To be afraid that I'll never find/do a job that I will be happy with.

[BigRedBall]

Is everyone happy with their jobs or studies?

I've always ended up doing the wrong course or wrong job where I end up slogging away and getting into a rut with and hate with a passion.

It's left me afraid to retrain in anything because my life experience hasn't been that good with work. I think it's because I've always had to work under someone and I don't like that.

I'd really like to start my own business where I have flexibility and choice of what to do. Ideally I'd like to have a little online shop. I'd like that. But again I'm worried about getting bored, uninterested.

Im worried ill end up too old to do anything and then it'll be too late.
Anyone else feel like this?

[HairyOrk]

Story of my life!
No useful advice except to listen to "Everybody wear sunscreen" by Bar Lurhman.

[BigRedBall]

I'll take the deafening silence as a "no" then ....and it seems I'm BU.

Thanks all. End of the thread.

[BigRedBall]

Oh thank you hairyorc nice to know someone else is in this position :)

[SacredHeart]

I wasn't, I bounced from job to job (good, well paid jobs people would kill for) but it never felt right. I felt out of place and miserable.

I have gone back to college and uni next year and for once I feel fulfilled and happy. I panic about what the future brings (paying bills, post uni) but all in all I am so much happier and healthier making the change.

[HairyOrk]

Written by Mary Schmich - sorry

[BigRedBall]

I already wear sunscreen . Well it's in my BB cream SPF15. I always stretch due to occasional flare up of SPD (a present from my last pregnancy). I don't floss as regularly though. Maybe I should start doing that...

[HairyOrk]

It's more the point "that the most interesting people I know don't know what to do with their lives" and "the race is long and in the end it's only with yourself"

[MadamG]

I hate my current job! It's aweful!! I did much the same job for a different employer and loved it until being made redundant. Sometimes the environment you are in and your manager and colleagues are more important than the actual job you do. Might be worth trying to do the same job somewhere different to see if things improve rather than re-train?

[Meemoll]

yep. I'm the same. I worry that I'll never find anything I like. My CV is a rich mix of about 30 different jobs and I'm only 36.

[wobblebobblehat]

Yes me, I could have written your post. I've stopped counting the number of jobs i've had. I fear it may be more than 30.

[LoisWilkersonsLastNerve]

Me too. I picked the wrong thing to study, work in a call centre now. I don't hate it. No time or money to retrain and no clue what I want to do anyway. I just see work as a means of funding my awesome spare time! I do so much more with my time off now that I don't have a fulfilling career. I get my kicks from other areas.

[dreamingofsun]

isn't the reason they pay you, though, to compensate for the fact that most jobs aren't enjoyable? On paper my job is interesting and i work from home, get paid reasonably well etc etc. sometimes its ok, occassionally i actually enjoy it, but i have long periods where i don't. thats just life.

if you really hate working for someone then self employed is obvious solution. but you may well end up working for a client or customer anyway. also agree with madam - my job has varied immensely depending on my boss - and you generally can't keep changing jobs because of a new boss - or not in my area anyway.

i guess what i'm saying is, don't raise your expectations too high. if you can bear it, whats wrong with that?

[manchestermummy]

Hmmm. I have felt like that about my last two jobs. Mostly I have started to outgrow the role, and there have either been no promotion opportunities, or they were denied to me (the last place was very hierarchical so I missed out on promotion because it wasn't my turn...).

I have been in my current role for coming up to 7 years and there are days I hate the place. However, where I currently work, it's not the role, but some of the people. I actually really like my job and I can cope with not feeling the same way about some of the people as a result. I also have yet to outgrow this job (massive step up from previous role), and thanks to being rather ballsy determined, am continuing to develop.

My boss is very supportive and doesn't seem to mind being a sounding board and giving me advice when I ask for it.

With this role it's all about making opportunities for myself. I know I am very, very lucky.

[MoreBeta]

Most people don't have enjoyable jobs but use it as a way of earning money to enjoy their life outside work.

Some people really enjoy their job and it becomes an important part of their life beyond merely earning enough to live.

Neither approach to work is right or wrong.

I think that to be truly satisfied with your job you have to decide which category you are in.

[Teeste]

Oh hell yes. I've bounced around all kinds of stuff in my lifetime, retail, customer service and admin jobs interspersed with three sets of studies in three different disciplines and various very, very failed attempts at selling handmade stuff. I am currently self-employed and I love it, not always for what I do but for the freedoms it allows me. I just don't fit into a traditional, hierarchical office-type structure.

I think it's important to play to your strengths and choose something that will see you right financially in the long term, rather than try and shoot for that mythical 'perfect' career that fulfils you in every way. I only ever see folks proselytising about that sort of utopia online, never in real life. But I may be biased.

[MoreBeta]

I once had a job where I did 15 minutes work each morning and then went out for the whole day only to return at 4.45 pm collect my suit jacket from the back of my chair and go home.

I toured art galleries and museums all over central London and went on lots of training courses every day. It was awful. I asked to be made redundant in the end. They agreed and I got paid a whole year of salary for about 1 week of real work.

It was the worst job I ever had. I need to be fulfilled at work.

[manchestermummy]

Really? Most people don't have enjoyable jobs? Most of my friends seem to enjoy their jobs greatly.

There's also a difference between having a job and having a career, IMHO.

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

I agree. First i
was a student for a long time, then got a vaguely related job that wasn't a career and certainly didn't require a masters. I got through it by studying accountancy in my down time and focusing on the brilliant well paid job I would get. Then i managed to get a job in a prestigious govt department and was chuffed but always felt rubbish because i was a really low grade, badly paid etc, although i liked the kudos of working there. So i left to earn nearly double, but have spent most of the time in that job either pregnant or on mat leave and usually counting the days. So now, in back off mat leave and hoping i get picked for redundancy because i cant face this with no expiry date. And I am senior and well paid. But I think my interest starts waning after about six months in a job and I get depressed after that.

doesn't help that my job has been eroded while on mat leave and i just don't have enough to do. It is much easier when i am busy. And the commute and being away from the kids just kills me

[CharlesRyder]

TBH I think you make your own joy. I've been pressured, stressed, bullied, and bored at work. However, every job I've had has had it's good points and great moments. A child who has overcome a barrier, a kindred spirit, a new skill mastered.

I wouldn't give any experience back, even the shit ones.

Maybe think about how you are looking at what life presents you and how you can respond to it.

[RaggyAnnie]

I hate my job. I worry about paying money to retrain, taking money and time away for dc and dh when I'm not more than 75% sure that is what I want to do. I can't stay in my current job as it is making me I'll but I feel unable to commit to anything else.

[DisgraceToTheYChromosome]

My day would fill most people with horror: trip changed at the last minute, faulty vehicle making me late for the first call which was a fail, poor weight distribution leading to constant powerslides, horrible tight industrial estates, a re-route through the M42 rush hour and having to move 7 tonnes by hand.
The other way of looking at it: 12 hours of Radio 4, quite a lot of money, playing with a high pressure jetwash and unrebuked flatulence.

[19lottie82]

I don't particularly like my job, or the drive to it, or the hours, but some of the people I work with are a good laugh. The pay is good for an admin job tho. I set up a small online business a year ago which makes me a wee bit of money so I'm considering maybe doing something I would enjoy more for a bit less money.

BUT DH and I are TTC, and the mat benefits are awesome there and I have no clue what else I would like to do. So I think the plan is if I get preggers, ponder this during my 11 months off!

[championnibbler]

I've never had a job i enjoyed and i've had quite a few different jobs. Some things just never come unstuck and I've given up hoping that i'll ever find something i like. similar to many others, i work purely because i need money.