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Happy with your Job? If not how would you change?

edited September 2010 in Not Sports Related
Following on from the school, university results thread, who is working in their chosen career? Also who would change and if so what would you do. Rock stars and footballers not excepted!!

For me, my career has taken many turns (I am a Project Manager for a publishing company), but at the moment it is not creative enough for me. If I were to change I would love to work on restoring old military vehicles, bringing something back from the scrapheap which is kinda creative I guess!! And of course gets me out the bloody office.
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Comments

  • My career certainly has it's moments but like most you have to put a lot in to get a lot out of it (well I hope so!). Waking up at 5:30am and working in the most awkward of locations isn't perfect but in this day and age you have to appreciate how fortunate you are to have a job.
  • Was I supposed to choose a career? I thought I just took vaguely related jobs!
  • I left 6th form at a grammar school with 11 GCSEs and 4 A Levels with the intention to turn my part time job at Sainsbury's into full time for a year before I went to uni to study geography before becoming a primary school teacher.

    However a year working full time and seeing the money rolling in, coupled with being out of education for a year saw me dump the uni idea. I've been at Sainsbury's for 5 and half years now (4 of those full time) in a very important role (price controller - make sure all prices and advertising is correct in store...very legal and can cost me and the store a lot if it's wrong).

    Been offered management countless times (same pay band as I'm currently on but with less sh*t and better hours (up at 4:15am but home at 1), plus I get every other Saturday off so I can still watch Charlton). But my daily routines (having to count money, making sure everything is legal etc) gives me a good basis for a better paid job in the future.

    So am I happy? Yes. Would I like better hours and more money? Of course I would. But then again we can't have everything!

    (Sorry for the essay!)
  • edited September 2010
    Over halfway through an accountancy training contract at a (VERY) corporate firm after years of bumbling about on building sites and then construction recruitment after graduating.

    Happy....far from it in fact every day i go to work seems to erode another bit of my soul. However as FOD says grateful to have a career in the current client and hopefully in a couple of years it'll earn me enough to pay for more than just the bills and the odd Charlton game.

    Would like to get a trade and work in building but am appallingly shocking at most aspects of it. Ideally i would like to write books and films/ tv dramas earn shed loads of money then retire in my 40s and live on a beach selling snorkelling gear and then fritter away my millions.
  • I am looking elsewhere and applying for every job I can go for. I work as a Data Administrator, the work is alright but it is repetitive, everything else is just crap. The people around me are just so dull and its like being in a library and I can't handle that. I like to be in a office with a bit of a happy atomsphere. Also not trying to sound too bigheaded but I think I can do better, as I love working with Excel and Access but I don't hardly do any of that so I feel like I am missing out an oppotunity.

    Problem is, the way the market is at the moment, I really much doubt I will move on for a while as everyone is applying for the same job. I did get a job offer very local to me but the hours are way too short so I need longer hours, even if its just Monday to Wednesday 9 to 5 for now. As long as I am happy then that's all there is to it.

    I think you kind of already know if I am happy or not lol :-(
  • I'm a sales rep selling products into the NHS, my targets are going up and up but prices are coming down due to lack of budgets for hospitals. I absolutely hate waking up in the morning but because of the current climate & the fact I get a company car I am in no position to leave at the moment. The amount of admin too is a joke, you could easily get home at 5 and spend 3 more hours working.

    On the plus, my job is quite flexible in the sense that I can work from home when necessary & have early finishes somedays.

    God, I'm depressed!
  • Like I said on the uni thread, the career I'm in now is miles away from what I'd envisaged myself doing, but I love it. Can be extremely challenging at times, but I'm lucky enough to be pretty good at it and enjoy it as well - which definitely helps when things are getting hairy. Have built up a lot of epxerience moving from place to place in the past ten years, but am now settled in nicely where I currently work and (economy permitting) I can see myself being here for a good five years.
  • Happy enough where I am and do only do four days a week (though have to work most weekends).

    Had you asked me this question yesterday I probably wouldn't have been quite so positive but, as the company I work for announced today that they intend to float, my previous worthless shares might be worth more than the paper they're written on after all.
  • edited September 2010
    Rodney you can still do it.

    Despise my job, as for the fine detail I can't go into here. But a brief precis.....

    Love working at the job, but my direct manager is the worse kind of manager. She is deeply un-intelligent, only making a decision at what she thinks is a crisis point; metaphorically waving her arms for her managers to see how amazing she is in a crisis. She proves her analysis by drawing a circle around all the failures, and doesn't even analyse the factors/antecedents to these 'failures'. Whereas when I holistically present a full analysis/appraisal of both successes and failures, with proactive and positive structural changes she refuses to attempt them. Even worse she will not let me attend senior management meetings as my opinion is more proactive and enlightened than hers. I couldn't really care less about that, only that she'd ruminate on my thorough and succinct recommendations. All her crisis solutions create more irrelevant work for everyone and solve none of the structural issues.

    Coupled to this she takes time off whenever she wants. When she works at the 'coalface' she only works with one team where all the problems are, and thus draws her wholly inaccurate picture from that. My Great Uncle, who looked after me as a kid at the weekend when my Mum was at Great Ormond Street with my brother for months on end, has just been diagnosed with fast onset Motor Neurone Disease; Lou Gehrig's disease. Some days he can't move and speak, and is stuck in hospital with no stimulation, unless we visit. Yet my boss has told me I'm not allowed time off unless someone can do my job. So my opinion is not valued, but my presence is demanded.

    Fuck 'em my resignation went in yesterday. I'll spend all the time I can with my Uncle, reading to him his favourite books/poems when he can't speak/move. I've never felt so positive about a decision in my life. I've started writing hundreds of short-stories and short radio plays but never finished them. But this week I've just come up with my most brilliant book idea, and written the opening to the book and plot synopsis. Now I have ideas for ten's of other characters some inter-related some connected loosely through cellular like organisations. I also have the outline for two more books which each bring out a much vaster scale all hidden in the back story; one where the Chicago Boys of Chile are gathered one by one and flown out to the Pacific Ocean and pushed out the plane to drown below, just like the 100's if not thousands who suffered under their economic revolution backed by Pinochet and the CIA. One is set in Afghanistan, a modern take on the Great Game and geographically influenced by George Macdonald Fraser.

    Anyway I'm not saying resign from your job Rodney but you'll get round to writing something. When it hits me I can't stop. And in the middle of human misery, I've found something I've been the most proud of in years. I couldn't care less if it ever gets published, the book is my world and if others don't like it so be it.
  • Great post Colin. All the very best for the future.
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  • I've been on the Photographic industry for 16 and whilst I love being creative, I've had to adapt and become part of the bigger corporate structure that the industry has become. I now can't stand this side of it and want out...

    For the last 11 months I've been studying the London Knowledge. It the hardest thing I've ever done. I have done part time study before but nothing on this level. Approximately 40+ a week on top of my full time job and helping my fiance organise our wedding. It's very tough.

    My reasons for changing? Independence, being my own boss, work when I want, earn what I want, take holidays when I want. Everything I can't do under the corporate umbrella. So I'm getting out. It's gonna take another 2+ years but I'll get there... eventually.
  • Good post Colin, I can identify with the problems with the manager. I hope it all works out, good luck!!
  • edited September 2010
    Drifted into marketing after university - got a job as a graduate trainee with Thomson Holidays. Spent five years client-side, then a former boss asked me to join him and his wife in setting up a direct marketing agency. Never thought of myself as an "agency" person before, but took to it - enjoy the variety of working for clients in different sectors. Five years ago I thought I had enough senior level contacts so set-up on my own, and so far, so good. Earning about the same as I did as a director of the agency, but have much more flexibility (can spend all day on CL if I want to - only wasting my own time...) and less of the crappy stuff to deal with (internal politics etc).

    I'm also director of a travel company that Mr Weegie runs day to day (tailormade holidays in Scotland and Ireland.)

    If I were to do anything else, it would either be property development (enjoyed doing up our house in Kintyre) or writing books. Bibble - if you are in publishing, perhaps I should have a word, along with a few others on here, as seems it's a popular option? ;-)
  • edited September 2010
    My working history has taken more than just a few twists and turns to say the least. I spent years not knowing what to do, doing things in my spare time that i enjoyed and was very good at but never being able to convert them to give me an income as I was always looking to do something I enjoyed.

    After getting a PCV license working on the buses got me into a fantastic job at TFL as a fraud investigator but after a few years the nature of the job changed and the team was demotivated. During that time I moved house and in the process managed to free up some cash which enabled me to purchase equipment and start a part time DJ business on a small scale which was great because it was something I was good at, genuinely enjoyed and could earn money from. Over the course of time the business evolved onto the wedding and corporate scale so I finished the full time job to concentrate on the business which has survived to date with 5 other DJs on the books that I give regualar work to throughout the busy times.

    I wouldnt change things as its enjoyable and it pays the bills, gives me flexibility to get to football midweek and most weekends (after the wedding season tails off) and it has also ensured that I have seen my kids grow up, take them/collect from school which a lot of dads arnt lucky enough to do. It also gives me the time to concentrate on my video editing projects during the week when my wifes at work and the kids are at school so it works perfectly really in those respects. It doesnt pay major money and I do go through quieter months like Nov, Jan, Feb & March but it compensates in many other ways.

    However im still trying to beat the bookies...."One day we will be millionaires"
  • Nice to see so many positive stories after my miserable, negative post. My problem is I just don't know what I want to do with my life, I have no idea and as I'm now 31, it scares me somewhat.
  • left school and ended up working in Insurance, 19 years later I've done the rounds in the London Market at various companies and am now a Senior Underwriting Manager - pays well and I can within reason work where I want when I want, no problem working at home.

    couldn't do anything else now and earn the money I do and sadly I couldn't be without the money with a mortgage, daughter and probably soon to be ex wife to finance!
  • can assure you WSC you'll feel no different in 3 years time.

    I feel literally 'stuck' in something i've not enjoyed for a very long time, with neither the qualifications, transferrable experience, balls or financial position to start again. Have no idea what the answer is, i just know i have to get on with it to pay the bills and support the family.
  • Some interesting posts here. My main problem is that I took this job because I was out of work but was promised some things that have not been forthcoming, on the plus side its very local, no more travelling to London in the rush hour, fairly friendly, and there is some foreign travel. But as I said on other threads, I am a designer/studio manager at heart and i dont get to work on the creative side, or if I do the company is so set in its ways, they crap themselves if you move out of their comfort zone, which is odd because I was taken on to freshen up their magazines and general design side. My official title is Project Manager, which is dull, because of the lack of creativity and that we do not have our own design team, something that I have always worked with. So the job takes longer because I have to work with a 3rd party studio, I have suggested that I will do the artwork and Project Management, I have time, it will save the company 120k per year, but they bulked at that, dont get me wrong my monthly assessments have been good but I dont think they like change!! That said I have a job and I must keep reminding myself that a year ago I was out of work and that was not a good time.
    Good luck to all those who are in a good place with their careers, but I cant help feeling that I am wasting time!!
    *Checks online jobs*
  • I have recently changed jobs. From one I disliked to one that pays around 40% less but is much more enjoyable.

    I was v. close to a change to the career or my dreams a few months back but this has been thrown on the backburner recently. However It is still in my mind and even though it means I will have to go back to university I still plan to do it, I just need to wait a year. It took the death of my father-in-law to make me sit up and realise what I really wanted to do. as a result I have made some new friends and am involved in an interesting and useful (I think) voluntary role that should help me get to where I want to be in a few years time.

    In the meantime I have progressed another dream I have had and will be having a go at stand-up comedy in the new year. I am looking forward to it and it has given me the inspiration to get back to writing again. I am looking forward to it but slightly terrified as well.

    My advice would be look in detail at what you want to do, talk to others about your options, but most of all. If you are sure of what you want to do then go for it.
  • First thing to do is get into a profession/career that you enjoy, hopefully has a future ( let me know, besides undertakers! ).

    I think if you do not enjoy your job it must be soul destroying. I was very lucky I chose a profession graphic design, at it's embronic stage, and having spent a yearish as a very junior reporter, got to work on the music magazines at the time, freelance and this helped me through art college. Having been made redundant now 3 times, because of magazine closures, at times it has been very difficult, especially with a young family. Unfortunatly it comes with the job, or seems to, Only 2 of my college year are working in any form of graphics and one of them is part time!. There is a real ageism barrier I am finding late in my 50s. In 6 months I have not even had an interview!....... I have always had a belief in my talents such as they are, and boy do you need to have that in this game!. I have been lucky and worked on some really good magazines/newspapers and enjoyed my work. Of course I feel that I have only been paid a fraction of what I think I am worth, and some of my contemporaries have gone on to make bucket loads comparred to me, but I cannot complain I have enjoyed the ride so far. Will I ever work full time again, probably not!...... but I will still keep applying, and trying to keep positive.
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  • I find myself in a catch 22 position i work for a company that is currently drifting and losing money, i know where the money is going but the owners are not interested in putting a stop to this. They have made there money already have very little interest left in the company. (They have enough others interests and to be honest i think they are probably running the company just to keep friends and family employed)

    I find driving to London everyday a massive drag, but i do enjoy what i do and I do not have any real pressure as such.

    I have started to do a little bit of my own work but have found that in these times getting your money out of people isnt always the easiest.

    I stumbled upon this job and have a good living out of it but gone are the days of big bonus's it just about retaining your job. Which is frustrating when you know the company is like a sive and effecting your personal salary.

    I am stuck in 2 minds if i should go it alone now but due to the nature of the market, this could be very tricky or stick picking up a wage and slowly building on what i have got until it is big enough to support me full time.
  • stand up comedy... now that is terrifying. good luck with that!! ps... where?
  • [cite]Posted By: Curb_It[/cite]stand up comedy... now that is terrifying. good luck with that!! ps... where?

    I am cheating slightly by doing a course run by an established comic. I am arrogant enough to think I can write funny material but want a bit of guidance on the practical elements. Debut will be at Up the creek sometime in February along with a bunch of other wannabe funny people.
  • edited September 2010
    Have been in the same type of work for most of my working life, expect for a short space of time when doing something that I should have enjoyed. However after been given the job, people from within the organisation went about trying to bring me down. I got out, even writing my own redunacy letter.

    After that I did look at buying a small company( had someone prepare to put the money in) never found one that was right. Should have kept on looking. I not sure if I could change career now, don't mind where I am at the moment, expect being at the end of the process within the company, all the shite that others don't deal with ends up on my desk. People earning more than me with cars, just shovelling thier crap my way.

    I'm at the age where I got one maybe two moves left before I retire, I want to use my experience and qualifications to get the best for my family.

    I often say that " it's every ( wo ) man's duty to escape " and do the best for themselves and thier family.
  • edited September 2010
    Have been close to people in the "stuck in a rut" phase. Only advice I can offer is:

    - Weigh up the risks of making a change: if it all goes wrong, where will that leave you/ what's the "get out" plan? I appreciate that it is much easier to make a leap if you don't have the commitments of mortgage, kids etc...

    - Remember, this is the real thing - life is not a dress rehearsal.

    I've made some decisions in the past that haven't worked out as planned, but I would still make the same decisions again rather than getting stuck in something deeply unfulfilling. The worst kind of regrets tend to be about the things you DON'T do.
  • oh give us a shout. and let me see your script beforehand so i make sure i know when to laugh in the right places... i feel nervous for you!! i couldnt do it.

    My job is as dull as ditch water. But training as a youthful legal secy gave me the opportunity to work in Australia and HK as everyone loves a British legal bubble something i dont regret.

    Now i run the office of a very lucrative US law firm... and it is very quiet just 6 of us. I miss the banter of big firms and being a bit more busier but I do not miss the office politics and listening to peoples bullshit.. .i read enough of it on here. I adore my boss - he is one of the nicest men i've ever met and so even tho Im a bit bored i would never leave as I am too loyal to him. I get paid very well for doing feck all and as an added bonus this year, after 10 years this office being open they are sending all six of us to the office Xmas party in New York. bingo.

    So im going nowhere... im too old to look now for stress of another job and i wouldnt get more money anywhere else. So you could say i've settled with no ambition. But im happy like that for now.
  • www.businessesforsale.com

    There are hundreds of businesses on the site sale, some cheap and some not so cheap. Most people I know who are stuck in a rut would happily go self-employed but haven't the foggiest about what to do or how to go about doing it. The problem is most people's work experience is only useful in a commercial setting and breaking free and going it alone is difficult if not impossible unless you have some reasonably serious financial backing. Anyway, have a look at that site and others that are related and maybe something will jump out that's right for you. If it doessn't, then you won't have lost much by looking.
  • edited September 2010
    I recently worked in a nursing home in Jarrow, Thursday morning was 'hairdresser day', the old ladies loved the pampering and fuss she made over them and clearly loved the compliments of how nice their hair looked, you could feel the sense of self worth they had about themselves, I loved Thursdays just as much as they did...

    Recently the hairdresser rang up to say she had the flu and couldn't make it so would I let everyone know, when I told the ladies you could tell they were really disappointed but they all asked after the hairdresser and hoped she'd be back for next week...

    When I told the carers they said 'Good, we don't have to mess around washing hairs now', the activities coordinator said 'Good, I don't have to fill in all the activity files', the handyman said 'Good, I don't have to get out and put away the hairdryers', the domestic said 'Good, saves me having to hoover the mess up afterwards', the laudry worker said 'Good, saves me having to wash all those towels', the cook said 'Good, I don't have mess about plating up late meals', the administrator said 'Good, I don't have to chase up relatives for money'...

    I stood there thinking to myself 'WTF is going on here...!!!'

    I could feel a rage building up inside of me so I went to see the manager, I told her the hairdresser wasn't coming in today and before I could explain to her about the staff apathy and total lack of 'person centred' care I encountered she butted in with 'Oh Good, I don't have to mess around counting out the pocket money now'...

    I stood there open mouthed for about ten seconds and called her a 'Fat, horrible, selfish bitch', I gave a weeks notice and walked out...

    I'm now working for an agency, working the hours I want, where I want for a lot more pay, if I see something I don't like I report it, any lip from staff they get tanked good style, any abuse to residents and the staff are toast, not what I really wanted but there comes a time that if you don't make that change when you need to things will only get worse...

    I'm lucky in the sense that in the job I do I will always be in demand so I can afford to chuck my notice in when I feel like it as I will always easily get another job, for others it can be a lot more difficult, my advice is it's never to late to change or start a new career...

    Try popping into the local job centre and ask about 'job's fairs', check out 'open days' at uni's and colleges, take a good long look at what is really out there and have a go, no-ones gonna come looking for you, fact. I did it, and I can tell you it's really worth it in the end...
  • My situation is similar to AFKA's, I've been stuck in a office job working for TFL for far too long, the problem I have is the wage is not bad (could be better) but they seem to have me by the balls because me and my wife get free travel on tubes and buses and I also get 75% of my rail season ticket. which saves a hell of a lot of money. I cant afford to to quit and learn a trade, and to get promotion in this place you need to have a brown tongue.

    I also like choice tv know I can beat the bookies and it's only a matter of time before i'm a stinking rich gambler :)
  • edited September 2010
    Christ....I know a good shrink if anyone wants their number
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