Is anyone else just not able to be employed for long without hating it?

[OnEdge]

I have never been able to stay working in one job for long. I just hate it so much. The people get on my nerves, i get so bored i want to gouge my own eyes out. I have tried and tried all sorts of different settings over the years.

(I now run my own business doing something I am good at and that I love).

Was chatting to my Mum about it, and she said that I am unusual, and that most people are happy to be employed. She worked as a radiographer in the same department for 35 years.

It isn't an issue of laziness, because now I am finding that friends and family keep telling me to take it easy and not work so hard etc.

I was watching a lady last night in a Pharmacy and I just thought how can she do that every day ? All shelves and white surfaces ? Doesn't she go mad???? I don't mean that in a judgemental way at all. Just wondered how others feel about it and if any one else is like me.

I find those appraisal things absolutely ridiculous too. Jumping through hoops.

Hee hee!

I have a problem with authority too. I play the game but spend most of the time fantasizing how brilliant it would all be if I were in charge!

I had a job I loved for 14 years and was happy. No two days were the same. I was the boss, which made it easier.

I get what you mean though; I had a night time job shelf filling when DS was born. I would fill the same isle every night. Sometimes I would start one end and sometimes the other, the next in the middle. Just to stop my self going mad.

This was 10 years ago and I left after three months. I know that the other ladies that started when I did are still doing it. I cannot understand how they have not been carried off to the funny farm.

Me! I have always done contract work so I could swop and change but after having DC2 I took a permanent job for 'security'. I feel like i've sold my soul to the devil and will be jumping ship as soon as i've found something else. I've tried many jobs and careers over the years and still haven't found whatever it is i'm looking for!

OnEdge yes! Me too! I always feel so removed when I have on occasion had to go into corporate type meetings. I get the feeling you do..."What if I broke all the rules" and then I get afraid that I might do something crazy for the laugh!

Me too! Thank god it's not just me.

I can't tolerate idiots & I hate being in an office all day. I can't risk going self-employed as I am a single mum.

It's got easier since one of my work-mates started mailing me the word 'mortgage' several times a day to keep me in line.

If you have a good mate at work who is the same it helps. When I worked in Theatres I had a mate and we would meet in this store room and kick empty boxes around it all aggressively and then piss ourselves laughing. I was in a junior post and she was senior, and when I would get pulled up for doing something and taught the correct way, I would see her shoulders shaking with laughter at me being patronised.

I just don't know how people can take corporateness seriously. How does everyone stop themselves from just running around screaming. I just can't go back there.

Contract work has been my friend. It stops you looking as though you just keep resigning - although I quite often don't finish the contract .

'But I stiiiiill haven's found, what I'm looking for...'

I do a bit of teaching, bit of writing, bit of research. But I earn absolute peanuts - I need to beef it all up a bit.

Me Me ME!

I hate authority unless the person above me is really inspiring and interesting, find people incredibly frustrating and for the most part bitchy and small minded and get bored easily.

I think in part it comes from my parents being miserable about work when I was growing up and putting a real downer on it so I always dreaded it.

Far more suited to doing my own thing and changing what I'm doing lots.

I am the same, can not bear the feeling of 'so this is it for the rest of my life', which apparently some people find comforting.

Also find it very difficult to be an employee and to fit into the corporate hierarchy. I can't bear authority etc and being told what to do - it's not that I want to be the one doing the telling either, I just find the whole thing repellent and ridiculous. Will do anything I can to avoid going back into that situation.

'Contract work has been my friend. It stops you looking as though you just keep resigning'

Oh, how I howled with laughter at this! This is me. At least I am not the only one

I am glad I found this thread I always thought there was something wrong with me. I was fine in education and on contract or maternity leave jobs, but as soon as I had a 'permanent' job I felt I just had to get out.

So what's the solution?

Contract? Work for yourself? Stay home and sit on the sofa eating chocolate? They're what everyone seems to say works for them.

Contracting works for me but I want to go self employed as I think I could make more money/have more control.

Any other suggestions from you lot of irresponsible slackers? :o

I worked in a BT call centre for a few weeks. It was hell.

Work for yourself so you can pick and chose, it's the only way.

I move every 2 years or so. I can't imagine staying in the same place for long, I get itchy feet. I think if you have been somewhere for 2 years you have probably mastered the job. I like that bit of a job when you are new, don't know anyone and panic slightly and think 'fuck'. When it gets easy it is dismal and I lose interest.

Never been a problem on my CV - it is pretty clear that I move every 2 years, I think employers are used to is now.

My DP suggested I do contract work - 6 - 9 month assigments. It works out as being better paid certainly. However I couldn't stand that - I like to know that I am getting paid X amount every month, I could't bear the uncertainty. I need some security.

I am very very lucky in that I love the area of work I do, am paid well, and I have just got a new job which means (hurray) I will not have to work 50-60 hours a week and be permanently blackberried up like my last job.

I think the answer is self employment, I feel in control. I always remember when I had that job in Theatres, this lady wanted to have an afternoon off to see her DD in the Nativity play. The boss said no, she was dead upset.

Fuck that ! No fucker tells me what to do like that . I hate having my life rota pinned to a notice board for the next month

Absolutely. Never done a job for more than 2 - 3 years. I get bored mostly and am restless.

Like lot of other people on here I now work at home and its a good thing.

My CV makes no sense at all though so I hope I have to go and get a proper job.

Me too. I hate playing office politics, the stupid rules, being treated like shit my people who can take it seriously etc etc etc. I am off work at the minute with stress/depression caused by this ( they sent me to occ health when I started bursting into tears!). No idea what I'm going to do next, but I know if I go back I'll get ill again. I'm an intelligent person, there must be a niche for me somewhere. I want to retrain, but can't decide what to do, I know it has to give me more autonomy than working in a prison cell office.

I was so determined to stop the insanity that I ended my Nursing career, stopped it dead and bought a burger van, parked it in a lay-by and made my money that way. My friends and family were all I was in heaven.

I then bought a pub. I was determined to live my own life.

Then I had the children and now I have returned to Nursing but I run my own business that I have built up over the past 3 years. I make all my own appointments and I really love it.

Everyone else thought I was wrong to end my career and advised me strongly NOT to buy a burger van small mobile catering unit But one day it clicked, it wasn't them that had to get up every morning in total misery and plod off to a job that they despised every second of so I thought fuck em, its the life i am living so I will decide.

When I was a student nurse, I remember hanging around hopefully waiting to be sent home at the end of the shift. Eventually one of us would pluck up the courage to ask sister if we could go, she would look up all cross and say " Is everything done, is all the paper work up to date ? OK then off you go" all resentful this would be a good 15 minutes after the end of the shift. What the FUCK was she thinking of?

Bought a burger van...

That really made me chuckle OnEdge. Good for you to break the mould. I love it when people do something break out and do something different. So many people are stuck in a rut.

Ah, I have found a home!

Am also self-employed, but before that, as I was a legal secretary, I worked mostly for agencies so I could move around, stop working when I wanted/had saved up some money, move on when the job was done, move on when the environment was shit, etc.