As long as I can keep my vacation time, I’ll go with chaotic and fulfilling.
I have kids. Steady work, without famine, and with dependable hours, are important to me for at least a number of years. If you have a two parent family, like we do, one person can have the chaotic job, if the other has the steady one, in our case, my husband works long hours in a demanding and fulfilling job - but he has always been employed, no famine…I get the job where I can do the orthodontist appointments and get the kids to soccer practice.
I’ll take chaotic, or at least I always have. I spend about half my time in the field and half in the home office, when I am in the home office, I am absolutely miserable, but I love being a field rat.
So very this. Actually if the job is boring enough, I can do personal stuff and get fulfillment at work while not working.
I’ve actually made this choice. If I stuck with what my degree was, I would probably have to freelance and work long hours. I don’t have that sort of drive. I lucked into a temp job that turned into a full-time job that has great benefits and slightly higher than average pay. I’m pleased with this.
I’ll take chaotic and fulfilling. My job for the past 2 years is steady and so, so incredibly numbingly boring. I get great benefits and decent pay, but the time at work creeps by.
I’m going back to school to get a LADC, which is a license in alcohol and drug counseling. I’d really like to work for the same very big medical company I do now, in a different capacity, but I hope to feel like I’m doing something tangible to help people. I could probably find a more chaotic place to work, too, but we’ll see.
I’ll take what he/she is having with a side of peanut butter ice cream.
Congrats on the job.
There was a hiccup but I was able to keep my job and things were chaotic for awhile but now everything is back to nice and boring just the way I like it.
Every time I’ve worked a boring job, I’ve had the unpleasant feeling of feeling like my insides are gnawing away to get out.
I’d tak chaotic and fulfilling. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, and I just don’t seem to have the capacity to manage boredom for long. I thrive on challenge.
Who says you can’t be fulfilled at work and and at home? It’s not an either/or thing.
I took steady to mean the same thing every day. I would not like a situation where I wasn’t sure where the next dollar was coming from. Given a steady income, chaos is cool.
I am currently in “steady and boring.” It has some pluses. This is the first job I can remember where I am not emotionally invested. I go in, do my 8 and come home and don’t think too much about it.
But I will likely strike out for something more exciting before too long, I would guess. In fact, I already would have, but I’m not sure what the next “big thing” is for me.
I work in the financial markets. My job is chaotic, but quite fulfilling.
Steady and boring.
Work is just 8 hours of the day. If a person can’t figure out how to make the remaining 16 hours fun and fulfilling, there’s something wrong with them.
I have what I consider to be a good job. I do big girl things and have big girl responsibilities, all of which sufficiently feed my ego. So in that way, it’s fulfilling work. But practically speaking, it’s mainly fulfilling because it’s a tolerable way of keeping a middle-class lifestyle. I have no delusions about saving the world or even making people happy. I’m not particularly attached to what I do, although I try my best with it. I see it as a job that I can do well, that doesn’t make me ashamed about myself, and pays the bills. It isn’t me, though. It’s not my life.
It’s pleasant sometimes, but fun? No. On the other hand, it’s not stressful either. That’s worth a million dollars to me. A low-stress 9-to-5 frees me up to enjoy my non-work time as much as possible.
I don’t know if my dad’s job was fulfilling to him, but I do know that he worked insanely long hours and suffered immensely from stress. Two heart attacks worth. I don’t let work follow me home after watching him my whole childhood.
This is the part of the hypo that makes this difficult to think about. In the real world (not to fight the hypo or anything . . .), the chaotic choice typically has higher highs (i.e., potential to make the big bucks) and lower lows (i.e., less job security).
So, I picked the chaotic option, but probably without due regard to this part of the hypo (and with more regard to the potential for gain inherent in that path).
This. This was my goal since high school. I just wanted a nice office job where I knew what my hours would be and that I could go home and not have homework. It worked well until I got laid off. I was unemployed for almost 7 months. That kind of job doesn’t exist anymore.
But I did it again. I got another one, same deal but one I enjoy more, but is still just a job. I don’t hate my job, I have a great boss, best boss I’ve ever had. But it’s a paycheck, nothing more. It isn’t my life, in ways that would probably shock my co-workers. But I do well at it; I learn fast.
I have since then been researching what I could be doing that I would possibly enjoy actually getting up and going to do and can’t think of a thing that wouldn’t stress me out to the point of crying every day (animal/wildlife rescue, shelters, vet techs, etc.). I would gladly go to work and clean animal shit but if I just once see, first hand, an abused animal, or one hit by a car, I will just die inside right then. But it’s the only thing I care about.
I guess it depends what “feast or famine” means, exactly. Stress? It seems to mean pay, but then the hypothetical says that you get the same amount at the end for either job (though does the chaotic job NOT have the pension and benefits and other stuff mentioned for the boring one, because if not, that pushes the boring job over the top money-wise, which is another reason I wonder).
And as has been mentioned already (I think), it also sort of depends on what you (answerers, I mean) define as “fulfilling.”
If I were completely independent and had no dependents I would choose excitement and unpredictability, which is what I have. And since it’s a retail business I am currently weathering a year of famine.
If I got to go back to the point where I still had a choice, armed with the knowledge I have now, I would choose steady, boring, with benefits, and a pension. I would go so far as to say that I would take steady and predictable over fulfillment even if the net over the course of my lifetime were lower.
It breaks my heart that I can’t send my son to the college of his choice, that there’s no nest egg for him to inherit, that if he decides to get married his wedding gift from me will be nice salt & pepper shakers and not a down payment.
My own parents taught me nothing about handling money, or using credit. I have had several talks with my son about what I’ve learned about it as an adult - I guess that will have to be my legacy to him…if he listens.
Boy that is a tough one. I don’t tolerate boredom at work well at all, and have been a bit of a job hopper in the past because once I figure out a job and get good at it, its time to move on. But I also like having a steady paycheck. Its a dilemma, and since I found a job that is a bit unpredictable, but comes with a steady paycheck, I’ve got the best possible blend.
Edit: forgot the most important part, I work for a corporation, in mergers and acquisitions. It is not fulfilling in anyway, but has enough variety that I’m not dying from boredom most days.