What's the biggest challenge of your job?

[AjasLipstick]

Mine is that there are long periods of time where I have nothing to do and nobody to talk to.

Also that it's in a lonely area and I get a bit freaked out sometimes. I work in an arts centre in rural Australia.

Cut backs

People!

The clients with unreasonable expectations and attitude.
The team. Whilst the majority of people just gets on with their job, why do some idiots always reverse to sulky teenagers and think they are being clever by trying to push and ignore dress code, attendance, required work. I had one who try to spend half the day in the toilets to play with his phone in there. It's embarrassing.

Controlling/wrangling 4yr olds. Having said that, it gets easier as the school year progresses, but yeah, September will bring new challenges.

The public! Mostly in that i have to babysit normally competent adults which can get quite frustrating.

Oh, and the people who think that they don't have to pay for the service they recieve and the abuse.

Biting my tongue when I'm surrounded by morons, fuckwits and ignorant bastards. And that's just the management and supervisory teams.

Another midwife. Concur with previous poster about trying to support women in early labour. Partners (birth or life) who make it all about them. Convincing some women that it is totally normal for their baby to want to feed loads and sleep in short bursts. Managers who drop new piles of paperwork on top of existing piles of paperwork with no context of why it is important. Knowing that what I do has the power to be really valuable in a families life but not feeling valued at all by the NHS and increasingly by women.

Working side by side with the colleague who I had to report for his derogatory sexual comments to me. Investigations are currently going on and he clearly knows I’ve reported him so things are hugely awkward

I'm an academic.

Research-wise: Publishing my research in high quality journals which demand huge levels of engagement with theory, which I find boring and useless. The peer review system to get into these journals is long, opaque, and massively demoralising.

Teaching-wise: Dealing with posh, privately-educated wanky students who feel entitled to epic amounts of my time and energy because they feel they (well, mummy and daddy) are paying for a service.

Like Blind Assassin says, cutbacks. In order to fit more people into our office we've had our reasonably sized desks shipped elsewhere and swapped for smaller desks.
Manager blithely stated that previous desks were larger than we actually needed - NO THEY WERE NOT - the new ones are too effing small.

Leaving or rushing things that I'd much rather be doing and forcing myself to go to work.

I work in a supermarket. The challenge is the squeeze on staff to the absolute bare minimum because profits are down, stressed out management, lack of respect from management, who treat their staff like surly teenagers.

95% of customers are fine but there is a rogue element. Notwithstanding the obvious shoplifters who can be aggressive and violent, there are the professional complainers who come in with spurious complaints every week or those who think you are dog's muck because you are a lowly shop worker.

It is also very hectic and difficult to work where you have 3 x managers instructing you to do different things and, when the shop is mobbed, it's difficult to get any of it done at all.

I am a PA and I enjoy my job a lot. I work for a very busy senior Director who is very in demand, I get about 50 meeting requests a week for him (from both him directly and others requesting his time). He oversees a lot of different projects and has been in the organisation for 15 years, so he’s often asked for his expertise and to sit in on various boards/meetings etc.

The reality is he can’t see everyone as he's only in the office 9-6 5 days a week, and also, doesn’t want to see everyone! If he’s not interested he won’t waste his time and will refuse to meet with them just because he can’t lose the diary time. A good chunk of the requests don’t really ‘need’ him, but want to get him on board to accelerate their projects/further their careers.

So it’s my job to essentially be the messenger and soften their rejection. It can be really tough as some people are very persistent and insist they need to see him. I basically have to say thanks but no thanks but politely and constructively. It can be a lot of emotional labour at times.

Being yelled at by patient's for things that aren't our fault (like national stock shortages or the GP not issuing a prescription they ordered). Most of our customers are lovely, but I've been yelled at and verbally abused almost every day since I started working in pharmacy. Staying calm, polite, and professional is a challenge some days!

I suppose the other big challenge is seeing our elderly patients declining. It's particularly difficult when they have no family willing/able to help them. We do our best to make sure at least their medications are coming to them when they should, and checking that they know how/when/why they're taking them, but there's only so much we can do.

Travelling. I travel 6 hours there, 6 hours back when I work abroad. I am not paid for this and it irritates the hell out of me!

I'm self employed, so their attitude is 'take it or leave it'.

My clients' diary management. (I'm a personal trainer.) So many people think the PT can be picked up and dropped at zero notice. I sell prepaid packages and insist on firmly fixed session times to minimise the amount of dicking around, but I still get it.

Oh, and ultra-competitive guys who think because they're men and I am too we have to get into some kind of homoerotic pissing contest over whose biceps are bigger. Just stop boasting and start burpee-ing, 'mate'.

It's very boring and I sometimes think that the time has stood still and that I might die before the end of the day through sheer mind-numbing lethargy.

Other than that, great!

Having to perform as if we are a big fish in a big pond, with the resources of a minnow.

Sometimes the challenge is exciting, but colleagues demand Hollywood extravangazas without any appreciation of the fact our competitors also have Hollywood budgets and staffing levels.

Breaking bad news or refusing someone surgery that they desperately want but isn’t right for them/won’t solve their issues. Getting yelled at for waiting times as if I am directly responsible for it and could, if I wanted to, just do it the next day.

Trying to get a (minority) of juniors to actually do their damn job, especially the mundane stuff that’s actually essential.

Work in a supermarket. General public who don't realise that we have no control over the opening hours/what we stock/prices/THE LAW and then complain more if we offer the customer service phone number.

"I know it's not your fault but..."

Getting patients to turn up to appointments

Biting my tongue when I'm surrounded by morons, fuckwits and ignorant bastards. And that's just the management and supervisory teams.

This sums up my job challenge perfectly

The temptation to scream at a customer 'are you fucking shitting me!' Instead I tend to go with 'okay'.

I'm genuinely astounded at how some people act/behave.

Finance system that doesn't work properly, is much worse than the old version and that we never got training for. And all the angry consultants who blame me for it because I'm their main contact for finance. NHS.

ESL teacher. The weird hours and travelling around is the worst part. Some of the kids can be really badly behaved as well, but I think it's the hours and travelling I find hardest.

My colleagues!