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

[JeffsanArsehole]

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.

I strongly believe that you should give your absolute best in the hours you get paid for.

I strongly disagree and find despicable the behaviour of employees that skive and do as little as possible even though they are getting paid.

However, I get enraged by the trend for certain employers to expect employees to wirk unpaid hours or 'internships'.

I have worked in hard manual jobs and hugh skill ultra high paid professional jobs and my rule is the employer pays the agreed rate per hour and I work hard in the hours I am paid for.

Thats the deal. A lot of employers and employees are taking the mick.

Of course they need to be adequately trained and experienced,

That's exactly my point: one surgeon who did 8 hours a week would not be as experienced as another who did 40 hours a week, even if they had the same training. In addition, practice is extremely important to ensure the requisite dexterity and accuracy is maintained. Skills that are not practised decay, knowledge that is not used becomes clouded or is lost.

Further to that, medicine advances at a great rate and techniques used 20 (perhaps even 10) years ago could well be obsolete. Keeping up with the latest technologies, techniques and practices is imperative.

Not all doctors who work full time are going to be exhausted and begrudge being there, that's a false dichotomy.

Those of you who insist that 'hard work' is the only way to achieve any kind of success (or be deemed worthy of having a decent, secure home and enough to eat) how the fuck do you account for the millions of people working two or three jobs, 60 hours a week, who have been doing so for years and yet are still struggling to survive?
I'm not disagreeing with the idea that some people who now earn a good salary have worked hard and continue to do so but hard work alone is not enough. You need luck. You need to be connected, or have a family who can support you either financially or with childcare, or who were able to boost your education by being available to afford lots of books for you, help you with your homework (rather than, themselves, working 60 hours a week in shitty exhausting jobs just to keep you fed.) You need to have maintained decent physical and mental health for most of your life. If you formed a relationship and had children with someone else, you need that person to maintain good physical and mental health, as well, and for the children to do the same.

Most of all, if the only thing you have to offer is a willingness to 'work hard', you need to be exercising that willingness in an economic and political climate that is not focussed on widening the gap between rich and poor further and further every year.

SGB, unfortunately hard work doesn't always bring success, but most people who have success have worked hard at least at some point in their career. I absolutely agree that some people get a leg up meaning that they don't need to work so hard to get the initial opportunities but they do need to pull their weight once in, if they're to succeed.

As far as OP is concerned, it's true that it's best not to devote your life only to work, but there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had from working hard at the things you "have" to do. You won't be any happier doing an average job and doing a really good one does bring it's rewards, even if not always financial.

Agree with WMittens

Not all jobs are equal. Those that allow you to cruise along and choose your hours probably come with less responsibility, skill or continuing education. Other jobs require superhuman commitment to do well.

SGB, do you not think that by stressing so repeatedly the need for people to be "connected", or that their family when they were younger had decent finances, you are completely taking away the possibility of anyone achieving anything for themselves?

I would never deny that coming from a wealthy family who have the funds to pay for private education, tutoring or university can be a significant factor, nor that having family connections who can assist someone with an internship or an interview, are sometimes highly relevant.

But the way you write it's as if no one, ever, managed to study and work hard by themselves and achieve success. Which is clearly not true.

Yes I agree I guess a little bit of luck is helpful...

I don't remember extra books my parents buying me anything special as there wasn't much money...just used libraries a lot. Lots of encouragement from parents and I went to a state school managed to get very good GCSEs I think like 9 A*s and 2 As got 4 Alevels all As in maths, mechanics Chem and Bio... I'll admit I did use my education maintenance allowance that was available then for an extra tutor in maths once a week.

But I tried twice to get into med school...

To do Ophth it is particularly difficut but again I had to do lots of extra activities to like audits, publications, posters at meetings presentations and exams. I spent extra time learning how to use different instruments.

I think people who work hard doing 2-3 jobs probably work the hardest but still get low pay but you have to look at the job are you skilled enough to command a higher wage this is not exclusive to my profession there are highly skilled nurses orthoptists optometrist pharmacists who can all earn a decent secure wage

I have to stress it's not always about finance this morning I saw 4 post op patients so pleased by the result of their surgery. That is really the biggest reward I can get its so satisfying to get that thank you from a patient

Now back to revision this is my afternoon off but I'm spending it revising and in mumsnet!

I disagree with a lot of that:

Those of you who insist that 'hard work' is the only way to achieve any kind of success (or be deemed worthy of having a decent, secure home and enough to eat) how the fuck do you account for the millions of people working two or three jobs, 60 hours a week, who have been doing so for years and yet are still struggling to survive?

Even if it's the only way to achieve success, it doesn't automatically follow that it's a guarantee of success. Logical fallacy.

hard work alone is not enough.

I don't disagree - I never asserted that it was.

You need luck. You need to be connected,

Neither are a prerequisite. Useful, undeniably, but not required. Luck is a funny thing: often those successful entrepreneurs with one "lucky" business had 20, 40 or 100 "unlucky" businesses. You create (or manipulate) your luck by creating opportunities. Someone who takes 1000 chances is more likely to hit the winning formula than someone who only takes 5 chances and gives up.

or who were able to boost your education by being available to afford lots of books for you,

Again, not a requirement:
"Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student,"
"[Duncan Bannatyne] only enjoyed PE and woodwork at the High School and left at 15 without any qualifications."
"After leaving school at 16,[15] [Alan Sugar] worked briefly for the civil service as a statistician at the Ministry of Education. He started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van which he had bought with his savings of £50.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of those usual examples of success really started with nothing. They might not have done brilliantly at school but they didn't come from poor or unsupportive families.

Richard Branson certainly had a pretty privileged upbringing, father a barrister and grandfather the right hon. something or other. He went to a variety of public schools and struggled with dyslexia but he still had something of a silver spoon.

Bannatyne passed the 11+ and went to Grammar School so can't have been that bad at school and had privileges not available to most today.

DH would work for free i think. He does way above and beyond because he loves it. He volunteers doing his job at weekends and evenings. Before i met him i thought everyone hated working and just did the bare minimum of hours (not effort) to pay the bills. He is very lucky. He does well and works hard yes, but only because my presence allows this. He is also very lucky i hated working so much that i have never had any job that didn't make me cry in the cupboard/on the train regularly. this means i had no job to 'go back to' allowing him to work harder and harder (for free often).

I really wish i'd had a job i loved, or even liked just a little bit. But as i have said on MN before (usually when people go on in a very MC way about women continuing their 'careers' or going back to work to break even/at a loss because they will be progressing and get to be some high flyer soon and it will all pay off when they are CEO ), most people i know (grew up with) don't have careers, they have jobs, jobs they hate. Jobs with no progression. Jobs which pay NMW.

Bannatyne passed the 11+ and went to Grammar School so can't have been that bad at school

It didn't do him any good if he left with no qualifications! I don't know about "privileged": "As a child Duncan lived in one room with his parents and siblings in a large house shared with 6 other families."

The point I was contesting was "boost your education" - a good education is not a guarantee of success, nor the lack of one a mark of someone who will not (or cannot) become successful.

Going to back to that post, "afford lots of books" - with the wondrousness of the modern digital age, there is a wealth of learning material available for free at our fingertips. It takes enthusiasm for a subject to actively seek out and absorb and digest that material though (above and beyond what is provided in education).

I would have to agree people on that level of wealth possibly did have some cash injection or help along the way

My example is success through education and I think this is available to most people if they want in this country where education is "free" at least at the point of service but yes there are student loans

now take my country in Africa you really do need money to pay your way through school let alone med school no such thing as student loan!

I think also you would have to be careful about what education path you choose single honours degrees at uni does not equal paid employment afterwards... Now because my friend is retraining as a teacher luckily she'll get a grant

No, I don't think passing exams is a guarantee of success either. I do think coming from the sort of family that will support you taking, let alone passing the 11+ and then going to the Grammar school makes a big difference though. Not all advantages are financial.

Saying people haven't had advantages because they didn't pass lots of exams is daft. RB's expensive education might not have got him any/many qualifications but it will have equipped him with all sort of other things disadvantaged people don't get.

Saying people haven't had advantages because they didn't pass lots of exams is daft.

I'm not saying that

Hear hear.

We are working more and more and becoming more and more stressed.

We have completely the wrong balance. We are working all hours and enjoying nothing. Weekends are spent hoovering and washing up. Even though we have more appliances it's still all too much.

Do we expect too much? Seems like everyone hates their job, no matter what they do.

Can we honestly expect people to love their jobs? Really? It's work!

Where did it all go wrong?

Another thing many of you are missing is that 30 years ago, if you were academically clever but poor, the government paid YOU to get a degree. And if you were poor-but-clever and needed books you couldn't afford to buy, there was a library with regular opening hours, reasonably near your house.

And if you were claiming unemployment benefits, you could actually spend your time doing an OU course/doing voluntary work/writing a novel/forming a band/designing your own jewellery and flogging it round markets without being constantly bullied and harassed and punished - there was enough of a safety net to allow people with fewer financial advantages to improve themselves.

All this 'do the job you love' guff applies nowadays only to the comfortably-off. The poor are expected to stay in shitty no-future jobs all their lives because there is no room or time allowed for them to develop themselves.

I partially agree. I wouldn't say do the least because that could mean do a shoddy job to some, so I'd put it as work efficiently.

Ideally work would be both fulfilling and financially rewarding but I've never had a paid job I loved! I have done voluntary work that has been very fulfilling and meaningful to me.

YANBU.

The culture of long hours, presenteeism, unpaid overtime and constantly being at the beck and call of employers has crept up on us in the UK. It has now become the norm. It has not created more efficiency - we work the longest hours in Europe yet are one of the least productive nations. It has simply created stressful working conditions.

I agree with previous posters saying young people are now entering work cultures where they are expected to work gruelling hours - in some professions, for free (I'm thinking unpaid internships) - without any guarantees of job security. Oftentimes, only those from moneyed backgrounds can 'break in' to industries, such as the media and even academia, that demand these unpaid intern years.

The meritocracy has long gone. Social mobility has ground to a halt. A report published today said today's young people have the worst economic prospects in generations.

And yet we're all supposed to work like automons, never complain but rather be upbeat and 'passionate' about our jobs, however crappy, and work extra hours because we should be grateful' that we even have a job.

I love my job so I don't just work to live but I don't live to work either IYSWIM. My job is great but so is my time off when I do the hobbies that I also love, my family share my hobbies so it's win, win, win as far as I am concerned.

I've had a reasonably-paid job that I hated and a badly-paid job that I liked. I was much happier in the badly paid job when I was at work, but lack of money was pretty stressful.

It's swings and roundabouts really. The area I work in is not very well paid in general so I have resigned myself to being poor. A reasonable level of job satisfaction plus enough money to pay the bills and go to Nando's sometimes will have to do

Dunno. I think we live to work. DH is a workaholic and even if he worked on the bins, he would have the most immaculate bin run going. I don't have to work but do because it gives me something purposeful. Neither of us ever gave anything our all for the money.

I think someone quite famous once said that nobody would ever be hugely successful doing something they didn't love. I hope someone will come along with the name.

DH doesn't have to work anymore. I don't think he will ever give it up. He came from a very deprived area, went to the grammar school the year it became a comprehensive, was persistently told by his parents that people like them should expect nothing. I will work for as long as I possibly can because I like going to work. I have absolutely no need to work except for normality and being part of the "real world".

Yadefonbu I'm a total work to live kind of girl. The more I think about it, I find it really odd that this is IT - this is my only shot at life and im spending it sat at a desk all day, boring my arse off working instead of doing stuff like exploring the world, having fun, chilling out and being happy. It's weird that this is what society has decided that working is what people are meant to do. And weird that you need money to live. And weird also, that you can't just walk off in to the woods and find a bit of land you like, claim it as your own and build a little house there and live a quiet little existence, because all the land in the whole world is apparently 'owned' by someone - whether that's a council or privately or whatever. It's the world, it belongs to everyone.

YADNBU.

Brilliant post from Mama. And I think technology has blurred the lines between work and home to a ridiculous degree now and caused a lot of damage to some employee's mental health and the quality of their family time.

A manager at my work has been emailing her team whilst she's on holiday overseas this week with her family, despite there being no need for it. I like to do what I'm paid to do and leave it all behind me to get on with other parts of life that make me happy. Maybe I won't ever reach management level and own a big house but we all have our priorities and you can't have everything.

YABU as you are implying that work can't be a rewarding part of life in itself, rather than just being a means to an end.... You're writing off most of the time we spend conscious!

However, that's not to say I don't think work-life balance is very important.... It's always tragic when you see some millionaire guy who apparently has it all say that they missed their children growing up because they were so busy working ironically sometimes adding that they worked so hard for the benefit of their children, not realising that a dad that is a part of a child's life is something far more valuable than anything money can buy!