I used to be really anal about the job I do…but I realized that no one else around me had the same work aspirations. Now I am just a working cog; sometimes I do good work and sometimes I do the bare minimum needed. It’s too bad in some ways cause I like achieve excellence in all I do. But I was making no friends and I felt like I was banging my head into a wall. Life is too short to be married to your job imho.
I am currently seeing a therapist to make sure I don’t do the same behvior as in the OP AGAIN. And, I’ve tried to have my own business - twice. With low self-esteem, it is a bad idea. I did seasonal work for 20 years just so I could get out of a place after 6 months, but with this economy, it is too dangerous. So, once a month I see a lady who lets me vent like crazy and gives me some strategies for coping for another month.
I’ve been at this place, and indoors, for over a year now - I think it is time to celebrate!
Hate your job? There’s a support group for that.
It’s called Everyone and it meets at the bar.
I have a 40 y.o. cousin who is EXACTLY the same way. She only lasts about 6 months at a job before she’s fired.
In the beginning everything is wonderful. She loves her job, loves her boss, etc. Two months later she’s neutral about her job; it’s “O.K.,” but it could be “better.” In another two months she will say things like, “My boss is a moron, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, etc.” She’s fired within another two months.
This has been going on for decades.
She *never *takes responsibility for being fired. It is *never *her fault; according to her, it is ALWAYS the fault of her “stupid” boss. :dubious:
One of the things I’ve learned is that you have to have a “service attitude” when working at a job. You are there to make someone happy. Figure out WHO you have to make happy - whether it be your boss, customers, or other - and make them happy.
I had a girlfriend just like about 7 years ago who was a not so young new doctor who managed to alienate just about the entire staff of every place she worked with her insistence that they do things to the specs of what she had been recently taught in her residency. There’s a very fine line between being a demanding ethical perfectionist who also collects grudges, and a self sabotaging PITA. Highly intelligent woman but didn’t ever grasp the concept that she just needed to let some stuff go.
I’m sorry but the OP just sounds like an entitled brat that needs to grow up and live in the real world. Plenty of people have jobs they hate, but they suck it up and do them anyway. when you have a mortgage and kids to feed one often does not have the luxury of being an asshole in the workplace and getting fired.If you can line up another job first fine. If not quit complaining and do your job.
The OP’s career path in nearly identical to mine. With the exception of ONE guy, I’ve always worked for and with complete idiots. It really drags you down.
So, after the last job I burned thru, I decided to stop looking for work. Been “retired” ever since. Live off a small investment income (regular as gooseshit, economy be damded!), have no debt. I get to ski when it snows, ride motorcycles when it doesn’t, spend all day with my kid, cook fantastic meals, brew beer, watch college football, whatever I want… and I don’t have to put up with a bunch of Numb-nuts anymore.
I realize few can manage this. Sacrafices are made, but the quality of life is high. No work is good work if you can pull it off.
People like to bandy about phrases like “we give 110%” to show how hardworking they are, but here’s the thing: if you are actually giving your job more than 100% effort, e.g. working 20 hours a week overtime, both your job performance and your health will begin to suffer before long. By all means, if you want to know what being burned out feels like, keep up the excess work.
- sturmhauke, who once gave 210% and then got bronchitis
I am in this boat as well. When I showed up for the interview, my (future) boss looked at my resume and said “You’re overqualified.” I bs’d my way through it and got the job. (I was at the time unemployed for 11 months.)
Here I am, 4 years later, and I hate my job. I found out rather quickly that the reason the boss was reading my resume **after **I walked in the door was that he does everything at the last possible minute. No prior planning, no prep, nothing. We do a lot of work on the fly. I hate it. I want to find a new job but doing so on the sly in this economy just scares the hell out of me. Besides, these guys pay me pretty well, so I guess I just have to suck it up.
Two jobs ago, I thought it was the best. Office manager for a real estate firm and the coolest boss (albeit still a moron), great hours, bennies from company and sales team. (One time, I went through a very costly breakup with psycho gf). Lost lots of $$$ to the point I had contacted HR to see if I could borrow against my 401K plan. The word got around and we held an office party (Our office did this a few times a year, just because). The entire office donated a bit here and there and for no reason other than they wanted to help me they raised over $700 and just gave it to me.
I’m a grown man, but after all that I had just been through, I could have cried about what great folks these were to work for. Believe me, the bitching about my job went waaaay down and I started staying late without overtime to help out the sales team. To top it off, I moved about 2 blocks away and actually volunteered my time by saying “I’m just around the corner. If you need something after hours, just call my cell.” They didn’t abuse it. Some great people. They didn’t pay me what I’m making now, but the ease of the work and the coolness of the staff was enough for me.
About a year later, I was laid off due to a corporate buyout. Damn, I loved that job.
HeyHomie, you are aware now of what the problem is. Many of us go through life thinking that we have incredible bad luck with our bosses. More likely than not, it is a problem with authority figures. (I also tended to want perfection in my relationships.)
This really isn’t the time to be changing jobs – especially if you actually like what you are doing. If you can talk with a therapist and describe what you did to us in the OP, she or he will probably be able to help you sort through things.
I’m left wondering if you have unresolved anger at an authority figure from earlier in your life. That would be the classic case. It was true for me and painfully obvious. I just thought that I had dealt with the anger, but I hadn’t. And my therapy wasn’t really designed to dwell on the past (which was a good thing.)
Finally, I spent about a year feeling very, very angry. Then a long time being somewhat detached. Now I am in a place where all of my emotions toward this “authority figure” are available to me if they are appropriate at the time.
All of this happened after I retired and so I never had the chance to see if it would have affected my on-the-job performance. But my relationships with other people have never been better.
I hope that you find the right answers for you. It might help to know that some of the people you work for also have the same problems with authority.
The harsh truth about the structure of the workplace is that shit floats. When somene has built up a mountain of evidence of their own ineptitude, they are highly motivated to conceal that mountain with a boss title. The “no one will know/notice how dumb I am if I am the boss” effect. That kind of constant motivation is how they get to the top.
My last job was consistent with pattern described in the OP. I considered that the problem may have been me, since I complained about issues that no other employees seemed to have noticed. I was being harshly bullied by a coworker, but it somehow slipped by the rest of the employees (of course, they didn’t share the cubicle like Bully and I did). I was appalled at how the boss ignored the issue even after I brought it up and sent him evidence of the inefficiency, the ineptitude, the time clock fraud, the stalkish behavior, and sheer jackassery of my coworker. Even the most half-assed, quarter-assed, or eighth-assed investigation from the boss would have revealed that I was telling the truth. But I left there two years ago and I now work with people who know how to do their jobs, never whine, never sabotage anyone else’s work, etc. As absurd as the situation seems in hindsight, it really was that bad! That boss actually was that stupid.
So, as wise as it is to critique your own emotional response to the feeling of being surrounded by dopey coworkers, sometimes the impossibly-dumb MFers really are **that **dumb.
And I have no complaints about my current job, except that it pays substantially less than working for tardboss. The annual Not-Having-To-Work-For-An-Idiot fee came to $8,000.00. Totally worth it.
For me it’s been decades. There’s a pattern in my life going back to junior high school, if not before. I can clearly see dozens of cases throughout the years where people have pointed out to me that I’m too harsh.
Some days I’m mad at the world. I hate authority. I have a chip on my shoulder a mile wide (mixed metaphors, but you know what I mean). I have low self-esteem. Sometimes I want nothing more than to just crawl into an isolated shack somewhere and be a hermit. The most telling bit of evidence that I have a problem is this: in college, I took the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis Test. In the Hostility section, I scored in the 98th percentile. :eek: I’m in the top 2% of the most hostile people in the country. :eek:
I’ll be talking to my doctor next week about a referral to a psychiatrist.
I would also suggest a therapist trainedin CBT. A psychiatrist is mainly a med provider. They don’t do much therapy anymore. Therapy, BTW, does turn you into Stuart Smalley. It helps you reveal for yourself your best self.
What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, IIRC.
And like many posters here I’m in much the same boat as you, HeyHomie… have you ever considered Zen meditation? It really has helped me realize that a lot of the reason for suffering is that it’s human nature to feel bad when things aren’t exactly as we’d like… we can’t control that aspect but once we realize where that’s coming from it’s easier to deal with it.
HeyHomie, are you on your own or responsible for supporting someone else? The supporting someone else thing went a long way towards me getting over this problem, which I had pretty severely. And, thank goodness it did, because eventually this because the best thing that ever happened to me.
I see so much of myself in your OP.
One thing you didn’t metion though so I have to ask as it applies to me as well.
Do you crave recognition for your “superb” performance as I do? And in the same vein do you regard mundane assignments as indicative that you aren’t appreciated ?
I’ve never been able to shake off my shortcomings in this regard, which is why I’ve been motivated to become self employed, and I bask in the appreciation of my clients and their checks.
I’m married, but Mrs. Homie works, so we wouldn’t starve if I didn’t have a job.
YES! and yes!
CBT, man. It works. If you work it.
You don’t have to live like that.