If you do a job you love, what do you do?

[Heyitsmebree]

Just that really. On SAHM vs working mum threads on here I consistently see people talking about how much they love their jobs and I always wonder what they do. I'm on mat leave at the moment with my second baby and, as with my first, I can't say I miss work at all. I'm in a pretty senior role and seem to spend 90% of my time sitting through incredibly tedious meetings. I'm in my mid thirties and never really enjoyed working tbh, despite a range of sectors and different roles. Thinking of possibly rethinking my career after this baby and would love to hear what those who actually enjoy their jobs do.

I’m a nurse, and wouldn’t do anything else. Luckily I’m PT now and don’t do hospital shifts.

Compliance in biopharmaceutical industry

I'm a Police Despatcher. Love my job when I'm there but don't miss it when I'm not

Project Manager in the pharmaceutical/ Biotech industry.

Microbiologist, eveey day is different!

I'm a marketing manager but with a speciality, in that I go into small companies that haven't had a marketing function for a while. Perhaps their previous marketing manager left or they've relied on external agencies to get them through.

I sort their social media, set up regular marketing campaigns, generate leads, clean & dedupe their data, create their reporting, manage a rebrand or a product launch, basically get it all working.

Then I hand over to someone else and move on.

I'm.a speech therapist and I do love my job but it's still a job with all the associated crapola and I've still got a chart on the wall of 'months until retirement' . It is true though that I'm pretty happy staying at a lower clinical level because there aren't many meetings and the ones we have are there to improve care.

Snap! Nurse, band 7 in primary care. I love it. I wouldn’t do anything else and I’d rather work than not (unless I won the lottery maybe…) I also work part time 0.75 or so and it’s a lovely balance. Life is too short to not enjoy in work!

Mental health nurse on an adolescent inpatient ward. I get to make a difference every day and meet so many inspirational, resilient young people and their families. Also I work 3 long day shifts a week which is full time so that I get more than half the week off to be there for my children. I could never do a 9-5!

Service delivery manager for a tech company.

Done it for 20 odd years for various companies and genuinely enjoy it. I especially like it now as the company I work for is great and my manager trusts me to do my job how I see fit, so I have a lot of flexibility in my role.

Personal Wellbeing Advisor within the Criminal Justice system

Paediatric clinical neuropsychologist. The training took 7533668 years (although I enjoyed most of that.) I now run a small private practice which is interesting, well paid and flexible for family life. It's perfect for me.

I'm a buyer, currently buying food to go which I generally really enjoy. Buying is good because each role can feel really different because it's different products/markets/competitors.

Academic. It's long long hours for not great pay but I get to sit and discuss theories of why people do what they do with engaged colleagues. I get to support young bright minds and help them go onto fantastic things (slightly wish I got a cut of their future salaries!) and I get my name in print which makes me think I'm a tiny bit immortal..not in an Egyptian king way obviously but my name is out there in the world's academic libraries.

Once of the things I envy most about others is when they say they love their job. I just can’t imagine ever feeling that 😫

Can you tell me a bit more about this (happy to dm!) as as this sounds really interesting.

Regulatory policy specialist. I get to investigate and fix real world problems that affect everyone and set the landscape for long term infrastructure investment. It is very satisfying.

But yes, there are also a lot of tedious meetings!

Another happy Nurse here! Community based so 9-5 (well, 8.30-5) but I don’t work full time hours so have a decent work life balance and love my work.

I'm a data scientist. I love writing code, building things, and solving mysteries and finding things out. Pays well too.

Website editing. I like the creative side of it, finding ways to display the content in an attractive and well laid out way. Also like fixing things that go wrong, it’s satisfying to get problems fixed and help others. Not many meetings which I like, I prefer just working on my own tbh

Corporate accountant so I work for big business. I love problem solving and using my brain as well as supporting business partners. Pay isn't too bad and the company I work for allows me to be flexible when I need to be.

I'm a Senior HR Advisor. I love it because it is sort of upper-middle level so I have a lot of autonomy in my work but don't have to sit through endless meetings. My boss is in meetings all day and I wouldn't want her level of responsibility to be honest, I'm happy staying at the level I am.

I like it because every day is different, you don't know what is going to come through the door. I deal with recruitment, policy writing, data and reporting, occupational health, mental health first aiders, employee relations, the union and also general enquiries so my days can be quite varied which keeps it interesting.

It also really helps that I'm part time and have a great set of colleagues. That is the main thing really, if I was in a crap team or had a bad manager, or working endless hours I think even the best job on paper would feel like a drag.

Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, I absolutely love working with young people and their families.

I think people are very lucky to find something that they love doing long term. I was an events manager before I had dc and absolutely adored it, but I couldn’t do it now because of the erratic hours and the stress.

Clinical psychologist (NHS and private). A long road to get there but a varied, interesting and relatively well paid job.