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.

lol at the burger van - I love that.

I have just moved on after 10 months in a job. I loathed it - it was nonsense. I worked with people who had worked there for over 30 years. Why would people do that, I don't understand how they don't get bored with the same job and the same old people.

I also am not the type of person to socialise with work colleagues or make friends at work. I see enought of them all day, the last thing I want to do is go out drinkingt with them in my free time, talking about office politics. Screw that.

chupachups In my new middle class life I was chatting with friends and referred to my burger van, it went quiet, I looked up and they were all sat opened mouthed I said "didn't I tell you I used to have a burger van?" They howled, and still find it very amusing to ask me questions about it which i patiently answer for their entertainment.

My DP is the same, he is luckily self employed so can do what he wants. He has never worked in the same place for more than 6 months - he couldn't stand the thought.

I get itchy feet with houses as well. I like moving.

That's why I loved agency work, GetOrf. I could ust stay completely out of office politics, just get on with the work, get paid, then leave.

Some of the gigs were rather long - 9-12 months, or I'd do a gig in one department in a firm and be moved to another.

But if it were a bitchy firm I could just tell the agency to get another person in at the end of the month.

ChupaChup - I just think the burger van is fantastic and hd a big at the thought of your middle class friends looking mortifed and asking you about it. Life is about taking risks and enjoying new experiences.

GOML - we have the moving house bug too. In the last 11 years we have lived in 9 different houses - sometimes 2 at a time.

DW told someone the other day that we had never ever painted or decorated our house but just move to a new one when we get tired of the paintwork.

The person looked gobsmacked but its true.

OnEdge - that is inspirational.

I've had 'proper jobs' that other people thought must be great but I came (quickly) to loathe. I moved around a lot. 20 changes of address in 20 years (including several overseas).

I once had a job for 2.5 years. That was really tough. I spent 2.25 years digging my escape tunnel.

I do make friends at work and go drinking with them - but that's really ALL I want from a 'normal' job and all I miss. Oh yes, and the money....

We have grounded ourselves for dd and it is driving us both nuts. We keep hatching new escape plans. Then we look at dd pottering about with her village chums and feel irresponsible.

I came close to getting another office job recently. After the interview I told dh I would rather get divorced and withdrew my application.

I probably am immature and irresponsible. I'm also getting on for 50 so I think I'm not going to change now. Sometimes when I'm around people my age I think - how did you get to be so.... old mature???

Acinonyx - "..we look at dd pottering about with her village chums and feel irresponsible".

Yes just the same with me and DW. We keep saying that DSs need stability so we must stop moving about.

We are 47/48 and totally get the same question when looking at our friends "how did you get to be so.... old mature???"

a burger van is soo not [courgette]

Ah BeenBeta. To move or not to move, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to get a one way ticket to India or live forever in an English village.

We have regular conversations about this. If only I had a crystal ball and could no whether moving would overall be a positive or negative experience for dd.

'know' even

I think life is a game of role play and when you refuse to pretend, people are uneasy. I used to live my life in a way that i thought i ought to. When I turned 40 I clicked that its my life and as long as I don't upset anyone else and my family is sorted I can live it how I choose. Sometimes I sit up until 00.30 googling celebs and eating mayonnaise sarnies with no pants on - fuck em !

Many of my friends are trying really hard to fit in, or actually no , they don't try hard, they just do it because that is what they think is expected of them.

Its like holidays, I realised that I just don't enjoy them, never have. Always a disappointment. So now I just go to a caravan site 40 minutes away from my house to let the kids run wild on the beach.

Also I have finally realised to have realistic expectations. That helps.

Oh, me too!!! Couldn't resist resurrecting this thread, so glad I'm not alone. I am five weeks into my new job and hating it. Will probably be resigning next week as the thought of lasting even another 2 weeks brings me out in a cold sweat. Inflexible hours, patronising boss... It's the having to be there every day to provide the ad-hoc support/cover that really gets my goat. What's that all about - why can't whoever's there just answer the phone???? My boss only get 2 phone calls a day, one of which is from his wife (who never introduced herself, I was expected to know who she was..) yet I'm expected to be on standby.

The longest I've been in any job is 3 years, but that was only bearable because I effectively had 3 completely different jobs in the same company during that time before being made redundant (secretly thrilled at that).

Will be temping / looking at self-employment next.

Acinonyx and BeenBeta - I've also lived in ten different places in ten years plus a couple of short overseas jobs. I have really itchy feet and i'm desperate to move out of the area but as DD is now at school I think this would be really irresponsible. Glad it's not just me!!

I spend far too much time looking at jobsites, Rightmove and travel sites, just dreaming.

Have also graduated twice but thinking about going back to uni to do something else. I just seem to enjoy learning new things, trying new experiences then I get bored and restless.

That's it with us too. Trying new experiences. Me and DW have a 7 year cycle where we deliberately renew oursleves. Its part of our life plan.

A few years ago we threw out all our clothes, most of our belongings and moved to a new town we had no connection to. Just for the experience.

We both have graduated 3 times as well.

Oh God I am like this. I have never been unemployed and I am in no way lazy but I get bored by going into the same office with the same people doing the same things over and over and bloody over. The shortest time I have had a job was four months and the longest was four years. I only lasted that long because I was at university distance learning post grad diploma in law/LPC and the job was well paid for little work with flexible hours and generous holiday/flexi holiday allowances. I left after having DS and was lucky enough to find a training contract quickly.

I also find corporate life hilarious and can only survive at work by having a master plan to take me forward. My previous master plan was to get qualified which carried me through the last six years of work, and I've now been qualified for a year and need a new master plan. I think ultimately I will either go to the bar (self employment) or go down the deputy district judge route towards the judiciary. I cannot stay in private practice for the next thirty years unless I make equity, and I can't see that happening at my current firm. They have more equity partners called Kevin than women.

I blame my parents for my itchy feet - we moved every eighteen months until I was ten years old. They did the same jobs throughout - police officer and nurse - but kept moving to get dad promoted. I've lived in this house with DH longer than I've ever lived in any house in my lifetime - by about three times. No wonder I get itchy.

Georgimama - "They have more equity partners called Kevin than women."

I know its a serious issue but that made me .

My mother moved around like you did when she was young but it made her very insecure and she craved stability. Me and DW both lived in one place all of our childhood's but have moved around so much in our adult life. Odd how it affects people in different ways.

DW and I have seriously discussed at length having no house at all but just moving from place to place on the planet, renting houses and only having an internet connection to keep us in touch with friends and relatives.

I've never been happy for long in any job and my DH insists that I just don't like working

I'm a teacher though and I suspect it was not really the right career for me. Six months into a new school and I realise it's just the same as the last one. Have stayed in one school for four years though.

Had other jobs when DC was smaller, trying to reduce the ridiculous hours in primary teaching - been a learning mentor, a youth worker and worked doing odds and sods for a charity. Disliked them all.

Think I am really meant to be a rich man's wife

Strand: 'I've never been happy for long in any job and my DH insists that I just don't like working' my dh would agree with this!

Another multiple graduate here. If only they'd pay me to do some more but alas I have exhausted my options there.

Beenbeta - I liked renting and moving. Owning a house is like pouring cement over your own feet.

My parents never moved. I'm worried that there is something basically peculiar, perhaps damaged, and unstable that drives me to keep moving and have an excessive need for novelty - and that if I make dd live that life she will develop this instability too when otherwise she could be a 'normal' happy person. Then again - she is our dd - how can she not like moving?

chocci: 'I spend far too much time looking at jobsites, Rightmove and travel sites, just dreaming.' If only I could get paid for sceming and daydreaming.

It's made my day to know I'm not the only one.

Acinoyx - yes we rent too and have done so for 25 years. It has been a great advantage to us at times just to be able to move at short notice.

I only lived in two houses during my childhood, about a mile apart, so don't know how it started.

Maybe I should start a removal company as Im great at packing!

I do have a mortgage but rent that place out, so i'm not restricted in my moving. (Dream of using this house as a way to fund a Camper Van)

I have also never been out of work. I work hard at whatever job I do so get decent references and its never been a problem.

I get fed up seeing the same faces everywhere I go.

(nips off to ring student loans to see if they will finance yet another course)

But was it a nice burger van?

Like Tom has on the Archers?

Or perhaps an organic vegetarian van that appears at upmarket festivals only?

It's really lovely to see lots of other people that have the same mind-set.
I think about my CV, and the longest I've been in the same job was 3 years, but that was while I was at college, too, so I had the variety there!
And in that job, I switched jobs and departments about 4 times, i think.

In my last job before I went into bookselling, I was so miserable that I used to shout and swear at my desk.
The number of times I stormed off was ridiculous - I hated it.
I used to go for a walk around the campus at lunchtimes (luckily it was in a beautiful part of the countryside with massive grounds), and I'd vary where I walked and where I ate my lunch every day.
It really was hell.

I then went into bookselling, which is a perfect job, but gets tedious after a while. You know, again, it's not the job with bookselling, it's the tedium of having to do what someone else tells you - like, you have to do reports every week to change the table displays; you have to change offer campagins all the bloody time; you're not allowed to go on the internet, because you might be doing something not work-related.
You have to all this stuff to fill time in because they're paying you to do a job - you can't do short hours, because you're always needed to cover the shop floor (that's another thing, you could never escape into a backoffice to make some POS or do something in peace).

So, now I'm self-employed. I am dictated to by the public, ie I can't take days of whenever I want (in fact I work 6 days a week). But apart from sitting here in the shop all the time , I can do what I want.
If there are no customers, I can sit on MN, I can make videos with Power Director, I can read, I can look at magazines, I can play Tetris on a Gameboy, I can make fun displays (that I choose, not Head Office based on sales), I spent a couple of months making a "Make your own mediaeval castle", I can crochet.
Okay, it's tough at the moment, and I'm not making any money (please God the day when I make some money!!!), but I love it.