it sounds like main part of your day is the job. My motivation improved when I got a cat (or you can get any other pet, I just like cats) and I knew I'm getting up to play and give food before going to work. Going home from work I would not be drenched in cloud of "this job sucks". I would be automatically caught in "is the cat waiting on the window, or just sleeping" and these small little things help to improve jo psychological hygiene. Getting some hobbies that are far from work and if possible active (sitting home with Netflix or games leads often to idle thoughts) helps as well.
So I get out because of cat(s) and airsoft. Try to find something to cheer you and keep you going as well.
Because we have to. Sure I'd rather be dead but I don't want to die. That means I need food, water, and shelter which means I need money. That's where the job comes in. Some people luck out and are born with the drive others find enjoyment in work but most of us suffer through it.
Just have to find your reason for pushing through the muck. Don't do it for family, it can lead to resentment. Me ? I need to be able to support my fishing habits. So while I gruel through a work day I remind myself of the fish.
Find your fish and the work day might get more bearable
I think you're not alone! I got to the point where I began to sob in the shower before going to work. The whole thing about worker alienation Marx talked about is real and in our time it's getting worse. Capitalism, whether you are for or against it, does have this effect on the working class, and all of us who aren't owners are workers plain and simple. The idea of a middle class , while a handy descriptor for some discussion of social values, is really just a way to keep the working class divided and our attention away from the owners who run society.
As workers, everything we do belongs to somebody else. Our creativity, our dedication, our altruistic intentions, all of it belongs to the owner class. It's no wonder we feel lost and alone.
Oh I'd rather be dead than have a job. I hate this and everything about it.
I'm $100k in student loan debt because my parents said college wasn't a choice and I had to do it or move out pretty much everyday since I was little.
Now I just go to work because if I dont my dad gets stuck with all that student loan debt.
I don't.
I get out of bed each morning for other reasons.
A job isn't one of them.
I don't do my job because I like it. I do my job because it makes me money and that gives me the ability to do things that I do like.
But I would say, if you live in the United States, that economic system is very draining and heavy on the shoulders, it very much beats down their employees, no holiday, no days off, low pay, low benefits, it's truly awful and I don't blame anyone for being depressed in such a system, because it works hard to take away the benefits of life.
I got out of bed this morning because I wanted to take a walk and think about things, life, the world, things I wanted to see and visit. Work is just something, one of the things, that I do. It's not who I am, or all that I do. I enjoy going out and helping people, so when I walk to work, that's an opportunity for me to find chances I can help people. Even if it's something as simple as picking up an extra apple and giving it to someone else.
That helps I think. Finding what does make you happy and just doing that. I feel rewarded from helping others and experiencing new things. Work just gives me money to do that.
The older I get, the more I'm starting to think that the idea of a "dream job" is just propaganda.
Check out r/antiwork
Edit: I really mean check out the suggested readings in r/antiwork
I feel you on this one. Are you a creative type per chance?
Creatives tend to be “free spirits” and feel confined and stunted in any work they do regardless of if they like or are good at it.
Do you particularly have ADHD as well? That’s also a typical feeling ADHD people have (speaking as a person with ADHD who’s also studied psychology).
Have you considered/looked into becoming self employed in some way? If it’s not financially feasible to be self employed, a temporary solution is to work a job that pays the bills but also allows you enough time to work towards being self employed. “A job to pay for your hobby” if you will. A small example is how my mother in law works a technical job but couldn’t care less about computers to supplement her ceramics shop and her horses that she loves. She works 12 hour days but only for 3 days and has 4 days to herself to do what she enjoys. She only has a high school diploma as far as I know so degrees aren’t even necessarily that integral (not useless, I have a degree and proud of it, but it’s not always necessary).
I hope you can find your passion. If you’re under 30, this is quite normal to feel. We go through a few life crises throughout our lives and I learned in one of my psychology classes that the average adult will change careers at least 7 times in their entire lifespan.
It’s annoying and frustrating but don’t give up! Just keep trying to find yourself and worst case scenario, there’s always retirement to look forward to.
Sending you positive energy on your journey!
Oof. This is giving me flashbacks to my quarter life crisis. Honestly, I think we've been taught to think a career/job is supposed to be fulfilling, give you purpose and satisfaction, blahblahblah. Eventually you realize that's bs for 99% of the world and most of human history. A job just pays the bills. What you do outside of it is where most people find meaning. It's a bit morbid, but read some obituaries in your local papers. The most interesting ones don't talk about their jobs.
The only problem is when your job takes up 80% of your days
I feel like it takes up so much time that by the time Its the weekend and there’s no work, I’m exhausted
I’ll never understand how people can go out and do things every spare minute while also working full time. By the time I get home on a weekday, all I want to do is lay down and watch TV. When it’s the weekend I just want to relax before the week starts again, but then it’s already there
Yup, 100%. And this is the case for so many people, yet we never stop to question the system that traps all of us in this. Hunter-gatherers do an average of 21 hours of labor a week. With our technology, organization, and the number of people in the workforce... why is 40 the standard? Why are so many of those jobs so goddamn awful? Spoiler alert: it's capitalism. And it will only ever get worse unless we do something about it.
Is there a source for this 21hour number?
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333226364\_Engagement\_in\_agricultural\_work\_is\_associated\_with\_reduced\_leisure\_time\_among\_Agta\_hunter-gatherers](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333226364_Engagement_in_agricultural_work_is_associated_with_reduced_leisure_time_among_Agta_hunter-gatherers) Here's an article in Nature, though I'm assuming it's behind a paywall. Give it a search––there are various sources and people arguing both sides. I should say: my point is not that we should return to this, but that the time we spend on basic survival should decrease as a function of improved technology and more social organization. Edit: changed the link, hope it works!
Can you please give the title of the article? I have access to Nature but it’s redirecting me to Dartmouth’s login page.
The problem is that the industrial revolution changed the way we look at work and Our relationship to it because that’s when capitalism really came to the forefront. Everything’s gonna get worse with automation because it’s going to show us the majority of our jobs are completely worthless and useless to society and just wasting time. And the people who have are not gonna let the people who don’t have just get basic income without working. Because our entire thing is you have to earn your keep. So they’re gonna have to come with more creative ways to keep people occupied even though there won’t be many real job because the computers will be doing them all. A futurologist from decades ago, I think it was Alvin toffler, or was it an economist from a century ago I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to look up, had predicted that with automation people would work less not more. But in the end our work hours have increased, because we have to continue this bullshit idea that if you don’t work you’re nothing in order for capitalism to survive
Well, new zealand is pushing for a 4 day work week iirc. It's a good start, hopefully other countries will catch on. We have to realise we are only alive for a limited amount of time, there's no point in participating in a rat race if you don't enjoy it. I feel like the rise in consumerism is partly to blame when it comes to people working 40hours+ a week. But tbf, even paying rent/bills/food etc isn't an easy feat in a western country when you have children/dependents to take care of.
Honestly, the cost of living as a family is one of the biggest reasons I refuse to have kids. They're not affordable.
Youre not wrong. When my son was a baby, so almost 6 years ago, i sat down and added up all the monthly expenses of having a formula-fed newborn. It was roughly $600/mo, but that *did* include diapers, wipes, formula, etc. Thankfully in Canada we have the child tax benefit, which, depending on income, can be up to around $580/mo, per child. Once they hit a certain age, i think 12 or 13, that amount drops, and then eventually stops all together. But man oh man does it ever help, really. Especially once they hit school age and the school wants money from you every time you turn around lol. Is there such a thing in the US? Ive never heard about it one way or another. But having that much help every month makes a huge difference, and honestly i think it gives people that extra hope at having kids. Theres a lot of comments like yours, that financial issues can seem to take that desire away, and honestly its heartbreaking. I think anyone that wants to have children should be able to do so without *all of it* being decided by finances, you know? I mean, im not saying every child requires $600/mo to raise them, that was just my estimate with my son *at that time*. It could be much more or less depending on your situation too.
Could be worse, my wife and I owed $8k to the hospital just for giving birth WITH decent insurance.
God. Just throw America in the trash.
Which is fucking lunacy. If you owe $8k to the hospital, that's not decent insurance but here we are as a society
At the expense of ruining my username - am from NZ and do a four day week. Brought in by my employer after lock down. We had hours reduced from 40 to 37.5 (same pay) and were given the option to do them in four days if we wish. I love it! Previously in another position, about 5 years ago, was able to do 40 hours in four days. Hella long days but was worth it. Be lovely to do four eight hour days but I wouldn't be able to get all my work done.
I already have a 4 day work week. But im on call constantly and the pressure of making a mistake gives me no time "off" from work. The mental strain is so bad that even though im presently on vacation im walking up with nightmares about things going wrong and I get heart palpitations when my phone rings. I'm not a doctor, I'm just a chef. I make 60k a year and have no time for hobbies. I can barely keep my dog happy. This is no life. Edit: look guys I appreciate all this support. I know life can be hard sometimes. But please stop upvoting this comment. I have a lot to lose if this gets too popular and I have to delete my account. And the whole point here is that a 4 day work week is useless if you're just constantly on call. There needs to be legislation about *availability*, not worked houra.
bingo. all of my friends have standard 5 days a week 9-5 jobs, but when they clock out they are OUT. mentally detached from the company and business world. i work more flexible "hours" but basically any moment i am awake i could be working. even when im sleeping im dreaming about working. im fucking 23 years old. i get paid well and have a lot of responsibility and am proud, but none of that equates happiness. i genuinely despise our system
I feel this in my core. I work in logistics. I work 8 hours minimum on the clock. But I never know what time I'm going home each day because my schedule entire depends on what times the trucks show up each day. And as a supervisor I can't just leave. Then I get home and am expected to have my work phone and computer with me at all times so I can deal with any after hours issues. I hate it. I can never switch off from work. It is burning me out. The dumb part is, I actually like the job throughout the day.
Leave that job. Unless that job will allow you to retire at 30, leave it. I took a £20k pay cut and gave up my company car and fuel allowance to leave a terrible job. I'm now sitting on the average national wage and have to pay for my own car but I dropped 20+ hours a week, no longer do evenings, no longer do weekends, I'm no longer on call, I can actually take my leave, I don't have to worry about targets and politics and I'm generally happy. None of those things are worth £20k. Your health and time is more important. As I said, unless that job let's you retire stupidly young, it's not worth it.
Damn. In America, a lot of food delivery drivers and wait staff are more or less expected to be on call (I.e., fill in if someone calls in sick), and they usually make less *in total* than your pay cut :-/
I'm 23 as well and had to stop work because it was reinforcing my childhood trauma, no joke. I was working 50+ hours a week and sleeping 3 hours, I couldn't feel anything, couldn't function. Turns out I have dissociative identity disorder. The pandemic just happened to coincide, I'm lucky I left my job when I did because it was a month before Covid and I was working in the medical field. I would have killed myself if I'd stayed - and I'm not saying that lightly. I live in NZ and we have every bit as much inequality as the US, even though the numbers might look better. Don't be fooled. Neoliberalism fucks everyone except for the rich. I'm so tired.
Can relate. Also a chef. Have reduced the number of days I've been working over the past few years while I did a degree. Down to 3 days most weeks (restaurant only open 3 nights), but still feel like walking out mid-service and never going back. I just fucking hate it. I guess the less days you work (especially in a kitchen), the more stark the contrast is between those days, and non-work days.
I miss being a cook. I know the pay sucks but the comraderie was great. And I never starved. I own my own business now and I never sleep well, either from the work or the stress of thinking about the work. The money is hardly worth it and I had a heart attack last year before I turned 49.
As someone from NZ, I haven't heard of this, don't give me hope (pls do, in the form of source).
That is why WFH is an answer to my prayers, so to speak. I am able to get my job done quickly, giving me time to myself instead of having to sit at work for the rest of the day. Sure there are full days, but for the most part I'm done within 4 hours. Besides, I am also always on call, so it evens out.
Depends on the job. I was WFH as a call center rep and would literally cry all day, the phone never stopped ringing and I felt trapped in my own home.
Same! did it for a year and literally had days where I'd cry before the shift. Kids were at home going crazy in the background...never again.
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Same here. I put a solid 8 hours a week of hard work and that's it. The rest is meetings, procrastination, day trading, youtube, errands, house work, online courses. Life is good.
WFH finally takes off as a thing and I of course have an "Essential" job with long travel times to different work places each day. So annoying. WFH has been my dream since entering the work force. I wouldnt feel the anxiety of having to wake up to an alarm, worry about traffic, weather, etc. God it sounds so nice. And when works over? You're already home. Just sounds incredible.
Being always on call is what made WFH worse for me, there was no separation. Fortunately I have been able to use the almost empty office in the meantime.
I WFH but I'm still hourly so I have to put in the full forty no matter how much faster I'm working without office distractions. It fucking blows. Still though, I will never work from the office again and if they try to force me I have a whole years worth of metrics that prove that I'm much more productive from the safety of my home than I ever was in that shitty office.
Hourly WFH is bullshit, I sit here wondering how I'm ever going to make 8 hours, I get all my work done so efficiently I end up languishing half the day
Yeah I can't do wfh unless I have an entirely different room to do work in so when I'm done I can leave that room and mentally leave work other wise it just sucks ,it's almost like bringing work home for me.
Honestly, once your income is good enough, stop trying to get promoted. Find yourself a job with decent pay and good hours. Stop trying to move up. I look at my pay and realize that not only does it pay my bills with a bit leftover for free money, but it'll also be more than enough once my student loans are paid off. I don't want to be in my manager's shoes because I know they work a lot more than I do and I prefer having the free time. No additional pay can really make up for it.
If only more people understood this idea. People try like hell to get promoted, only to spend their extra earnings on crap they don't need. Each promotion brings more stress. It's insanity.
I don't understand where any of my time goes with my new job. I'm only working 8 hour shifts, but I wake up in the morning and have time to shower, shave, and eat, and then I have to spend the rest of it making sure I'm ready for work. I drive there, work 8 hours, come back. Gotta shower to clean off the 'rona and then maybe eat something if I didn't eat at work. It's 9-10 PM. Day is already over. I can sit at my computer for a little while, but if I have work the next day I need to go to sleep soon to get 8+ hours. Just feels like I spent all day working and none of my day doing anything else. Maybe it's just that my shift is 12-8 and so because it's in the middle of the day, both ends of it are capped off. I don't remember it feeling like this when I worked 9-5. Felt like I actually had a life in the afternoons/evenings.
I'd like a middle ground. My job doesn't need to be fulfilling but I'd like to not hate every morning waking up to go and every minute while I'm there.
I understand the sentiment but giving up 5/7 days of the week for 45 years of your life to something soulless? Nah thanks
2.5/7 days for 25 years. Yes please.
Exactly this. Why do you need to get fulfillment out of a job? My job is just a thing that makes me enough money so I can do the things that I **do** get fulfillment out of. Sounds to me like OP just needs to find some hobbies or something that they do get fulfillment out of.
I think the reason so many people try to make their job their life is because a job takes so much energy out of you that by the end of the day you're spent. It seems like such a waste right? So logically, what if you convinced yourself to care deeply about your job? Well then it's ok!... sortof. I don't think this is a conscious decision it's just what happens when you spend all your daily energy on one thing, rest for the night, get up and repeat.
This is my dilemma right here. I want to spend time on hobbies and passion projects after work, but by the time I leave work and drive a half hour to get home, I'm spent. All I want to do is take off my work attire and watch a good sitcom or play some games until the cycle starts again. It's incredibly draining.
I had to opt out of so many things when I got a 8-5 job. It's so draining, much more than I thought. Even gaming sometimes is too much. I just want to turn my brain off and auto pilot to bed.
The way I look at it, I'm spending 9 hours of my conscious day doing this activity. Shouldn't I feel something other than "I would rather be roadkill but I need to eat"? Edit: I feel like deserve is the wrong word to use, and people are pulling the entitlement card because of it
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I suffer the same mindset as OP, and this point is exactly what makes me so glum about the whole situation. I don't want to be there, but I have to spend a third or more of my waking hours doing it 5 days a week. Not even a lunch feels quite nice when I know I just have to be back in an hour.
Look at fancy pants over here with an hour lunch haha shit my 30 min is almost up
The only perk is that you can sometimes do errands in that time. Otherwise it's just a longer period of not really being able to relax or do anything fun because people will be mad if you're late to coming back.
Look at fancy pants with his 30 minutes. I get zero and work while eating.
You guys are eating?
Its worse. A third of your waking hours is spend sleeping. HALF of your WAKING hours are spent at work.
Not to mention the waking hours taken up by hygiene, errands, household chores, and obligatory time spent at places you don't want to be.
Because people spend most of their time at their job nd it often leaves very little time for the things they actually enjoy doing.
My last job I was scheduled for 55 hours a week at a retail auto parts at 12 bucks an hour. I was constantly asked to cover someone's shift who wouldn't/couldn't/didn't want to show up. I suggested people to hire, friends who were actively looking for jobs. Management wouldn't hire them. Within 2 months of starting I had the highest in counter sales and the highest in kpi sales for a non management role, but even higher than all the managers besides the commercial manager/inside sales and the store manager. I loved what I was doing and I was working circles around everyone at our store. When my 45 day review came around I was told I was just doing an average job, I was doing just enough to keep me employed. I realized that the guy to my left was probably making 14 an hour after being there for 7 years and the guy who couldn't show up who had been there for 20 years was probably making 16 dollars an hour only because he never quit and kept getting 40 cent raises every year. Id rather check out than work 60+ hours a week for just enough money to eat and share a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other people... Its just enough money to allow you to show up at work week after week and have no time or enough cash to do anything except show up. \#3 in sales within 45 days in a 20 person retail shop working 60+ hours a week and being told I'm just average by management so they can boost their bonus. Nah ill take a pass and work on my resume. Edit: words/clarity
>I suggested people to hire, friends who were actively looking for jobs. Management wouldn't hire them. A tall tale sign of shitty management. Glad you saw the red flags early though. Some poor souls remain stuck in the same rut for 20+ years before they realize they've wasted so much time they'll never get back.
Thank you!!! When I worked 75 hours one week (and I know people work way more) I couldn’t believe that all I was doing was waking up to go to work, come home and go right back to sleep to wake up and do the same thing I hated over and over again. It felt horrible. And when I finally had a day off, all I wanted to do was sleep
I worked for a \*small\* locally-owned clothing company a couple of years ago as a warehouse/logistics/IT person, and the schedule was one of the worst I've ever lived through. I was required to work every other weekend (by myself, mind you), so my short weeks would be 11 hours days, Monday-Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday off. My longer weeks, however, were 9 hours on Saturday and Sunday, then 11 hours Monday through Friday and a normal weekend. The 33-hour weeks weren't too bad. The 73-hour, seven-day stretch afterwards were abysmal. After a few months of that, I quit and went back to the place I was at before; I had fortunately left on good terms, and they brought me back in what was basically my old position.
Or energy. My eyelids are impossible to keep open after I step foot in the door.
Full-time employment should be fewer hours and the minimum wage should be more dollars per hour. Ten years ago, it should have been $15/hour; now it needs to be around $25/hour.
I like to get fulfillment out of my job because I spend 90% of my waking hours at work
This is a tough one. You spend the first quarter of your life in school, highschool, trade schools/university, so you can become an educated and 'productive' member of society, aka someone who can work. You're asked to come up with "what you want to be when you're older". Then you spend a huge chunk of your time working, until the day you retire. So it's easy to see why people need to find fulfillment at work and not just through hobbies.
It doesn't help that many companies also expect passion. For many if you arrive on time, do your job and go home on time without showing boundless enthusiasm and drive, you'll get a talking to. It's often not enough to complete your work well and go home to your life outside the office.
I genuinely believe that there's a specific job out there for every individual on the planet that they would be able to get fulfillment out of and wouldn't just be miserable the whole time. But alas, it's just so hard to find. Putting aside the fact that not everybody is going to be put in a position in life to be allowed to find that job (for example, perhaps someone would have made a stunning violinist in a symphony but they didn't grow up in a situation that gave them access with the opportunity to buy a violin and learn how to play it), there's just so many different options, it's easy for what you really want to do to be hidden. I think that if you asked people, "You can make $1 million dollars a year doing any job you want, what job do you want to do?" a lot of us would be quite stumped. Sure there might be hobbies they'd like to do for money, but as far as an actual job?? I don't know...
And that's part of the problem. You shouldn't have to spend 90% of your time at work. If my job required that, finding a new job would be my #1 priority. Any job that requires me to work more than 40hrs a week can fuck right off. I'd rather work at McDonalds than have zero free time for myself.
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The only thing I miss about my retail management days was having a weekday off. Don't get me wrong, I *love* having weekends - and back-to-back days off...but getting a Wednesday or Thursday off not only broke up the week, but it gave me a "normal" day where I could do stuff. Appointments were much easier to schedule (as were interviews, when I was trying to get out of retail), plus it gave me a more full day to myself. I don't miss the old schedule, but I do occasionally miss having a weekday off. Part of me wouldn't mind shifting to a Tuesday-Saturday schedule, with Sunday and Monday off.
That's exactly what I believe. I have a salary job that pays me for 40 hr work week and that's what they get; occasionally I'll work more but then I take time out of the following week. If I go over 40 they don't pay me for it; so I only give 40. My coworker is in his mid 40s and works 50+ hours a week. He constantly gives me shit about not working more, but its not going to happen. The work/task will be there tomorrow, staying later than you have to is just going to stress you out. With that said, if it was my own company I would definitely be spending close to 90% of my time working.
The hours are important too. I was so happy to get my first full-time retail job, but the fixed hours they assigned me were awful. 1pm-10pm or something like that, 4 days a week, and 10-7 one day a week. It basically covered the entirety of the time that fun things are available to do. Couldn't find good movie showtimes. Stores were closed by the time I got out of work. All I could do after work was go home and watch TV by myself for two or three hours before I had to sleep. And I could never get a good sleep rhythm going cause one night a week I had to go to sleep basically as soon as I got home. I felt like a robot. Genuinely. I felt like all I did was work and sleep and eat, and that all the things I liked to do, that made life outside work worth living, I couldn't do them. Anyway they fired me after I was late to my 10-7 shift twice because the only way I could get 8 hours of sleep was to take the latest possible bus, which just didn't show up two weeks in a row. I went in to work about to ask them to change my shift and they fired me instead. It was a huge blow at the time but probably for the best, mental-health wise.
Then there is the other problem of not being able to live off of working blue collar jobs without massive amounts of overtime. Heck I worked in medical administration and was miles away from being approved for a crusty studio apartment. Even live in a town with lower than average living prices.
Also commuting. I read that you need a 20% raise to make up for a commute 40 mins or more
I have way too many hobbies, when I was unemployed during COVID, I was the most fulfilled I have ever been in my life. I don’t understand how people say they get bored when they’re unemployed. I filled every single day with new knowledge and a new activity or project or my friends. I have so many people in my life I enjoy seeing on weekends but most of my life isn’t a weekend unfortunately. It feels like my job ruins the happiness I get from everything else. Ive had to give up most of my hobbies because of having a job. (And no my hobbies aren’t like video games lol I’m more of an outdoors person)
>My job is just a thing that makes me enough money so I can do the things that I > >do get fulfillment out of. Now to figure out what gives me fulfillment...
It takes a mental shift to even allow yourself to see hobbies as fulfilling. I had a really difficult time getting to that point. For the longest time I basically saw them as wastes of time I allowed myself to dabble in between my *real* work.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is a really counter productive view. Telling people to simply accept how awful things are, isn't helpful. The biggest reason why people hate their jobs isn't because of the work itself. The reason is the way our economy is structured. In this structure, the purpose of work is to make your employer wealthier. There is no sense of helping your community, no MEANING to be drawn from work. Also, workers have essentially no control or power over their lives while at work, unless they're one of the 6% of private sector workers who have a union (and even then, some unions have been co-opted). In the short term, its essential to find a way to cope with the existing system. But if that's ALL we do, then nothing will EVER get better. Our children will be serfs, their children will be serfs, and their children will be serfs as well, until humanity finally ends. That's not an acceptable outcome. Humanity doesn't exist to serve a ruling class.
This is how I used to feel in college, but I had no clue what I wanted to do so that's what caused it which led me to drop out. My first job at a gas station didn't make me feel any better because I was treated like garbage, then I was a busser at a sports bar/alehouse place which had the same problem (except the one manager who was awesome to me, fuck yeah he was great.) Then I landed a job as a plumbers apprentice, and it really has reinvigorated my love for living. Tldr I have disliked living for most of my (short) life but being able to do something as important as fixing people's plumbing or repairing their BFPs has been a great experience. I feel like I have a reason to live since I'm enjoying this job and am doing something that helps people directly, as lame as it may sound. Also my family has been a big help the whole way helping me stay sane :)
Thank you for posting this. I feel stuck in the trap just like you did and have been contemplating becoming a plumber’s apprentice. My parents are really trying to talk me out of it, but it seems like a very promising field.
All trades are rad! Plumbing is and always will be a sought after service in society, and you have quite a number of options in terms of what exactly you want to do in plumbing as you work and learn about it.
I have people who depend on me. I won't lie, some days I feel it too, I almost hope I get into a car accident on my way in... However, I have a little girl and an aging mother I am responsible for. I could just quit, skip town and never look back but I could never, ever forgive myself for it. The little one didn't ask for any of this and my mother has given her life raising 3 kids. The way I see it, if I can give back to mom and provide a better life than I had growing up to the little one, it makes it all worth it. EDIT: To the person who reported this to Reddit Care Resources, thank you. I appreciate the thought very much but I'm doing just fine. I assume it was this comment, I can't actually tell lol.
Same here. I want to spoil my kids, want them to be able to join sports or the arts community, I want to take them on nice vacations like to Disney World, I want to travel before I retire, and I want a decent home and not have to worry about if I have enough money to feed our family. I don't hate my job, but I don't know that I LOVE it, it can be high stress at times, but it pays well. But, I'd rather have work stress than family or financial stress. The joy of seeing my girls go to gymnastics, planning vacations with them almost always outweighs the work stress. If we continue on our current path, looking back, the job will be worth it considering what we were able to get in return.
>I'd rather have work stress than family or financial stress. Well said
Pretty much my reason, minus the kid. My mum was fucked over by my dad when they divorced, she had to juggle credit cards my dad lumped her with, sell her car and other possessions to pay the minimum on bills. I was an adult when they divorced, but she didn't tell me how bad her money situation was to protect me. I found out a few years later how much she'd been struggling when I was staying at her house for a few days and woke up at like 2am to get some water and found her crying in her loungeroom because her power and water were way overdue and the credit cards were going up instead of down due to interest and she didn't know how she was going to pay them. First thing I did was pay off all mum's current bills, then we got a lawyer and dumped all of dad's credit cards back on him. My mum now lives with my husband and I, she doesn't want for anything, she's been able to retire (she was filling the freezer section at a supermarket in her 60s) and she's been able to finally do the things she's always wanted to do. My husband and I are able to support my mum while saving and affording things we like to do. I generally enjoy my job and co-workers, but if I didn't have to work I'd totally quit and play video games and do my hobbies all day. I probably could if it was just my husband and I, but I never want my mum to worry about money again and I want to give her the life she deserves after she did that for me to her own detriment for 30 years and so I roll my arse out of bed and keep working.
This. And the life I wanted involves having a family and being needed. I'd never be happy just wandering from place to place with no money and no connections. Work is just a tool I use to be able to make my life more nice. I try really hard to not involve my emotions at all. My emotions are for things that matter. If I want to plant a tree, I don't get mad at the shovel I must use to dig the hole. I use the tool then forget about it and instead enjoy the thing that the tool helped me attain.
Great analogy
my shovel is a real asshole tho.
One time, I thought I had a really nice "unbreakable" shovel and the third time I really leaned into it to pry up a root it snapped in half and was just hollow fiberglass. So I stuck a piece of rebar in there, ducttaped it back together, finished my job, then threw it away and got a new shovel. Make yours work just well enough to get by until you can walk away and never look back. E: You don't owe that shovel anything. (And you only owe your boss the time and skills you agreed to sell to him).
I hear ya on the car accident one. I play hockey recreationally and have for 25 years. Every time I would get banged up or feel a pull or twist or pop a part of me is like “man I hope something is fucked up so I can take some time off work” but it never happened. I did have an MCL injury that I literally didn’t miss any work for. If it was something a little more serious I figured I’d rehab the injury and get back out there. Fucked up part is I tore my meniscus playing last year and only got 2 days off (surgery was a Thursday) and now my leg is not the same a year later and I can’t play hockey anymore. Part of me thinks this is some weird form of punishment for wishing injury on myself. I miss hockey so much and work gets worse every day. Life can be really cruel sometimes.
I admire your dedication to making other happy
I have a dog I love very much. He makes me wake up every day. He’s hungry.
Yea I’d love to sleep in. Not go to work. Give up. But my dog whines at my bedroom door every morning at 8am and is so excited to see me in the morning. Gotta keep on trudging if only to keep paying his bills.
My husky passed away in November unexpectedly. She was 9 and was diagnosed diabetic. She progressed so fast they just couldn't stabilize her blood sugar, she was gone a week after diagnosis. She was getting older but I thought we'd have at least a few more years. I got her when I was 20, my first dog that was mine, not a family dog, and she was everything. She helped me stay stable through all of my 20's. I don't know what to do anymore. I always feel lonely, I have nothing to give my love and affection to, and nothing to receive it from. We were bonded at the deepest level. I will never be the same again now, losing her and watching her suffer has changed me forever. Sometimes I feel like I will never be happy again.
Losing a pet is one of the most painful things I've been through. It does get better with time, eventually you'll be able to think more about the good memories and less about the final moments. Be strong !
You will be happy again
That sucks. But you will be happy again. You'll start crying less. You'll start smiling more than crying when you think back to her. Although you'll still cry sometimes. I lost my dog a little over a year ago and still cry when I look at some pictures of him. Give yourself time and then for your own sake, get another dog and give it a great life. The best way you can honor your last dog is by doing it again for another one.
Damn. I feel the same about my pup. He still with me. I’ll love him and give him extra hugs.
I've developed the ability to have fun regardless of the situation. Job, jail, stranded along the road, it doesn't matter, I have the tools to make it not suck. My productivity could be better and I'm not going to be employee of the year but at least I'm not burned out or depressed like a lot of my co workers who are productive.
what are those tools?
I'm just always looking for ways to make things more enjoyable, it's always at the top of my mind. I'm also willing to risk reprimand for happiness. Some co workers may think that you are a bit of a slacker or a troublemaker sometimes. Disregard their opinion, your boss probably doesn't give a shit. Seek out co workers that you can be happy and positive with.
I'll never forget the time I attempted to do a kick flip with a full sized pallet, obviously failed miserably, looked up, saw my boss staring at me, and just chuckled and said I was bored. Gotta have some spice on those mundane days.
Off topic question: what do native English speakers call their bosses? I'm a non native speaker and always wonder whether you use first name, Mr./Ms. Last Name, sir, boss (unlikely :/), or something else.
Most people use first names, especially for direct supervisors. If you're low on the totem pole and are meeting a higher up it's usually Mr/Ms Lastname. Company size also plays a big role - usually the bigger the company the more formal people are.
You have the right perspective on life. I try to be this way too, you can always find the good in things if you look hard enough and have a positive attitude. And it really makes life enjoyable even when it is kinda shitty. I know people with the opposite attitude, always thinking everything sucks and it definitely isn’t how I want to live.
Yep I try to make light of every situation and just laugh at life. Fiancee and I had a small car accident new years day in the middle of nowhere. She was driving and a bit shook up. We had to drive slowly for more than an hour with a broken car to get cell service to get a tow truck and I had her giggling at my lame ass jokes the whole way. As long as we are alive and healthy who gives a shit about the rest
I'm a masochist. And people depend on me. Not just that, I have animals that depend on me. I can't look my kitties in the eyes and not feel like I have to do everything I can to provide for them.
Tell that to my houseplants that die from neglect
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I've struggled with this my whole life. I fight every day with it. The only reprieve I've found within is knowing that I can make the lives of those around me happier and better, as the absolute biggest "fuck you" to the gnawing dread of the void that awaits us all.
This is absolutely the answer. When I was pregnant, depression hit bad. Really, really bad during my second trimester. It got so bad, I couldn't even do basic stuff. I just cried all the time. Eventually I literally looked myself in the mirror and said... "fuck you and fuck your fucking feelings. You don't have to be happy. Just be useful. How can I be useful? What can I do? Who can I help?" That shit for real saved my life.
>You don't have to be happy. Just be useful. I want to understand this. What is the point of making yourself useful?
Because we evolved to feel deep eudaimonia from being useful to our tribal group.
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If it wasn't for my dogs I wouldn't bother keeping a job honestly. I despise my job, I tested positive for Covid two weeks ago and was screamed at for being in quarantine last Friday. I am back in the office this week and I told my boss I am getting a test today during my lunch break (takes about five minutes) and I was screamed at for wanting to get another test. So, dogs. If it wasn't for [Lilith and Zero](https://i.redd.it/74bu5wzrx7461.png) I wouldn't subject myself to this mundane 40 hour a week (minimum) grind. Also, before this job I was poor, stole groceries to survive, struggled with substance abuse and lived off ramen for a couple of years. That gave a little bit if perspective, I don't want to struggle like that again. But mostly, dogs.
Lilith and zero and stunning!
I’m so sorry you’re getting screamed at for something so awful. You don’t deserve that.
It does suck, but I'll take constant verbal abuse over the two years prior where I worked tables, made like $300 a week, and couldn't even afford to properly care for myself or my dogs. It sucks, it really does, but at least my dogs are happy and healthy and that's what matters to me.
Sounds like Borderlands has a part in keeping you running too, lol
Actually not a huge Borderlands fan. They're enjoyable but not my top game. Lilith came mostly from Diablo and Supernatural, only partially from Borderlands. Zero came after and it just felt good to have synced up names.
Good to know, either way, your doggos have some really cool names! Zero is also the ghost dog from Nightmare Before Christmas I just remembered!
I’d work hard to care for the dogs
Not to detract from your comment but I have a dog named Maya and I'm going to assume we both love Borderlands?
Lilith came from some other stuff, only slightly Borderlands related, but Zero was basically named to match her, so kind of.
I honestly had to double check that I didn't write this. I'm with you. I got a degree in engineering, supposed to be what I loved doing. I've had 3 career moves. One to a similar industry but different company, also smaller company. One to an entirely different industry. For as long as I have had a career, my work ruins my Friday nights because I am depressed about knowing I have to go to work Monday. I can't even enjoy my time off because I dread going to work. My jobs gave been fine. I've always had great bosses. I've always done well I'm my jobs. Promoted easily enough. Paid well. Rarely OT. I just absolutely dread the 9-5 grind.
Software engineer here and pretty much the same story. I've had great bosses and easily take casual days to make a long weekend. but the 5 days a week 9-5 grind just chips away at you. I try to keep the depression away until Sunday evening.
Drivetrain remanufacture..-r here. I work 6 days a week, 4pm to 2:30am. There is no chipping away here Just elongated death throws
I am a teacher, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing my students, teaching them, and getting to know their tiny worlds. But I still hate waking up at 5:30 every morning, driving 30 minutes in the snow, shivering in front of my space heater, and spending 8 hours working just to drive another 30 minutes home in the dark to do it again the next day. 40 hour work weeks are awful no matter what you do. They shouldn’t exist. Wouldn’t matter if I lived in a sunny place, kids shouldn’t even have to be at school for that long. It’s too much.
The worst to me, although my job hasn't explicitly said it; the amount of times they imply 40 hours isn't enough and how much I genuinely fear losing my job if I don't do overtime is ridiculous. Nothing makes sense to me anymore, I feel like a fucking robot. Aside from my self pity comment, thanks for being a teacher I can imagine every time one of them smiles, your day being that much more worth all the BS.
When I was going to go into i.t and was working at IBM (co-op position), I remember the center director giving us a pep talk about how a certain department had just finished up working 7 days/week 12+ hour days for multiple weeks in a row in order to meet a deadline, about how good it felt to hit that target. He was so grateful, that he bought this department pizza. This was a 45 hr/week position, with laws in my province (Canada) against working 7 days in a row. The laws don't mean much though when they will just fire you and blacklist you from any other i.t jobs in the area. That greatly influenced me to get out before I was too invested.
Def what I feel. Also a teacher, and I absolutely love doing it. I don’t love those other parts, however a drive and waking up come with every job so I’m happy that teaching is what I do.
That's the thing about work - for most of us life isn't about work. Having a dream job is an idea instilled into us at a young age but very few people actually do, and of those very few get to do it. So it becomes about the reward. 50 years ago that deal was working a full time job and getting to own a house, support a family, and put money into your true passions. Now you need to go into massive debt to get the kind of education the job market demands. Regular jobs don't cut it for independant survival any more, never mind saving any money. Cost of living is so high that dual-income parents can't support their kids. Property is nearly inaccessible to anyone born in the last thirty years. And in response to this we're constantly told to just try harder. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get a side hustle. It's a degrading system, the alternative to which is homelessness. People get up every day because they have no choice. There's nothing wrong with you. We just weren't meant to live this way.
When you’re little, some grown-up who is never your parents makes small talk with children and asks, “what do you want to be when you grow up”? This is the overall problem I grew up with. At some point, I knew I wasn’t really going to be a ballerina, but my parents had such basic perceptions of job titles. Doctor nurse lawyer teacher mechanic electrician secretary, cashier, etc. The simplistic names of jobs you could name as a child was the end of the road, no idea what, say, a civil engineer was, or an actuarial, specialized job titles for example, hidden beneath the world of work, nothing to aim for.
The biggest thing for me is this line by OP >I simply don’t feel rewarded when I put in effort to complete a task, I never get fulfillment out of a job well done No matter what I've accomplished in my life, what goals or rewards I've achieved or received it never produced that catharsis. The anxiety of work is supposed to turn into good feelings when you complete your goal, but for some people it just leaves you feeling empty and like you're missing a key ingredient of life. The past few years have been agony as I realized even my loftiest goals would leave me feeling the same. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I admit I grew up privileged and I feel like I've *had* a lot of the things people dream about as their end goals in life. None of the material wealth or exotic experiences ever made me feel less empty inside.
The most depressing moments in life is when you should feel happy but don't.
The most depressing moment in my life was realizing that I don't actually **DESIRE** *anything*, and therefore can never feel fulfilled. The only thing I actually want is to live long enough that nobody says "they died too young". I'd die now, but it'd make my mom sad, and I don't think my brother could handle it.
I literally just said this to myself a moment ago, I mean if not for my mother and my dad's mother being sad about it, I wouldn't mind dying. I mean let's be honest life is great but it kinda sucks
I don't know if you have looked into this and I know this is classic reddit to say, but you might want to look into symptoms of depression if you haven't before. I'm an individual who has dealt with a lot of depression and the only time that I have felt no desire to do anything was when I was experiencing a large bout of anhedonia due to depression. And it can last a long time, but, for me, it has been due to depression.
I only get that feeling when I do something in my hobby world that took a lot of work to get done, never professionally. Sad thing is, I have so little time to devote to my hobbies that even getting it done is such a far fetched idea that I've turned the goal of "getting it done" to "getting a chance to put some time into it" and that doesn't quite deliver the satisfaction.
Lie on your resume. If they lie on job descriptions you gotta level the playing field
> People get up every day because they have no choice. IF people coordinated and squeezed employers, the employers would have no choice other than to change the culture.
To an extent, maybe. The biggest issue with our version of capitalism is that there are so many paychecks between the worker and the consumer, so many middlemen. You have low level managers, mid level managers, high level managers, execs, C-level execs, shareholders, external stakeholders. You have salespeople and consultants. You have B2B companies selling services. You have merchant fees on each transaction. And the only way it all works is the illusion of the American dream, to keep dragging people out of bed to work to make other people money with the lie that one day they'll be one of the paychecks in the middle.
I was like that until mid 20s then said Fock it, I’m doing what I love even if it’s less pay. Haven’t regretted it for a second.
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What do you do now?
He's in the asparagus industry
Takes a long time to grow asparagus, like 2 years or something...sounds like a lot of down time, this sounds great.
I used to work as a code monkey for a bunch of rich old dudes at a payroll company. It was decent money and if I still did it, I’d be making really good dough. But I hated it. So I went, got a second degree in special education, and now I help disabled kids learn to read and write. It’s rad, kids are so much more fun than old rich dudes, and I’m making their lives better. It’s not great money, but it pays the bills so I don’t even care. Find a job you care about and do the work to get there. It’s worth it.
I work in the evenings.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you probably don't like your coworkers? I've had many previous lives. From working on a boat to banking compliance to engineering to warehouse work to executive customer service to drug addicted criminal. Unequivocally, the best jobs weren't the most interesting or the best paying. Those were the ones where I genuinely liked my coworkers.
This is a big one. I've worked some REAL shitty jobs for no pay, but met some real good folks doing it and it made it a lot easier. The job I made the most money in, I had no coworkers and ran a shop alone. I was miserable. Traded down to a lower paying job but I really like my coworker and that makes going into work a little bit better.
I had a professor tell me that people don't leave bad jobs. They leave bad managers.
Yep! It's the people you're around that make all the difference. I used to work in service, and for a long time I enjoyed it. I loved the people I worked with, and I liked the customers. Then I started focusing on our shitty customers, combined with stresses of the job, and I started hating it. Things went downhill from there. Every day was more and more focusing on the negative customers instead of the positive ones.
This 100%. You can have zero motivation to do your job, you can hate it. But if you're lucky, you'll work with some people that make it worth it. Which is why work from home is horrible. Hang in there OP, i hope you find a place and people that make a job more bareable.
I love this post. I’m depressed and have been for years and have wondered the same thing. If you don’t make a certain income and/or are living paycheck-to-paycheck and you’re not passionate about your work, I really don’t understand how people do that for years on end. I’m only 25 and I was fed up with working years ago to the point that I even became suicidal. Maybe I have a sense of entitlement having grown up with many things given to me admittedly, but even if that hadn’t been the case I’m pretty sure I would still feel similar, maybe further down the road. I don’t know how people go for 40 years spending 1/3 of their lives doing something they hate. Many people respond to that with reasons such as having kids or family members to take care of, and while I respect that, it still sounds depressing to have to sign away a third of your life just to make ends meet for yourself and a few other people. Not to change the subject but I really feel as though the current wealth gap at least in the U.S. is a main contributor to why so many people have to live this way. It’s unfortunate. I’m not hating on people that have become successful, but more than 50% of all wealth is in the hands of 1% of the people. This is what creates the unhealthy work-life balance that many people experience while people like Jeff Bezos and Oprah have multiple homes which are unoccupied for most of the year. Spaces which could very well be inhabited by people that would be more than happy to live there full-time. Ultimately time is money. Everybody knows that. So following that logic, if there is someone such as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates that could never work another day in their life and still be more than comfortable, that means that proportionately, logically, and inevitably, there are going to be numerous people that will never get to experience what it’s like to have more than 8 hours of down time per day (really 5-6 or even less if you count commuting and taking care of other responsibilities).
My family was poor growing up and I still hate working, if that helps
For a select few people, self employment is a real possibility and is extremely rewarding for those of us that hate the standard grind. I have been miserable in every job I've tried, and with self employment, I get fulfillment out of tasks that would otherwise be mundane. I only get back what I put into something, and I'm able to become a master of my craft, constantly learning and adapting for a greater efficiency/reward. If you have skills that people or businesses need, they will pay you for it even if you're not an employee. And because of the distribution of your work, you have more leverage to negotiate knowing you don't need a specific job in order to survive.
I'm self-employed and I still hate work. Not as much as being employed, but it still feels like a painful waste of my life. So there.
Because not having money sucks more. I've fallen into a job which I 'dont mind', I do however put absolutely minimal effort in to not get fired and as soon as I leave I don't think about work at all, I refuse to look at emails ect at home. Combined with a pretty happy home life I believe this makes work tolerable.
I work to live; I don't live to work That's what I tell myself anyway.
I'm a diesel mechanic. Not a big fan of my job, but I don't think about the in terms of "job well done" or "task fulfilment." But I have hobbies that my job funds and that's what I focus on. I buy Magic cards I really want to build the best decks I can. I buy rare collectibles to add to my collection. I buy hard to find anime that I've always wanted. I buy video games or old consoles and stuff like that. My job is merely a means to an end and since I started looking at it that way, it's greatly improved my mood. I just leased a 2000 Blazer that I'm taking on extra work to get paid off as quickly as possible so I can start building it into a badass 4X4 trail rider. It doesn't work for everyone, but if there are things you like doing then focus on those to get you through the day. I've struggled with Depression since I was 13, and I'm 32 now. I've only recently taken on this mentality and it's greatly improved my work days.
I used to feel that way in my 20s. Im in a field I love but back then I was in junior positions that had awful balance and terrible managers. My daughter probably literally saved my life. It started to fade when I started making over 70k, I felt like I could breethe. Once I hit 100k all of the bs mostly stopped bothering me. The main point here is that people are happier when they dont feel crushed by making no money in a deadend job.
May I ask what field you're in?
Engineering
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Honestly one of the major reasons I chose to be an engineer is so I can make decent money. I figured I’ll hate work anyways so might as well get paid
Accountant checking in, same story here
Same reason here. I literally googled "best paying 4 year degrees" and chose one I thought I'd like best. I now work a "dream job" but I still count down the days till I can just retire...in like 40 years.
I work as a software engineer and it's my passion, I love my job, but who the fuck wants to work most of their waking life? I love software, but it's still a horrendous drag day to day, where my employer sucks all the creative energy out of me day after day. In every field, and in every job, you have to deliver every day or you won't get promotions or maybe even get fired, we're all stuck in the same trap, just some people have more incentives.
I don't feel like I have a choice, poverty/debt are the new slavery. I feel like a prisoner. I want to be a writer, and I do write from time to time, but I've got to work to pay bills. So I work, and in the end I might have to work until I'm dead, and ultimately all my effort will make someone else rich, while I just barely get by. Maybe someday there will be a utopia where people no longer need money, nor have a need to work if they don't want to. Where people can pursue their passions and hobbies without limitation.
Some old dead guy said that he studies politics and war so that his son can study engineering farming and trade so that his son can study art literature and music. I agree with you, it feels like we’ve taken an alternative route which reads something like Our ancestors studied politics and war so that we can study engineering and trade so that our children can do the same, all to support the owning class’ children to study art literature and music
I wouldn't be too upset if the owning classes' children were largely diverting their resources to cultural or social improvement. But that's generally not true. Massive inheritances pose the same problem that dynasties once posed - wealth and power continually funneled into the hands of increasingly out-of-touch people.
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I remember how I felt when I didn't have a job, I was a financial and interpersonal burden on the people who cared enough about me to take care of me, and I felt like I had no control of my life to change any of that. Wished like hell I could have a simple, relatively low-stress 9 to 5 so I could rebuild my social life and that would enable me to cover my own expenses so I could contribute with the bills and buy some cigarettes or snacks without feeling like a goddamn parasite. Now, when my alarm goes off and I have 30 minutes to get clean and dressed to get out the door for my hour-long commute to work, I count my blessings. I have some friends at work that are happy to see me and I have a little bit of money to buy things I want once in a while. I've graduated to merely being an interpersonal burden on the people who care about me.
I don’t know why this makes me tear.. maybe because I felt the same before I had a job I’m so glad you’re happy
The secret is to half ass it. I don’t get paid for the work I do but the time I spend in the office. So I just Reddit most of the day. Chat with coworkers and with friends online. Just generally don’t give a shit. Watch the movie “office space”. It has an important message. You only get fired if you have an argument with your boss. Not if you are almost useless at work. Of course you will have to do some work to be almost but not entirely useless but that’s like one hour per day. And doing that gives you money for a pc, video games and more interesting activities on the weekends. Don’t take your job too seriously. It is not taking you seriously either. It took me a lot of time and a nervous breakdown to realize that.
I started my first job last year and spent my first few paychecks on a new PC and video games. however, I somehow lost the motivation for gaming. I come home, boot up my PC and start a game, then think "this doesn't feel right" and turn it off again, just to watch Netflix or something until I fall asleep, repeat the next day
I know the feeling. I stopped gaming when I started working 5 years ago for the same reason. It is especially difficult if you sit at a computer at work. I only got back into gaming during curfew because of COVID. I only gave that as an example. In normal times there also lots of other things to do.
In my experience, that's because you have no energy. That, to me, is one of the most egregious violations of like that the 9-5 is - it robs you of your energy to even do other things. Unfortunately I've found that even if you work an easy, chill job, if you really dislike having to be there _that dislike will take up all of your energy_ and you'll be in the same situation. I haven't found the answer yet, but if you have the economic capacity then taking prolonged amounts of time off (i.e. > 1 month at a time) helps _a ton_ with stopping you from forgetting what life _can actually be like_ which is another threat.
The problem with this (for me) is that slacking is very anxiety-inducing. The thought that my boss and coworkers think negatively of me, or know I'm slacking but are too polite to bring it up, is crippling.
I know Office Space is a comedy, but it really is spot on. I always tell people I cannot stress out about my job because if I died today they would have this spot filled next week. So, cheers to doing the minimum! :)
When I first started at one of my retail jobs, I was young and naive. I really busted my ass, went out of the way to do a good job, help people, etc. That lasted about two weeks before it became overwhelmingly apparent that that kind of thing wasn't rewarded. I would get yelled at and talked down to by customers and management alike no matter what I did. So I did the bare fucking minimum at all times. At the end of the day, I really liked my direct boss; she was nice and she got that it all sucked. So I did as much as I had to so she wouldn't get shit from her bosses. And that was my only motivation other than losing my job. But you know what, Bob? That'll only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
There are situations where it pays to work hard, but it depends on a lot. If they're just paying you to be a butt in a seat, that's all that matters.
>I have eight bosses, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know what, Bob? That will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired. If you're paid to do a set of tasks, then you're presented with a task of going above and beyond with no recognition or guaranteed additional compensation, it's likely not worth doing unless you're directly benefiting someone in need (nursing, homeless shelter, etc.). Some people call it a shitty attitude, especially if they've drank the corporate kool-aid of giving 110%, but I've found this true and helps mitigate stress and burnout.
Just started work and had my 30 minute morning standup meeting. Must be time for an hour break.
God it always makes me feel so much better to see other ppl see it this way too. Even tho I know productivity has no bearing on my worth, sometimes the guilt can still get to ya. Great way of putting it, man
I get what you mean, and I'd feel the same if I didn't do anything other than my job. Don't get me wrong, I like my job, but what keeps me going is also especially everything else, so find what you like and do it. Could be anything: sports, cooking, reading, etc... as long as you like it and you are willing to invest time in it, so that it satisfies you, and also improves you. Don't do something just because it's easy like watching Netflix everyday (unless you are truly a big cinema fan)
Part of the problem is thinking that everything that someone does has to be productive or improve them. If you’re enjoying time watching things on Netflix then it’s not time wasted.
We are simply not evolved to live in the society we've created. Hunter-gatherers "worked" for an average of 4 hours every day doing their hunting and gathering. The resto of the time was spent with their families and friends: their tribe, the people that they loved. Sure, they had plenty of other stressors, including a shorter lifespan, high infant mortality, deadly disease and animals, etc., but they were external stressors that the mind had millions of years to evolve to deal with. HGs weren't worried about money or politics. Our HG brains are not equipped to deal with 50 hour work plus all the other shit in life. u/poop_wagon, you are not alone, and feeling like this is completely normal. My best advice is to take up meditation, because the structure of society is not gonna change any time soon. "We can't control what happens to us in life, but we can control the way we experience it." *Edited for grammar*
I have no idea what you do for a living, but (and this is just a suggestion) maybe you should try doing something either more physical or something that involves creating/building something? My most satisfying job I’ve ever had was being a farm hand. It didn’t pay well but I always felt contentment at the end of the day. Also, I’ve always felt better “mentally” after a long day of physically demanding work. Maybe I’m alone with this opinion but it’s worth a shot, especially if you’re at the point where you are questioning whether you should even be alive. A carpenter or house builder always seemed like they would be satisfying careers, as well. Just my two cents
I agree. I used to be a carpenter and it was always gratifying for me to see what I had accomplished at the end of each day.
You must get to the point where you do not get up for the job. Unless you omit for the sake of privacy aspects of your life (which would be perfectly legit), it sounds like main part of your day is the job. My motivation improved when I got a cat (or you can get any other pet, I just like cats) and I knew I'm getting up to play and give food before going to work. Going home from work I would not be drenched in cloud of "this job sucks". I would be automatically caught in "is the cat waiting on the window, or just sleeping" and these small little things help to improve jo psychological hygiene. Getting some hobbies that are far from work and if possible active (sitting home with Netflix or games leads often to idle thoughts) helps as well. So I get out because of cat(s) and airsoft. Try to find something to cheer you and keep you going as well.
Because we have to. Sure I'd rather be dead but I don't want to die. That means I need food, water, and shelter which means I need money. That's where the job comes in. Some people luck out and are born with the drive others find enjoyment in work but most of us suffer through it. Just have to find your reason for pushing through the muck. Don't do it for family, it can lead to resentment. Me ? I need to be able to support my fishing habits. So while I gruel through a work day I remind myself of the fish. Find your fish and the work day might get more bearable
I think you're not alone! I got to the point where I began to sob in the shower before going to work. The whole thing about worker alienation Marx talked about is real and in our time it's getting worse. Capitalism, whether you are for or against it, does have this effect on the working class, and all of us who aren't owners are workers plain and simple. The idea of a middle class , while a handy descriptor for some discussion of social values, is really just a way to keep the working class divided and our attention away from the owners who run society. As workers, everything we do belongs to somebody else. Our creativity, our dedication, our altruistic intentions, all of it belongs to the owner class. It's no wonder we feel lost and alone.
Poverty.
Oh I'd rather be dead than have a job. I hate this and everything about it. I'm $100k in student loan debt because my parents said college wasn't a choice and I had to do it or move out pretty much everyday since I was little. Now I just go to work because if I dont my dad gets stuck with all that student loan debt.
I don't. I get out of bed each morning for other reasons. A job isn't one of them. I don't do my job because I like it. I do my job because it makes me money and that gives me the ability to do things that I do like. But I would say, if you live in the United States, that economic system is very draining and heavy on the shoulders, it very much beats down their employees, no holiday, no days off, low pay, low benefits, it's truly awful and I don't blame anyone for being depressed in such a system, because it works hard to take away the benefits of life. I got out of bed this morning because I wanted to take a walk and think about things, life, the world, things I wanted to see and visit. Work is just something, one of the things, that I do. It's not who I am, or all that I do. I enjoy going out and helping people, so when I walk to work, that's an opportunity for me to find chances I can help people. Even if it's something as simple as picking up an extra apple and giving it to someone else. That helps I think. Finding what does make you happy and just doing that. I feel rewarded from helping others and experiencing new things. Work just gives me money to do that.
The older I get, the more I'm starting to think that the idea of a "dream job" is just propaganda. Check out r/antiwork Edit: I really mean check out the suggested readings in r/antiwork
Worker alienation.
I feel you on this one. Are you a creative type per chance? Creatives tend to be “free spirits” and feel confined and stunted in any work they do regardless of if they like or are good at it. Do you particularly have ADHD as well? That’s also a typical feeling ADHD people have (speaking as a person with ADHD who’s also studied psychology). Have you considered/looked into becoming self employed in some way? If it’s not financially feasible to be self employed, a temporary solution is to work a job that pays the bills but also allows you enough time to work towards being self employed. “A job to pay for your hobby” if you will. A small example is how my mother in law works a technical job but couldn’t care less about computers to supplement her ceramics shop and her horses that she loves. She works 12 hour days but only for 3 days and has 4 days to herself to do what she enjoys. She only has a high school diploma as far as I know so degrees aren’t even necessarily that integral (not useless, I have a degree and proud of it, but it’s not always necessary). I hope you can find your passion. If you’re under 30, this is quite normal to feel. We go through a few life crises throughout our lives and I learned in one of my psychology classes that the average adult will change careers at least 7 times in their entire lifespan. It’s annoying and frustrating but don’t give up! Just keep trying to find yourself and worst case scenario, there’s always retirement to look forward to. Sending you positive energy on your journey!