Anyone else hate working, no matter what you’re doing?

[whatnoooow]

I’m 38 and I’m hitting the horrific reality that I’ve probably got another 30 years of work to do.

No matter what industry I’ve worked in, as soon as I get about 2 years in to a role, I start to despise it and I can’t keep job hopping in to random industries. My CV will look like a patchwork quilt! The kicker is, I don’t even earn well!

Does anyone else feel like this?

Has anyone got out of this rut?

Most recent role was in professional services at a uni. Between the entitled students and the management and academics not responding to anything on time hence creating chaos and complicating processes unnecessarily, it was awful.

Do you mind telling us what you do?

Frankly, you should be able to find something that you enjoy doing and get paid for it at the same time. The number of different jobs is vast so if you dislike each one of them there is definitely something wrong with you.

Well that’s not true, is it? There’s definitely nothing “wrong” with me. Or anyone else who feel the same as I do.

My job is good, flexible, well paid, but there are sooo many other things I’d rather be doing than working. I could easily fill my time with alternative purpose.

I feel the same and I’m also very low paid.

Part of it is that I don’t feel my job and company does anything that I deem worthwhile. Making a company richer isn’t motivating to me.

I hated every (short-lived) job I had. Packed it all in and became a SAHM when I had my children and never went back.
If I had my time again I’d try harder/ longer to find my niche - retraining or doing further study if I needed to.

I've had enough of work at 59, not enough in my pension to take early retirement as I only managed to go full time about 14 years ago once the youngest was self sufficient (single parent since divorce 17 years ago)
My job is an interesting, niche role in supporting people within health and social care processes but shite pay for the complexity and huge caseloads. I feel like I'm ticking boxes but I'm too old to retrain now. The flexibility is the only thing that keeps me working, I'm WFH with site/community visits with full control of my own diary. I have a number of significant health conditions including a cancer diagnosis but I've managed to work round my health issues somehow (sickness record isn't great though) . Claiming any sort of health related benefits so I can give up work isn't going to happen, especially now, so I'll do the bare minimum at work to keep an income coming in and hope I don't become any more unwell than I already am.

I hear you. My job brings me no joy. Every time I ask for something, whether it's to work to my strengths, change my working pattern, I'm told no. I'm doing professional qualifications, supporting the team, going over and above. I'm getting great feedback and constantly going above and beyond. It goes completely against what they purport to be their organisational values, but the reality is it's shite.

Every day it chips away at me, and I'm on the verge of packing it in.

I’ve had sooooooo many say to me in the last few months ‘you’re so lucky you have a job’- some unemployed, more with kids trying to find work. I started to think thank goodness I get paid but to be fair I don’t mind my job, but this has solidified it and made me feel more grateful

Yes this is me! 54 and I'm done.

I’m so bored with it all- age 59 in career change number 3! I do work for a bit, love it and then become disenchanted. Then I need to find something else, high hopes and then same old feeling of utter boredom and frustration that I’m not higher up and more important, combined with never ever wanting to be high up and important! Work’s not for me but I just have a few more years to go.

I job hopped a lot but within my professional field. I’d get bored easily and couldnt be bothered with the work politics.
I know what you mean. Work is a huge inconvenience, getting in the way of all the things I’d rather be doing instead. Unfortunately, work pays for my leisure activities too. I need a lottery win.

I was just getting ready to post a very similar question so this is well timed! I feel the same.

I’m 45 and currently on a career break trying to figure out what I want to do next. What I really want to be is a writer and I have a background in it so am trying to see if I can get a freelance career off the ground. I’ve previously had a well paid job in the charity sector and used to work in frontline health care but both of them burned me out in different ways.

I’ve been loving being at home taking care of my family and the house but money is very tight now, obviously, so I am feeling guilty and trying to figure out how to go into my next job/career without hating it and being miserable within a couple years 😬

Moved around jobs - working f/t - did not pay much into pension sadly - 56 years old but very envious of friends retiring at 60! I will have to wait until 68 at least and then go p/t with my State Pension

I have always hated my job too. My solution was to go down to a four day week in my early 30s, then a three day week in my late 30s, then have a baby and quit to be a sahm. I was fortunate to be able to afford it.

I don't see being a sahm as work, I love it. I so wish I could have had more than one child.

I'm a statistician in a research foundation, in an area very close to my heart. I've also worked as an analyst for a think tank which I also loved, but left for my current role which I had wanted to get into for a long time.

I love the technical part of being a statistician, and being able to bring that to bear in an area that is important to me, and to society, is extremely fulfilling.

I hate working. My job is not well paid, I'm not very good at it so I feel anxious a lot, and I am totally trapped. I'm in a job I sort of fell into in my 20s, starting working my way up, fucked it all by having kids and by the time I was properly back to the workplace all the goalposts had shifted in my job and I was no longer qualified to do any of it. So I started at the bottom again. Because I have no other experience, skills, qualifications. I have no confidence and no idea how I could ever do anything other than the shitty paid job I currently do. But there's no working my way up anymore cos I don't have the qualifications.
I'm honestly desperate to win a small-ish amount on the lottery, just enough to give me a year or two off work to re-evaluate my entire life and maybe find a different path cos I can't keep doing what I'm doing for the next 25 years.

Yup. I could potter around at home for hours every day. Bake. Keep the house nice for DH & DC. Swim every day. Walk. Gym. But instead I work 50hours a week. Only £285k on the mortgage to go, which is around 15 years. Urgh.

My job is flexible,pays decent, good holiday, 5 min commute, hybrid, casual dress... but there are 101 other things I could be doing besides working

Yes I hate it. I have ASD and ADHD and struggle a lot with working and parenting too, though I only work 4 days a week. I’m constantly anxious and get overwhelmed a lot. But I get paid well and will hopefully be able to retire a bit early.

No. I love my job. But I'm sixty now and it knackers me. I'm supposed to keep going for another 7 years and am not sure I can.

After job hopping in my late 20s I realised that work was never going to be fulfilling for me, no matter what the job. So I started contract jobs, figuring if I wasn't going to enjoy it anyway then I might as well do something lucrative. Also get to avoid a lot of office politics, and bullshit performance reviews and can have extended breaks from work in between contracts.

No, I've never been in the rut. I've been working since I was 18 and I'm still working (now P/T) at 70. The alternative to working is depending on other people and that's unreasonable imo, with the exception of raising children in their early years.

I had seven marvellous years as a SAHM. Once dd started reception I was very lonely in an immaculately clean house. I knew I had to get a job when I started wiping the steel utilities down with soft cloths and baby oil and wished they'd speak to me. I also started to get overloaded with voluntary stuff so thought I might as well get a job.

That was 22 years ago and I found my niche locally, part-time at first. I'm 64 now and reducing my hours to p/t from the autumn to ease into retirement.

I've always liked work and my job is stressful, political and emotionally demanding. I'd happily carry on but with a very elderly mother and partnered children who like visiting and will soon live far away, I need longer weekends because I cannot pull a 50 hr week and not have a couple of days of downtime any longer. I am relatively far more tired than I was 4/5 years ago.

I feel I've proved an equality point by carrying on until 65 (equal to a man) but not quite ready to give up altogether.

Many colleagues in their late 30s/early 40s continually complain about having another 25/30 years to go. They look at me askance when I suggest if it feels like that much of a noose, they should try something else or worse roll their eyes when after having a dig about how lucky I am if I dare say "yep, really lucky - try being nearly 65".

It's a choice isn't it. Stay at home and be skint or downsize your two dc to a flat if you're in a house or grit your teeth for the spends. Many have to grit their teeth just to survive.

Nothing's unreasonable if it works for everyone involved.