AIBU to not want to work that hard

[Greentomato82]

Not about SAHM / WOHM but about work generally, men and women alike, DC or no DC. Reading a lot of threads on here people often say they work mainly because they 'want' to work and that it's an important part of their identity etc. I know that some jobs are a real vocation, and obviously we all need money, but surely lots of jobs are a bit meh really and with a lottery win most of us would give it up or at least treat it as more of a hobby? I just seem to hear this more and more, lots about career building and ambition. Frankly I am not going to change the word any time soon and that suits me just fine. I want to rebel a bit and enjoy life. We generally work at least 9-5, 5 days a week for decades to pay the mortgage and bills because that's what we're supposed to do. Those at the top get richer and I can't help but feel like we're gradually being coaxed into a trap of believing our work is more important than it is to justify spending so much time there. I don't like that schools are focused on creating a 'productive' workforce of tomorrow, or that I'm viewed as a unit of productivity and the obsession with GDP. We're not ants surely? Am I the only grumpy one that wants to go off grid and hibernate from all the busy productive people. I'm not lazy but I just don't get it. AIBU?

In fact one of the most successful business owners I know came from an incredibly difficult background - foster care, abuse, poverty. He didn't have a bean to his name when he started but boy was he motivated.

oh I see Spaghetti - I thought you meant do it as the day job.

I spent most of age 20-25 agonising over that one - did I want to get home from work, which I did 6 days anyway, and do more work? I came to the conclusion I'd rather work in the boring stuff and retire early, but that's just me.

I think the idea that people who run their own businesses/work for themselves are somehow special or different is a fiction that people tell themselves to justify why they don't make the effort to do what they want to do. I get why that is - it's scary to take that chance and face the prospect of failure - but honestly people who are 'successful' are generally just ordinary people who wanted to do what they do, so they did it.

My view is that if you work it's likely to at least take up 20+ hours of the week, so in that case it absolutely must be something I'm interested in, otherwise I just can't do it, therefore it makes sense to take the effort to make that happen, even if it is a large amount of effort.

chocolate Do you realize just how rude your post is? I'm not smug that DS can eat. I'm relived. I never asked for a disabled child let alone two. It's relentless and yes money makes a huge difference to their outcomes.

Walk a mile in my shoes, come back and tell me I'm smug.

@Want2bSupermum

Oh geez... of course it must be incredibly hard to have a child with a disability. No one would disagree with that. No I was referring to the earlier post about how how well you've done financially- but I totally missed that you were saying your child is autistic as I didn't know what 'ASD' meant. I've now googled and realise. I blame mumsnetter's obsessions with acronyms but I also apologise for missing that and upsetting you.

Another thing I would add is that many people seem to equate running a business with having to be super successful, having to rake in big bucks. But it is possible to run a sustainable business that only generates a small amount of profit. If you're earning minimum wage in a dead end job, then you might as well earn minimum wage doing a job you enjoy! It doesn't matter that you're not raking in huge money, it matters that you're doing something that interests you, even if you never earn much.

"Another thing I would add is that many people seem to equate running a business with having to be super successful, having to rake in big bucks"

I only ever wanted to make my average wage over the years, but major illness and injury was one factor in my dilemma - I was lucky enough to be with employers with sick pay and when I moved on I only looked at employers with sick pay. (I accept that some people don't have that option either).

I just mention this because it was a dilemma for a long time. I'm doing some mentoring while on gardening leave and I'm surprised how many people don't think about illness etc when they think of the future.

I have sickness cover as part of my business Spring - it would be mad not to have that.

I’m with you op. I’d say I was always a hard worker and put effort into my job but I never really cared about it. It was something that paid the bills and nothing more.

I’m now a sahm to my little boy and most of my Mum friends I’ve met on mat leave are all now going back. I’m astounded by the amount of them that are desperate to go back and really miss their jobs. I’m very glad to have given it up (for a few years at least) as I’m not career focused in the slightest.

Spaghetti - it's a long time since I looked at it but when I did, it would pay an average of what you had made over a year etc. so if you had a rough year, it would pay less etc. Also what's the max cover they will give you, is it expensive?

We have life cover, which is pretty cheap, and critical illness cover, which is a bit more expensive. In the event of short term illness we have savings to cover us. You can get income protection but as you say it can be quite expensive and rather unreliable (it tends to be capped at 60% of gross income) so we didn't go for that. I'm also set up as a PAYE employee of my company so I can claim SSP.

I'm required to be at my place of work for 7 hours a day - I can do the job in around 5. So two hours of waste. Still, isn't that why we have Mumsnet?

I work 8-6 4 day’s a week for this very reason. There’s no career progression in my field so I may as well tick along!

From an employer's point of view it's incredibly wasteful and damaging to have bored, unproductive staff who see themselves going nowhere and yet so many companies don't address the problem, which IMO is really to their detriment.

Yanbu. I cannot ever see me being able to retire. I work part-time, 18 hours over 4 days but thinking of requesting over 3 days.
The thought of never retiring but working p.t is somewhat more bearable than the thought of working f.t in a dull office job and MAYBE retiring at 67 on a pie-in-the-sky pension.
I want to start on time, finish on time and go home. And get paid. That's pretty much it.
We cannot ALL love our jobs and be well paid. We don't all want to climb the greasy pole. Yet most need to work at the moment.

@Spaghettijumper

"From an employer's point of view it's incredibly wasteful and damaging to have bored, unproductive staff who see themselves going nowhere and yet so many companies don't address the problem, which IMO is really to their detriment."

hey, I really apologise if it seems like I keep commenting about your comments

I think it's very much the opposite at the moment. Company culture won't let staff just sit and do their jobs - endless targets and alleged motivational stuff. The thing is, left to myself I do my job well and you can't have a whole organisation full of rising stars - surely some stability is of benefit and people who can do their job blindfolded but just turn up for the wage are actually really useful? I feel like companies don't accept that any more and it's a great shame.

I work part time running my own business, we live in a tiny house and spend all our money on holidays.
We are ploughing our money into our mortgage so we can pay it off and my husband can go parttime too.

I totally agree - setting people pointless targets and constantly being on their case is also detrimental. In general I think people management is a weakness in an enormous amount of companies - there seems to be an inability to strike the right balance between giving people autonomy and leaving them to flounder/be bored. Micromanaging people never works, that's for sure.

It’s interesting about work culture, my dh works for a recruitment company and he says there’s been a big shift from plain financial incentives in the workplace to more life balance motivators.
So for example when my husband has been in his job for ten years they used to give them a bonus but now they give them a four week paid sabbatical.
This is because the workforce generally accept that they are going to be working longer and look for more work life balance rather than just money.

YANBU OP

I enjoy early retirement blogs and stories about people who pack up and go live in camper vans in some random outpost.

If you can, do it.

I'm currently on track to retire at 42

want2b it is possible to be smug and have a disabled child. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. But when you go into exact numbers of how well off you are, and every second sentence starts with how you laugh at this opinion and that opinion, yeah, it comes off as smug.

I agree! I'm still going to do it, I think, but I'm not happy about it.

You should all read up about universal basic income! That, coupled with part time work as the norm... I also really recommend "utopia for realists" if you want to hear the facts, figures, studies and the philosophical/moral argument for a reshuffle of the system.

One thing that pisses me off is over the past 30 years we've seen a huge increase in robot automation in all industries, even just larger access to computers has reduced workloads. It has taken jobs. Yet we're not seeing the benefits! We're working the same or even MORE hours, or pay isn't rising as it should, what should have given us the freedom to work less, see family more, have time to invest in ourselves has instead seen profits funnel off at a faster rate in higher amounts to offshore accounts

The fetishization of 'hard work' is a big fucking con

DH and I have long held this view! Its as if there's this huge marketing campaign where people work in bullshit jobs trying to persuade us we need all the STUFF so we need to work in bullshit jobs to earn more money than we need to buy stuff we don't actually need and no one (who works in marketing at least) is doing anything useful or good.

Blissfully happy to have given it all up to be a SAHM and doss about looking after my one small easy-going child. Fortunately DH does work hard enough to keep us comfy (though it helps we're not really interested in all the stuff and brands)

One thing people not to be cautious of is not putting too much value on GDP. Many leftist policies, which actually benefit us, often don't have GDP rising to the same extent but it's a bullshit number with no value in modern day society.

It gives no value to happiness, health, education, equality, domestic work, raising children, volunteering, doing Grandma's shop, taking the neighbourhood child to the park, helping an elderly man with his gutters. I know that sounds soppy, but this is the stuff that matters in society, not rising numbers on a page.

What GDP does measure, and looks great! It's buying more and more plastic or oil guzzling cars to keep up in a consumerist society, people being ill and in hospital, needing surgeries and medication, being arrested, jailed, going to court, being imprisoned, smashing bus and shop windows, vandalising property, being an alcoholic, smoking, being addicted to drugs, needing social care help, having mental health problems, crashing your car, jumping off a bridge, shoplifting, hitting someone, killing someone...

Take it with a pinch of salt when socially-damaging policies are "justified" by them brandishing around the GDP