If you hate your job

[Redsunrise]

Can I ask what you do?

I'm a supply teacher and I love it. I did have a year's contract in a local school covering PPA (so when the class teachers had their 10% non-contact time out of the classroom I went in to teach instead). I hated it.

The children saw me as a "pretend" teacher and that wasn't addressed by SLT or any other staff members and so I found it near enough impossible to manage the challenging children's behaviour. I wasn't given any support from SLT in class either in that when I moved children up the consequence ladder to the point of sending them out of the room they were just sent back again.

I had a timetable that wasn't worth the paper it was written on: I'd spend my evenings and weekends planning and preparing for certain lessons with certain classes only to be out elsewhere at the very last minute.

I had to cover the break and lunchtime duties of any teacher I was filling in for which meant that in one week I was down to do them all until I pointed this out and refused whilst threatening to involve my union.

The whole place was badly run and the head and deputy (who were, it turned out, having an affair) had clear favourites and if you weren't one of them, like me, you were treated appallingly.

I lasted 2 and a bit terms before I was signed off with stress and anxiety and didn't return.

@WhySoSensitive

A veterinary nurse.

Bloody love the patients and most aspects of the job but clients are absolute knobs. We/vets have the highest suicide rate for a bloody reason and it’s because people are awful.

This is why I left 4 years ago. Best thing I ever did. Amazing vocation, shite job. I miss it sometimes, but through rose tinted glasses. I’ve never been held up by my throat against a wall again by clients in jobs I’ve had since leaving!

Secondary school teacher. I’ve just resigned. I’ll forever mourn the actual teaching and leaving the kids but it’s the bullshit surrounding the post that has pushed me out and the people at the top. Perhaps if they ever went back to teaching properly their decision making would improve. I’m a little bitter at the moment.

I was a trainee ODP (Operating Department Practitioner.... a bit like a theatre trained nurse but more specialised). I loved the patients, but the staff.... no, qualified ODPs ate their young. Most surgeons and anaesthetists were awful too. I ended up having a massive breakdown and being sectioned. That was years ago and I still can't function now. Met other people in hospital with the exact same story.

Paramedic. I hate it so much I sometimes feel sick going into work. But can’t afford to leave (yet, maybe/ hopefully when the kids are through uni).

The only jobs I have not liked are two jobs where my manager was a lawyer. I would never take another job with a lawyer. They seem to think they can talk to staff under them like underlings.

Mental health nurse in an acute ward. Lots of stress and responsibility for crap pay and no appreciation. Constant 'box ticking' without real support. As soon as a patient is admitted we're under pressure to get them out again because of the bed crisis, even though we know that half of them aren't well enough to leave, but there's a queue of people even more unwell waiting to take their bed so they have to go anyway. Never got paid an extra penny for working with patients with covid despite the number of staff who got ill (some of them seriously) from doing this. Long shifts. Abusive relatives and patients. Constant short staffing. Total blame culture with no appreciation that most mistakes that are made are because the staff on shift are trying to do 20 things at once. Constantly getting out late and working through breaks. Expectation to work unsociable hours, weekends and Christmas. Incompetent managers.

I'd love to get out of nursing altogether but unfortunately I feel stuck as I don't have many transferable skills. I'm hoping at least to leave for a community job in the next few months where I can manage my own diary and finish at 5pm-ish most days and cut out all the weekend working.

I’m sorry for all the people who hate their jobs. Myself I’ve had one job that made me feel suicidal mainly due to pressure and unkind colleagues. That was sixteen years ago. Now I have a great well paid job in pharmaceuticals. there’s still pressure but I thrive on it with the support of kind colleagues.

My job. One rule for some the lazy, crap ones and another rule for the ones that actually bloody work. But if the ones that actually work say anything NOTHING is done...if we put a foot wrong there’s hell to pay.. whilst the lazy crap at their job wankers laugh ar their shitness and nothing is ever said. Pisses me right off .

@RosaBudDrood

I've been thinking of primary teaching ...

What's so wrong with it nowadays?

It’s incredibly hard and stressful. My last teaching job made me ill. I’ve joyfully worked in a ‘normal’ job for a while now and love that I don’t have a sense of deep dread starting Sunday afternoon. My holidays are half what they were but actually relaxing and not spent ill/working/sleeping from total exhaustion

@XenoBitch

I was a trainee ODP (Operating Department Practitioner.... a bit like a theatre trained nurse but more specialised). I loved the patients, but the staff.... no, qualified ODPs ate their young. Most surgeons and anaesthetists were awful too. I ended up having a massive breakdown and being sectioned. That was years ago and I still can't function now. Met other people in hospital with the exact same story.

I'm an ODP. I totally agree with you. I find the gossiping and nastiness really difficult to handle. I'm nice to my students because it is a difficult course and I soon realised when I'd qualified that you get treated even worse. I'm sick and tired of being walked all over. I'm another who fantasises about being in a car accident on my way to work...

Nurse therapist.

I wouldn't hate my job if I had the resources to deliver the care my patients need and if we had anything like a complete team (rather than having a third of our positions vacant) so I wasn't having to work 4 hours+ above my contracted hours every day.

Nursing was always my passion but I feel like the stress is making me ill and my family only get the crumbs of time that are left over.

I'm an ODP. I totally agree with you. I find the gossiping and nastiness really difficult to handle. I'm nice to my students because it is a difficult course and I soon realised when I'd qualified that you get treated even worse. I'm sick and tired of being walked all over. I'm another who fantasises about being in a car accident on my way to work...

I really could not believe it. It was hammered into us to advocate for the patient etc.... but never ourselves. There were some absolute bitches I encountered on my placements. The quiet softly spoken ones were the best. I learned more from them and found them so approachable. But then I found myself crying in the loo most days, and then fantasizing about the multi story car park my car was in. That got me signed off as not fit to practice.
An A&E nurse, upon finding I was doing the ODP training, said I was "too nice" to be an ODP. I can understand that now.
Don't get me wrong, it is a fab career but you need to have a certain mindset and attitude and I had neither. Getting on with patients and passing the assignments is not enough. I hope you find your way soon. It is bloody miserable

Midwife (suffering with infertility)

That must be so tough @skyfullofstars

Legal PA in corporate law firms.

Its unbelievably tough most shifts @funnyoldonion. I used to feel lucky I had a career I enjoyed and felt passionate about, now I dread my shifts but dont have a plan B to leave yet.

Jeeeeesus wept, where do I begin....

Customer services in a banking call centre - made me suicidal with the endless targets and being berated over saying okay instead of I understand etc, eventually got sacked for having a nervous breakdown.

Customer services in a car showroom - just, shudder, seedy creepy salesmen. Ick!

Newly qualified nurse on a surgical ward - HATED it with every fibre of my being, bullied horrendously and genuinely thought about driving off a bridge whilst driving home after every shift. Left within 4 months and almost left the profession due to how bad it got... crap nurses don’t just eat their young, they torture them first based on my experiences.

111 call centre clinician - crappy staff, vile attitude to my disability, awful working conditions and approach to rotas, 3am finish followed by a 4pm start on the same day anyone!

Thankfully outside of the NHS now!

@Ginger1982 yes I know it is a generalisation and some may be lovely. But I have worked in a wide variety of places and have never had anyone speak to people in the way lawyers in both firms spoke to those who were paid a lot less. One of them I actually knew through a previous job and I had thought they were lovely. So to see how they behaved when I was an underling was shocking. And I do not think any of them thought they were doing anything wrong.

Civil service. Most days it’s like putting your head into a blender.

I had a PT job in market research when I was studying for my 1st degree. If people say they dont want to participate or just hang up, fine. You move onto the next person.

One sarcastic slob asked me why I didnt get a proper job and assumed it was lack of intelligence/qualifications. He forgot I had his phone number.

I set the fax modem on my computer to phone his number every hour on the hour all weekend. Hope he enjoyed the experience.

Thanks for your honesty @IHateCoronavirus

This thread is definitely making me think twice about pursuing teaching. Admittedly, I did already have some reservations lol ...

Thank you too @Mummytemping

I think I'll be having a slight career rethink

Nanny... I don’t hate my actual job or family I work for.

But after year of covid and nothing to do and parents working from home it’s just not the same job anymore. Sad times.