to think my job is easier than DPs?

[theirdaughter]

This is based on everyone telling me how hard I have it (head of English, secondary school.)

Teaching is tough but not THAT tough. DP works odd shifts at anti social times and they're split meaning if he finishes one at 11:30 the next doesn't start until 12 - meaning unpaid trapped time. Minimum wage.

Anyway we were strapped cash wise recently (car troubles) and I did some shifts to help out, my gosh I have NEVER. Worked so hard in my life for such little financial reward.

I've concluded a lot of teachers need to experience just how hard other jobs are.

Sorry, I disagree. As a teacher, I think teaching is about as tough as it gets. I spent. 10 years in industry before teaching. It was nowhere near as tough, nowhere......

You're probably nbu. Did he have to train as long as you did to get his job which I'm assuming is manual work?

Generally the more training you do in order to become qualified the better paid you are for it, and the less manual work you do for your money. The way of the world.

DP did shift work and it was absolutely killer. It really messed his bodyclock up and it's still not right three years on!

What sort of work was it though?

I can't do hard physical work like shelf stacking for hours on end but that's quite different to spending a weekend marking (in a different way)

Depends on who you are teaching does it not?

I had lets see, 25 years in industry, working on building sites and civil engineering sites and teaching SEN is bloody hard work. So - enough of this goading and perhaps consider that you might be coasting if you think it is that easy.

I think you can conclude that YOU didn't realise you'd find his job harder than yours; I don't think you can extrapolate anything other than that.

Also, how difficult a job is to someone, depends on all sorts of factors. Your DH might find your job a lot harder than his. Presumably if he found being a Head of English no harder than his current job, he'd probably be doing it and earning a much better wage

For goodness sakes, of course I'm not goading - unless thinking something differently to you is goading!

The point I'm making is that I've been used to people making sympathetic faces and saying how much work I must have and how hard teaching is but no one says similar to DP. Having spent some time working with him I have concluded he works FAR harder than me - yet with none of the sympathy! Or pay for that matter.

Well you're not working hard enough then.

I find after 9-10 hours rushing around, and dealing with endless issues and problems that I'm just about wiped out.

I can see where you are coming from! I know my OH has worked some positively awful jobs for minimum wage and I would also say they are much harder than my job. I couldn't do what he does but he could also not do what I do.

I also think my line of work gets a lot more respect and sympathy from people which in a way can make it easier.

Maybe people are more familiar with secondary teaching as a profession and the hours/effort/work it involves, than they are with your DP's job? Hence they make comments to you but not to him, as they have no way to know how hard or not his job is?

I also think different jobs are hard in different ways and to different people depending on their strengths/likes.

Whether the job's hard depends a lot, I think, on whether you're a round peg in a round hole or not. So DH, if the job suits him, might not find his job as hard as you did, for example. Teaching's the same. Some people are born for it. Those who aren't will find it an impossible job and have to work very hard indeed to keep their heads above water.

It does annoy me that you can't possibly suggest anything other than that teaching's the hardest job in the world. In fact that's only second in annoyingness to the fact that you can't say some teachers aren't good enough.

No-one outside of teaching believes it and having worked for 25 years in a commercial job before schools, I have the greatest of respect for good teachers but I also know there are very many other jobs where people work very hard indeed (for less money) and that bad teachers do exist.

You sound like a very caring partner, for not enjoying the "competitive misery" advantage that you might have.

Do your friends and family "look down on" your DP, and people in jobs like his, due to the status of such jobs? If so, You Are Being Ultra-Reasonable!

Doesn't it depend on what your school and classes are like? YA probably NBU if things are going well at the moment. I'm not a teacher but randomly many of my close friends are and they seem to go through swings and roundabouts each depending on their form, the curriculum, whether they are doing any head of something extra work. One year they are really busy, another year they've said things are pretty easy - nice class, know the curriculum really well etc.

Teaching always strikes me as a potentially very difficult job and of course it can be a hell of a lot longer hours than many people think it is.

But I can well imagine many other jobs are a lot harder.

I think you're right about it being 'less known' - DP works in a supportive role to disabled adults, including those with a mental illness. Some of his role is just supportive of course but other people he visits need medication administering, help with quite complex equipment and constant cheeriness even when you got in at 11 and were up at 530!

Oranges in my very humble view that attitude is toxic to teaching - that if you're not run ragged, stressed and miserable you're not working hard enough. My lessons are good, department is running smoothly and kids are happy - I'm fine with that. I'm not criticising you but it's endemic in teaching and we can only change it by pointing out it is acceptable - nay, normal - to not work all weekend, not be in before and leave after the caretaker and that hard as teaching can be so are other jobs.

However. DP and I agree no matter how hard we've BOTH got it - the guy who puts the first cone in the m6 has it worse

Thurlow to a point. It always goes a bit bonkers in May (secondary) but then you have large amounts of gained time when year 11 and 13 go on study leave (I just typed maternity leave by mistake! Haha - hope not!)

We all find different things difficult. I couldn't be a manager - I hate having to tell other people what to do. And no WAY could I be a teacher. I'd go nuts with having to be completely professional all the time.

(I'ma computer programmer. Someone else decides what they want the program to do. I just have to figure out how. And if I want to swear at the screen, I can.)

I completely agree with that Toxic attitude. But my classes run smoothly most of the time, everything is planned and prepared for, but I'm bloody exhausted at the end of the day, and so are all my colleagues.

I'm just aghast that ANYONE thinks teaching isn't that hard work. For a start, I once wore a pedometer to school and covered about 5 miles in an average day. That's before all the rest of the stuff

YABU- just because you don't find it hard, doesn't mean others won't. You're management too so I imagine less time spent in the classroom.

I was a teacher, I had the most hellish NQT year with very little support, chaotic classes, things thrown at me, Mrs EEVEE is an ugly fat bitch written on my classroom wall, etc etc. Used to cry myself to sleep most nights because I knew when I fell asleep I'd be waking up and have to go in again.

Towards the end of the year it got better through sheer perseverance and building relationships with the kids step by step, but this all got wiped out the beginning of the next year when I had new classes and was off sick quite a bit due to early pregnancy. Ended up quitting when I was only 3 months pregnant because I just couldn't handle it, plus my DM had severe pregnancy complications and nearly died having me so I wasn't taking the risk.

DD is 6 months now and I'm unsure if I will ever return to teaching.

OP YABU - everybody knows teachers have the hardest job in the World

I don't think anyone could dispute teaching is hard work. However, there are many other jobs which are equally punishing (I'm often working at home until 10pm) and don't come with the same benefit of additional leave which teaching provides.

After years of wrangling, this is the simple conclusion that I've come to with teacher dp anyway

Doesn't it depend on where your skills lie and what you're used to?

I work retail which is DP's idea of hell, but in my eyes, his job is hell and I wouldn't want to touch it with a bargepole! It's just what we're both used to and I think if you're good at your job and enjoy it, it really doesn't matter whether it's considered "easy" or "hard" to other people.

Surely how easy or difficult a job is depends on your skills/training/interests etc. For example (a ridiculous one I know!) I would find being a chocolate taster hard as I don't like chocolate. My ex was a joiner. He loved his job, was good at it etc. I would find it hard as I am not very strong and I have no skills in that area. Im a senior manager in marketing, he would find that harder than his job as he knows nothing about marketing.

Are you talking in terms of physical exertion?

I think a lot of jobs are hard work. I suppose it's testament to how much you like doing the job and to how you cope.

I am a teacher in primary and have never found it particularly hard work. It is a times, yes, but I often think how easy I have it compared to other jobs. For instance, hard work for me would be getting up at 6am to commute for 2 hours to London, not getting home until 7.30pm and the reward being sitting bored in an office all day.

People are always telling me they couldn't be a teacher. My nurse friends for instance. For me there would be no worse/harder job than being a nurse. Shift work, longs hours and hard manual labour. Teaching is a piece if piss compared to that. She thinks 30 children is hell on earth!

IMO it's all about perspective and also understanding what a job is really like, it appears to be common knowledge that teaching is hard work because teachers tell us, not because we have ever done a days teaching. On the other hand people working in the commercial sector may work as hard or harder but in general there is not a common sounding board for this. What I think is an easy day someone else may think is impossible.

As an example I'm in a relatively new job and in the last few months my role has changed, within this role I am trying to produce accurate information for a variety of clients who submit requests via email, in the bosses opinion our target time is 5 hours and we should be able to clear the list daily, we can't as we are having great success at the moment so there are more requests per day and if we get stuck on a complicated one it puts us back. Although this is a challenge and I am working longish hours it is far easier than my previous job where I had lots of different roles and responsibilities, my new colleague agrees, however the colleague who has been in the role for 5 years says she is almost at breaking point and has never worked so hard in her life.

Most teachers I know work incredibly hard, and I have no doubt at all that it is a very tough and demanding job. It must be incredibly frustrating when people bang on about short days and long holidays, as they clearly have no idea about what teachers actually do. So perhaps it's not surprising that teachers can get a bit defensive.

However, I think it's a bit silly when people suggest that teaching is tougher than any other job. To be honest, that just makes it sound like teachers are out of touch with reality.

At the end of the day, it isn't really a competition about who has it the hardest. Different jobs will be hard in different ways. If people are convinced that others have it much easier, perhaps they should consider a career change.