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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think the point of work is to do the least to get the most money, to enjoy other areas of your life

134 replies

JeffsanArsehole · 29/10/2015 18:25

Even if you love your job (like I do)

Surely for most people in jobs they love/enjoy want to get enough money to live/have a family/have hobbies ?

And for the vast majority of folk in jobs they don't love and are paid poorly it applies even more?

Where did this idea come from that we should be grateful to work 50/60/70 hours a week for crap money just to feed our children and scrape through come from?

So even though I love my job and it's well paid I don't want to spend more than 40 hours doing it. As I like other things even more.

OP posts:

fitzbilly · 29/10/2015 18:27

You are right, we need to keep perspective. We only work to get paid, so we need to make time to enjoy life and not work Rio hard.

I could easily work silly hours and have to remind myself it is just a job to get paid, nothing more.

fitzbilly · 29/10/2015 18:28

And I love my job

Ipigglemustdie · 29/10/2015 18:28

Yanbu but the live to works will be along soon to tell you that it's people like you that are ruining the world

PentagramChants · 29/10/2015 18:54

YANBU spending time with my family, dogs and friends and going out and having fun are my priorities. I do enjoy my job, but it's only 10 hours a week, so it's easy to.

StillStayingClassySanDiego · 29/10/2015 19:06

I'm a TA, not great money and I could look for another job but I like the 13 weeks off a year. I work hard and get into work early but I'm out the door at 4.

Oysterbabe · 29/10/2015 19:09

My job sucks but pays the bills, is 9-5 and allows me to do things I do like in my spare time. Yanbu.

wasonthelist · 29/10/2015 19:09

Yanbu. Underachiever and proud.

BitchPeas · 29/10/2015 19:15

Yanbu. I work to live. I can't get any enthusiasm to have a super career. I just want to get paid and live my life. Definitely an underachiever and proud. Luckily I am well paid for what I do even though my job is grim in parts, it's not intense or stressful so it's easy to think like that. When I had a low paying job I really cared about I was a lot more stressed and unhappy!

Spectre8 · 29/10/2015 19:16

At its basic level a company requires a certain set of skills and to get those skills it has to pay for it. You have skills and need money to do things and so you sell your skills for money. End of. So YANBU.

HaydeeofMonteCristo · 29/10/2015 19:19

I agree.

I love my job but there is a limit. I don't want to do it every hour.

Also even though I love it, it is stressful. And I love my family more.

trixymalixy · 29/10/2015 19:26

Yanbu, my aim is to maximise the relationship between how much I get paid and how much time I spend with my family. I could get paid far more but I'd have to commute or work away or work crazy hours and that would have a detrimental effect on family life so I don't. I realise I'm lucky to have that choice.

WMittens · 29/10/2015 19:29

If that's the way you feel, that's absolutely fine. However, I don't like the blanket statement of "do the least to get the most money" as if it applies to anyone.

I'd prefer that whoever built my house, services and repairs my car, performs surgery on me when I need it, etc. etc. love their job a huge amount and get a great deal of satisfaction from doing as much as they can, not as little.

I sincerely hope you're not a civil engineer, and that next week I'm not driving over that motorway bridge you half-heartedly designed. I hope you have a job that isn't important.

avocadoghost · 29/10/2015 19:30

I agree completely. Reach a comfortable level and fuck anything else

annandale · 29/10/2015 19:33

I have workaholic tendencies but i don't see that as a particularly good thing. I don't think the extra work I do is particularly valuable to my team or to the people I supposedly help, either. There's a strong overlap in the teams I've known between the most effective people and the people who only work their contracted hours. I think that needs to be more of a culture in most workplaces.

Original poster

JeffsanArsehole · 29/10/2015 19:34

I don't think it's half hearted though

Every moment I'm in my job I give as much as I can.

I don't, however, take on hours/tasks I can't do. And I do nothing half heartedly so your bridge would be fine

OP posts:

Choughed · 29/10/2015 19:36

Nope. I disagree. I work in a university and I do my best every day to ensure lovely, hard working young people get the best chance in life. Most of my colleagues feel the same.

It takes less effort to do your job well than to manufacture ways to skive off.

bakingaddict · 29/10/2015 19:42

But for some people to be successful in their jobs means lots of extra hours. If I was having brain surgery I wouldn't want the surgeon to down tools and fuck off because it was 1 minute past their shift. Some jobs require a level of commitment few people are willing to give so YABU to assume everyone thinks like you

TremoloGreen · 29/10/2015 19:49

I agree, but I clearly never found my vocation (if I ever had one). I tried to be a scientist and did love the whole 'advancing human knowledge' aspect of it, but at the end of the day, it just wasn't a good enough deal - not well paid for the level of qualification and hours required, always contract-based and not family-friendly enough. I had an awful boss as a postdoc and started looking around, eventually I 'sold out' and became a consultant. Now I work 9-5 for twice the money and have plenty of time for my family and other interests.

I'm very grateful to those who do have the vocation to be doctors, nurses, teachers etc though. I'm glad we have them and would happily give them all a huge pay rise.

AFewGoodWomen · 29/10/2015 21:32

I agree.
I am on holiday this week and have just received a text from heat office reminding me that I have to complete an online survey thingy by end of business tomorrow.
What am I supposed to do?
Ignore the email (I am on holiday!)
Or switch my laptop on and spend two hours doing the bloody thing?

If I don't do it I will be excluded from team meetings as I have not "done the prep"

Grrrr

29redshoes · 29/10/2015 21:44

YANBU. I completely share this philosophy. If I have to spend time working (and sadly I do until that lottery win comes through) then it may as well be a role I like and I may as well do the best job I can. But work certainly doesn't define or fulfil me, family friends and other hobbies are far more important to me.

I'm finding this thread quite refreshing actually, sometimes I feel like I'm a bit weird for thinking like this!

SolidGoldBrass · 29/10/2015 22:00

Again, it's all tangled up with a fairly complicated perception of what 'work' actually means. So, for poor people, working insanely long hours doing something that might be boring, uncomfortable or outright dangerous is something they must either do or aspire to do, because otherwise they are worthless parasites. For people who are not poor, there's this bumbling between the idea that work is dull and you need your work-life balance, and the idea that if you just choose to 'do what you love' you won't mind how long you spend doing it.
Of course, many of the jobs that are not, in themselves, that thrilling, and are usually badly paid, are the ones that are the most necessary: caring for the old/the sick/the dying, cleaning things/places, stacking shelves etc.

trixymalixy · 29/10/2015 22:07

Hmm some people aren't getting it. It's not about skiving or not doing a good job. I take a lot of pride in the work I do and I'm always highly rated by my boss, however I have no interest in climbing up the ladder any further or taking roles that mean travel or silly hours. They might mean more money but it's not worth the cost to my family life.

Doobigetta · 29/10/2015 22:08

Totally agree with you OP. You lot are my people!

Doobigetta · 29/10/2015 22:13

And yes, what trixymalixy said. I work hard, I do a good job and I take pride in that. But only during my contract hours while I'm being paid. The bits of my life I choose to do for free are too important to sacrifice for business.

irregularegular · 29/10/2015 22:14

Some parts of your post are almost impossible to disagree with. I can't imagine anyone thinks that we should be grateful to work 60 hours a week for crap money to just scrape by?

But I absolutely disagree that the point of work is to do the least to get the most money in order to enjoy the rest of your life. I think by far the luckiest people are those who enjoy and value what they do to earn money sufficiently that they barely think of it as work at all and it is just as important to them as any other part of their life. I'd put H and I somewhere close to that category and we'd both do at least parts of our jobs even if we were multi-millionaires.

However, I appreciate that's not true for most people

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