How much do you like your current job?

[phdmomma]

I've been pondering my own career choices recently, and while I know that there is no perfect job (at least for most folks), I wonder if I should make a change. DH has also been pondering this, which is why I wanted to ask. What percentage of time do you actually like your job and the things that you are working on? If you don't like it, what makes it worth keeping?

[sandandsea]

I really like what I do, I’m just extremely overwhelmed and have too much to do now. I’m hoping it settles down soon because it was really hard to come back this morning after a week off. I feel like I’m juggling 3 people’s workload and am slowly drowning.

Dh doesn’t like his current job. He was begrudgingly made a manager because he’s good at it, but doesn’t like it. He just wants to write code and figure things out, not spend all day in meetings. He also works insane hours (averages over 70/week for the past 2 years) and is completely over it.

ETA. I forgot a percentage. I like it 89% of the time. 10% is really annoying dealing with rude clients or fighting over billing. We aren’t working for free. Yes questions cost money. 1% of the time I wonder why I bother and feel like I should be a SAHM and am somehow cheating my kids etc with the mom guilt. I hate admitting that.

[madringal]

I truly love my job a solid 90% of the time. 8% of the time, I am mildly annoyed by it, and 2% of the time I want to leave and never come back.

The things that make me annoyed by it is the lack of professionalism by people in other departments, and that bleeds over into an over arching culture of laziness. The 2% of the time that makes me want to quit is when my boss (the CEO) agrees that it is an issue and just chooses to ignore it and see if it gets better on its own (spoiler: so far it hasn't).

[k3am]

I about 20% like my job. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just boring and repetitive. I've been reviewing and updating the same reports into the same software for 12 years now. This role does not evolve or change. If I end up promoted down the road, it wouldn't be to do more exciting work, it would be to manage people doing the same things.. which sounds 10000x worse.

The pros? It's a good place to work. It doesn't have over the top benefits, it's not exciting or cool, but they value their employees and treat them with respect. I get along with my coworkers, the culture is good, and I have very few complaints other than the work is boring.

If I had any idea of what I could do that I'd enjoy more, I'd consider making a change. But I don't have the luxury of just exploring for the sake of seeing *if* I *might* like something more.

[supertrooper1]

Right now, I like my job 80% of the time. I've only been doing my current job since March. I like the work that I do, but I'm having a hard time concentrating on learning the more in depth issues. It has been probably 10 years since I've been on the learning end of the job and not a trainer, and I don't like the feeling of being clueless. The money, hours and flexibility are what draw me to the job. Plus, the last 14 years of a crappy work schedule and horrible coworkers and management make me appreciate it that much more.

[waverly]

I like it 80% of the time.

I’ve had my issues with it in the past. I really wanted to work part time 9-3, so I could be with the kids after school but I’ve let that go.

I was bored with it a lot and having nothing to do from 3-5pm didn’t help the why am I here when I could be catching up at home feeling. Yes I know I would be substituting paid labor at a good salary for unpaid home labor.

I took in another department and learned new things. Got rid of some tasks that annoy me and took some I like better.

I don’t like drama but now that someone got fired I’m sure it is a lot less. I don’t like crazy customers but luckily they are few. I don’t like emergencies. We do call for the police or ambulances more than you might think. We have a lot of people coming through our doors so sheer volume wise there is going to be someone that needs help.

I guess you could say I’ve tried to remake my own job or make it into something better. I’m not sure about your “have to” requirements but I feel like there might be that type of opportunity in your current field or job to do more things you like and less stuff you don’t like strategically.

[rere]

I love the work I do. I started a social work major, ended up a social studies political science major in education and feel that I have tripped somehow into a mix of it all.

I dont like the bureaucracy, being a political football for a bunch of ambitious politicians. I dont like the structure we have now. Or that we have to do something because it's a rule, whether it makes sense or not.
It helped that they let me go part time for 10 years and keep accruing all of my retirement and benefits.

[CrazyLucky]

I just moved jobs within my company and I really like the new one. The old one was ok too. There was a time when I didn't like my job and the main thing that kept me there was accrued vacation time. I had been looking for a new job and was offered one. The pay was a little better, but I didn't want to lose six company holidays and going from five to three weeks off. We live far from family, so those three weeks would have been used almost exclusively to visit family.

[traveltheworld]

I really like my job. I left BigLaw but am actually practicing more transactional work now than I ever did back in BigLaw, I work with incredibly bright people, the company culture is awesome, and I get paid very well. There are crazy times where I work 100 hour weeks, and I travel more than I like, but otherwise really no complaints.

[covergirl82]

I would say I like my job around 80%. In general, I like the work I do. I work with great people (my immediate work team) and my schedule is very flexible based on our family needs. I work a 9/80 schedule, and typically WFH 2 days a week on my 5-day work week. I rarely have to travel, and if I do, the farthest I've had to go is 2 hours away. The 20% I don't like is the philosophical differences I have with the company, which have been growing for the past couple years.

[2chatter]

I like mine probably 70 percent. The thirty percent is I am remote and cannot advance. If I were in a Corp headquarters location I am entirely certain I’d be at MD or COO level, but instead, I have topped out at VP. My ambition has been tempered by my desire to be a very hands on parent - necessity being the mother of invention there - I had no choice when I divorced as it was all on me and I had to scramble a lot and then three kids is harder to outsource for long hours than two kids are, except at higher cost. As I am capped in terms of opportunity, I am capped in terms of compensation - so making the leap to a FT nanny never happened. It’s very chicken or egg for me - did I decide I wanted to be the one here in the very early evenings or did the situation decide it for me? I don’t know if that makes sense outside of my head, but to me, it’s pretty classic working parent stuff, complicated by the fact that I ended up being complacent in terms of opportunity.

[phdmomma]

2chatter, Yes, that does make sense.

For me, there are some aspects of my job that I really like, teaching students, doing research with students, outreach. I don't even mind how much time I spend writing. But the constant need to bring in external funding wears on me (typical research proposals have a success rate of 10%, depending on the funding agency). I sometimes wonder if I would be happier somewhere that I could teach more and worry federal funding less. Although that would also mean a paycut for me. DH went remote for his job when we moved here for my job. I don't think that he likes it, but he is in a fairly specialized field, and there are only a small number of geographical areas where it would work for him to find a new on location job. If I get tenure we would stay here most likely, but he would need to shift subfields. If I don't, then we would relocate somewhere else, and I would need to decide what I wanted to do next.

[mrspez07]

The projects I work on are very bland and kind of boring and I surf job postings regularly. I could work for a design firm with more interesting work, but I’d have to work more and I think I’d lose some of the flexibility I have at my current job. The boss here only has good things to say about me, and I rarely work more than 40 hours a week.
I like my job about 50% right now. When I’m busy and things are lining up for multi-tasking, I like it more.

[mustardseed2007]

Well my job is totally different than it used to be. I'm finding I like it a lot but the company itself is still going through changes and may change ownership, so that is sort of overshadowing all else.

[polecat8]

Right now, I like my job 75% of the time. There were some rough times when we downsized and almost shut down completely. Then we were acquired by another startup that is not well versed in the joys of a regulated industry. There were some big growing pains when the parent company didn't listen to our complaints about the quality of software code coming from our off-shore team. But we found a champion in the company C-suite who now understands our concerns and is willing to go to bat for us. When I am in a software test cycle and leading the effort, I am loving every minute of it. When we are bogged down with documentation and process updates, it can be a little tedious. Some other downers - the benefits aren't that great compared to what we had, but there have been a few improvements. They are just slow to materialize. It seems all decisions in the company are very focused on money. For example, our IT guy wants to change our internet provider to save money. The provider he selected is absolutely terrible because they have frequent outages. Our VP is trying to talk some sense into IT.
I stay because I believe in the product that we are building. It has the ability to streamline the health care of cancer patients, but the rest of the industry is still a little weary.
I believe I have truly found my calling in life. But with the nature of my industry and the town that I am in means working for a startup that may or may not be around in a few years. I've been through 2 startups that have downsized in a 5 year span. It's kind of a scary prospect since I am the sole breadwinner in my family. I protect myself by continuing to network with former coworkers just in case I am in the same spot again.

[sdlaura]

I like going to work everyday, but I don't think I'm someone who needs to love what I'm doing for work. I've been here 11 years and I'm a partner, so it would need to be a high bar to leave. I like the people a lot, both my co-workers and clients, and I feel like I'm pretty good at what I do. I also like the level of autonomy I have - as long as my clients continue to pay us, I sometimes win a new client, contribute to internal committees, and help other people out with things sometimes, I am mostly left alone to decide the best way to serve my clients. I have to travel to meetings, but a lot of the travel is day trips, and when I'm in the office I can come and go during the day. I don't think I could find another job locally that is as good of a balance of these things and the pay, and I like where I live. There are annoying things like with all jobs, but my personal motto is "change what you can't accept, and accept what you can't change," so I have a high threshold for just accepting annoying stuff and dealing with it when necessary.

[waverly]

I know zero about university funding but if you dislike it then I think it makes sense to take the paycut to do more of what you like. Or I know one of the universities have centers where I am thinking they have funding from a foundation like a rich person donated a ton of money and the research off the interest earned.

And if you both don’t really like your jobs a change makes sense so someone in the family likes something. There are things in academia that just make me angry and some of it that it requires those additional degrees but doesn’t pay more...

[waverly]

Jun 18, 2019 8:09:31 GMT -5 2chatter said:

I like mine probably 70 percent. The thirty percent is I am remote and cannot advance. If I were in a Corp headquarters location I am entirely certain I’d be at MD or COO level, but instead, I have topped out at VP. My ambition has been tempered by my desire to be a very hands on parent - necessity being the mother of invention there - I had no choice when I divorced as it was all on me and I had to scramble a lot and then three kids is harder to outsource for long hours than two kids are, except at higher cost. As I am capped in terms of opportunity, I am capped in terms of compensation - so making the leap to a FT nanny never happened. It’s very chicken or egg for me - did I decide I wanted to be the one here in the very early evenings or did the situation decide it for me? I don’t know if that makes sense outside of my head, but to me, it’s pretty classic working parent stuff, complicated by the fact that I ended up being complacent in terms of opportunity.

I definitely had that too. I think a lot of it was forced on me as there was no one else to do drop offs and pick ups. No care past 6:30 and a half hour commute that can easily go south quickly which means leaving for me as early as possible and still getting my hours in. Because we are open until 9pm many jobs want 1 weeknight which is not doable unless I had an older nanny picking them up from daycare and bringing them home and staying until 9:30pm. I’m not saying it was impossible but the barrier to it was enough to not want me to tackle that plus paying for extra care. Or sometimes I took half day vacation picked them up myself and then had the babysitter come. I shouldn’t have to use vacation in order to work and man I feel for those with strange shifts. My compromise is no activities before 5:30. We actually did do 5pm floor hockey but it was Fri night and DH’s responsibility. Most sports being dad led is accommodating. Dance that starts at 4pm drives me crazy though like oh the part time and SAHS can get here by then so let’s start the classes. I love after school activities because aftercare just picks them up.


ETA- I might be in for a rude awakening in middle school though when aftercare ends for activities.  It is only 1.7 miles, so maybe they ride their bikes home or find a ride after activities.  I've been holding onto the part time card a long time in case I need it.  I think boss would go for it from a saving money point of view, but then the problem is getting back up to full time when I need to.  

[mommyatty]

2chatter, in my company, you can’t advance past general director if you’re remote. There are a few field-based AVP jobs, but that’s it.

I love what I do, but I don’t always love my company. We are very set in our ways. Like, you can’t have any work from home arrangement or job sharing arrangement if you supervise anyone. I get it for job sharing but considering I travel for work multiple times per month, it makes no sense that I can’t work from home one day a week or so. Also, I used to supervise a team that was more than half in the field. Did they care my phone rang or my email dinged in my house rather than in my office? Plus, our industry is going through some major changes that just are terrible. They are short-sighted and bad for our customers and are going to lead to draconian regulations. My company is the only one bucking the trends, but no way do I see our parent company hanging on to our way of doing things forever.

Also, like others, when I got bored, I asked for and was given more areas under my responsibility, and that helped tremendously. I would be long gone if I hadn’t gotten new and fun challenges.

[keh2oblue]

Jun 17, 2019 15:48:57 GMT -5 madringal said:

I truly love my job a solid 90% of the time. 8% of the time, I am mildly annoyed by it, and 2% of the time I want to leave and never come back.



Ditto. I might be at 95% if I could get the title change I’ve been asking for for a year.

[freezorburn]

Love my job about 75% of the time. In part the 25% that I don’t like, is tolerable because I only work part time and I do not see myself having long term prospects at this company. It’s been good for life balance, and having health insurance and a bit of income during these last few years when my son needed a lot from me. But even if I became a FT employee it wouldn’t pay enough, which is a big reason for needing to go back to using my degree.

[callmekd]

I don't love the subject matter (contracts and procurement with a little bit of other legal advice and policy) but my job is so flexible and my boss and my team are great.