I am going off to college next year and have decided that buisness is not my cup o tea (spelling isn’t either). I want to be a teacher or historian. I was wondering though, if you have a “real” job what do you do all day, and doesn’t working on a “team” really stink? It seems to me that if you are on a “team” your ideas belong to the head of the team (management) and you get nowhere and can’t be as creative.
thanks,
Ben
I work a desk job. I am part of a team. I am a newspaper copyeditor. Now the desk (the current desk, anyway), I won’t say a word against them. We’re good friends on the desk.
We swap the jobs around…some days I design the front and jump pages, some days I design the inside pages, some days I get lucky and all I have to do is proofread/write headlines.
So I like the job that I was hired to do…
However…
We don’t like anyone outside the desk. Mainly because we’re like the responsible older sibling who still gets held strictly to all the rules, whereas the rest of the newsroom is the spoiled younger sibling who can get away with murder by making the brass laugh.
However, we did bend the rules a bit and let a couple reporters join our Secret Club.
Right now I’d sell my scrotum to the Arabs for a desk job, or any other job. I can’t imagine the Arabs buying it though.
My most recent job was on the editorial staff of a magazine. Yes, we were a team, but our ideas were our own and were recognized as such. We were able to work to our own strengths and exchange thoughts on our various projects.
Renigademaster, I think your perception of office life has been colored by hearing too many complaints. Usually, entertainment media portray office jobs as “the rat race,” even though it’s rarely the case. The people who suffer at their desk jobs are usually incompetent, or their supervisors are incompetent and make life miserable farther down the food chain.
If you like, I can put you in touch with some teachers and former teachers, who can tell you that everything you fear about a desk job is likely to come true if you follow the education path instead. There are shitty jobs in every sector. the trick is to find one that isn’t. Actually, right now the trick is just to find one.
renigademaster, my friend you’ll find as you move through life that very, very few sources of income are truly of a Clint Eastwood nature, that very very few jobs involve making all decisions on your own, answering to noone and defining the movements of others.
That includes, my good sir, the occupations of managers (that you despise) and teachers (that you dream of).
And, sir, I very, very sincerely hope you don’t become the kind of teacher that I hated so, i.e. those who got into the profession not to share and help others grow, but to control smaller people who had no choice but to put up with their selfish insecurities.
My job didn’t start that way but has evolved over time to a point where I spend more time pushing paper than I ever thought possible.
I go back to work tomorrow and the first thing I am going to do is talk to the supervisor about what I like and dislike about my job and what we need to change to make the Feynnster happy at work, something he has not been for quite some time.
How can I stand working a desk job?
Well, I think it’s the generous compensation package.
I have a big desk, and a big chair, and sit with my feet up on my big desk, and idly pick at my nails with a big letter opener. Desk jobs are cool.
Engineering team member/project leader/independent steamer here. Technically, I don’t have a desk - I have a modular work station - but that’s a nit if you choose to pick it.
As an engineer, I do my own design work and make decisions based upon what other members of the team require: the electrical engineers need to install certain systems with the associated wiring/cooling/access requirements, and we structural engineers have stress/space/ergonomic requirements. You consider installability, maintainability, useability, modifyability (OK, some of those aren’t real words) - anyway, it’s got to be a team effort or it doesn’t work. However, when I design a structure, it’s mine, and it’s my reputation.
An added bonus of being part of a team - there are brains you can pick when you get stuck. OTOH, one team member slacking off can bring the whole effort to a grinding halt… What the hey - it’s a living!
I hope you are not under the impression that, being a teacher, you will not have to sit at a desk for hours a day, dealing with silly paperwork. Or that you won’t be working 60+ hour weeks. Or that you won’t have to work as part of a team or go to meetings.
I went through my student teaching program and it finally convinced me not to be a high school teacher. Turns out I wanted to be a teacher, not a babysitter, parent, secretary, coach, social worker, or police officer.
Movies and TV show you the part of teaching where you stand in front of a class enriching young minds and filling them with the amazing story of history. Ignoring the “enriching” part, that’s six hours a day, tops. Counting the “enriching” that’s six hours a month, tops. They don’t show you grading, having meetings, preparing classes, and all the other stuff you do for another six hours a day, plus your weekends.
How do I stand my desk job? I work less than a teacher and I get paid more. Good teachers do more important work than I do, true, but it hardly seemed worth it to me.
I love my desk job. I get paid to hang out in an air-conditioned office, play with computers, surf the net and monkey around with designs for the web. It’s kinda like kindergarden for nerds. On top of that, I’m the only person in my department and my bosses are extremely laissez faire. 
My wife is a teacher - and it aint easy. She teaches the first grade, and I can’t remember the last time she didn’t work at least 60 hours in a week.
But at least she gets the summers off right? Wrong! Her entire summer except for three weeks was spent either in pointless “Professional Development” classes, or up at the school (sans air-conditioning) moving all of her stuff from one room to another.
She’d love an office job.
Where I work now could be considered a desk job. I have a desk, but I must share it with 3 other people. It has it’s ups and downs from being a bike messenger for many many years. I make less money but I save more now that I don’t have to buy bike stuff all the time, I get paid vacations, days off etc. Right now it’s not to stressful but when september comes around I’m gonna lose my mind just about every day Wheeeeee! But it will look good on my resume. Our office is super casual, and I consider my co-workers my friends instead of workers. It ain’t all that bad.
Hey Ben,
Like others have said, teaching’s no day in the park.
All the rules apply to teaching that apply to other jobs. Granted, it may be a more noble profession, but don’t go into it because you’re trying to avoid a “real job”.
Then you’ll just be a sucky teacher.
My “desk job” involves writing/ drawing cartoons all day. And then I meet with my “team”, sit around, eat snacks and tell dirty jokes (which is actually part of the job). All for a pretty decent salary.
While teaching was more gratifying on certain levels, this job is actually much more creative and I can afford to buy groceries pretty much whenever I want to.
I love my “desk job.” I consider my whole office a “team,” although there are people that I work more closely with on some things. Still, I do a lot of work independently. And I get credit for my ideas.
You gotta figure out what your strengths are and what you like. Me, I’m someone who prefers to quietly hunker down and produce work that helps other people make good decisions. Some people would hate that they don’t get to make those decisions, lead the team, take the glory, call the press conferences, preside in meetings. I’d hate that role. I like being a good guy working in the trenches that others can count on. Someone who can do the work and get lost in the details and not worry about politics, diplomacy, or jockeying for resources. Once I figured that out and stopped trying to achieve what everyone else thought I should aim for, I got really happy.
So figure out who you are, and what you do best.
My mom is a teacher in Special Ed, and I help her often. I love helping others. I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t know what I am getting myself into.
Ben
A simple question deserves a simple answer …
I can’t. Shoot me. Shoot me now.
I never had a desk job until last year. It’s cool in the sense that there is an absolute lack of stress and excitement. This is the most relaxed I’ve been in over 15 years. The downside is that there is an absolute lack of stress and excitement, so my imagination takes over on occasion, which means practical jokes. A few years ago, I would never have considered a desk job. Those were for weenies. Now that I have one, being a weenie is pretty nice. It’s nice to not be out in the weather anymore, or travelling all the time. Of course, I put on 15 pounds right off the bat that I’m still beating into submission thanks to a cafeteria, and a habit of everyone bringing in donuts and White Castle burgers for the group constantly. It’s all relative though. Some jobs suck, some are great. Where they are usually has less to do with it than the people and type of work. If you want to be creative, look into engineering. I designed guns and bullets for ten years, among other stuff. Getting paid shoot guns and to blow stuff up isn’t a bad thing 