Is it possible to be happy in a job?

[Changednamealready]

I work in a job whereby I feel the need (not obliged but work with safeguarding issues) to look at emails during my holiday and lay awake at night worrying about work.

I am sure lots of this is down to resilience and being a highly sensitive person. Am curious though, is anyone really happy in their work, waking each morning thinking yepee then leaving it behind at the end of the day?

I work in a school boarding house. The nature of my job means I do have to check emails in my time off and holidays, and I do lie awake stressing about things!

However, I love it. There are difficult aspects of it, and days where I worry and struggle with the minutiae. But 90% of the time I actively enjoy working, and whilst I don't leap out of bed thinking yippeeee, I am happy to do it and feel fulfilled.

Interesting replies. I do enjoy some elements of work but I find it very hard with juggling having a child and switching off. I sometimes think working part time is more challenging. Although I’m fortunate that during school hours for a day in the week I get time to myself to de stress.

Part of it is personality I’m sure, I have quite a “responsible” job too. Just being such a sensitive soul I take things to heart and am such a worrier. My husband says I can be very hard to live with and worry more about him than work and he’s the chief earner and works full time.

I wish I was more resilient. When I get a rude email I take it to heart. I have had yipeee moments in my life, rarely with work 😂 I do find my Sunday’s are ruined by dread for Monday.

Mind you, I was forced to go into a carpet shop, it was hot and the air was dry and I thought I would hate to work here how on Earth do they do it.... so it could be worse (that’s no offence to carpet shop workers by the way! You have my respect. I just don’t have the skills for that role).

When I was younger pre children I worked Near Liverpool Street and I did enjoy the social life that came with work. I didn’t dread it. I thi no I didn’t take work so seriously. When at uni I did a summer job in London as a receptionist can absolutely loved it but maybe that was the lack of responsibility.

I love my job. I feel happy in it and pleased I have good colleagues.

There are parts that frustrate me such as the commute and aspects of management, how the team is. But I love my job 😊

Yes me, I project manage affordable homes delivery and I love. Interesting, work with good people and feel like I'm doing some good.

I love my job. I do accounts. When I go home and all the the VAT is done, control accounts reconciled and I've finished the management accounts, it makes me happy.

Does depend on your personality.
To me, a 'responsible job' would correlate to 'interesting job'.

there are lots of jobs without much stress, that you don't think about for a second outside of work hours, but, overwhelmingly, they are mind-bogglingly boring.
Now, at some time in your life, that can be helpful, but, for me the idea of spending 45-50 years of my life spending most of my day being bored, would be a nightmare. There are lts of people, OTOH, who are quite happy to 'go in, do the job, walk away each day' without having to hold any responsibility or make important decision.
I like the fact that I know the way I do my job makes a difference to people's lives. With that, comes responsibility, and a certain level of stress.

What do you do OP?

My work has a more responsibility now than it did when my kids were little, when I needed it to be easy and not to think about it much. I was working several paybands lower than I could have and saw it as a bit of a career break. I enjoy that my job now uses my brain a lot more and that I am back to where I should be. I wouldn't want to go back to no responsibility.

However I work in an area where things can be left until I am back in - it's expected and people shoo me out of the door at 5pm! I would find not being able to stop thinking about work oppressive and the fact that you dread Mondays is a bad sign. I have felt that was about work - it's not nice. I don't ever feel like that now but it took a few job moves to figure it out.

I'm happy in my job.

But I'm self employed and can set my own days and hours. Plus I work on my own so I don't have any annoying co-workers to deal with

I wasn't happy in my last job, though, which is why I quit. Life is way too short to stay somewhere where you're unhappy.

I absolutely love my job

I loved my job, unfortunately I had to leave when I had DC as I couldn't afford the commute or childcare for the time it would take to travel and work a full day! It gave me hope though, it was the only job I've had where I really researched the company, including their overseas offices to really see what their ethos was, and whether news over time had backed these up. I also asked at interview if there would be an expectation to work from home, they said nope, only to take a laptop if working from home for the day, and left at work otherwise.

Oh no you poor thing. Reading that message makes me feel sad.

I don't think anyone should feel like that. That kind of stress is not good for you.

I can relate somewhat to your feelings as about 4 years ago, I found myself a single parent.

I'd been fortunate enough to work for myself when I was married and my kids were little, but suddenly found that I needed to get a full time job in order to get a mortgage.

My kids were 7 and 5 then and the only way I could manage was to drop them off at breakfast club at 8am and then pick them up at 6pm.

I was exhausted all the time and just couldn't see a way out. I just wanted to be there for them.

The worst thing was that it was so busy and noisy in the office. It got to the point where I dreaded going in. It felt like being in prison.

Then I had an accident, which meant I had to work from home. I decided I had to make some serious changes, so started looking for ways to make money online. I was already a sales coach, so I quit my job and went freelance at that and started selling on Amazon.

That was 4 years ago. It's been an interesting few years, but I've never looked back.

I'm now on a mission to help other women who feel trapped like I did.

I believe it is possible to live a life of joy and doing work that you enjoy is central to that.

I know it's tough, because people don't always know what the options are, but it is possible to find work that you love.

If you want to chat more, let me know.

Good luck x

Hi,

Thank you for sharing folks and some lovely support which is timely.

I just find it very hard to keep up and have a real lack of resilience at work when people are upset or angry for whatever reason. I’m a highly sensitive person unfortunately. Interestingly, I find noise of the place I work distracting. I don’t know how people can work with headphones in.

I had a tearful day today. I think I’m finding my role challenging. I have a degree and am qualified and my husband has been made redundant. The pressure is now on and I feel at a loss as I can’t just give up, he now wants me to step up, the thought of spending more time there is a burden.

I mean over 40 how do you know what you’ll be good at? I deal with people in stressful situations.

I just wondered how people choose their careers or find an environment that they click with. I’m aware we all have stressful and going to work shouldn’t be like going to a spa!