I work for a large manufacturer of commerical airplanes. There was a time having a job at the “Lazy B” meant you were going to be paid very well for work that is not all that difficult. In recent years the emphasis has switched from customer satisfaction to shareholder value. You are expected to be available to work 10 hour days and weekends without notice. We are constantly under threats of having our jobs pulled out from under us. Folks with over 20 years of service are being laid off while their jobs are being outsourced to foriegn countries. I have never seen morale as low as it is now. And due to a change in the production cycle of the 737, the next 4 Saturdays are scheduled work days. I have 13 more years till I can consider retiring, I hope I can make it that long.
Want soul-sucking? Try working for Yahoo support…
It’s not so much the job as the co-workers. Three times now, I’ve had jobs where dangerously insane and unethical (in some cases illegal) management styles were just… accepted.
In all three cases, I felt like Rowdy Roddy Piper in “They Live.” It was so clear that bad bad thing were happening, but every one just tried to talk the problems away. The first time, I hung out for two years; the second time, six months; the third time, six months. The first and third companies eventually caught up with the evil people (who quickly landed at new jobs with no real pay cut) but the second reign of terror is still going strong. If I had to do all over, I would have left all of them a lot earlier.
This may not sound like a reponse to the OP, but my point is if you feel like your soul is being destroyed, get out.
I have one of those nice soul sucking jobs, and a lovely commute to boot. I spend two hours a day on the freeway in LA.
My main complaint is feeling like I am not doing anything that is constructive, beautiful, meaningful. I think that I would be happy doing something that makes people feel good, that would give me more time to spend with my little one. I have no idea what that job would be.
There is a fear of leaving the safety net that a stable job provides, like health insurance~ and a regular paycheck. I’ve been very poor before, and I live in fear of that happening again.
I was actually enjoying the job I’m currently at, but then we were bought out by a huge, soulless conglomerate, and the last year has been nothing but chaos and stress. Add to that my UT supervisor (Useless Tit), and I’ve started looking for another job. I feel like I was very close to getting what I needed in a job, and now I have to start all over again. {Heavy sigh}
I think my husband has it the worst, though. He knew what he wanted to do (become a sports writer), he took the schooling for it, he was an editor at the University paper, and when he hit the work force, there just weren’t any writing jobs period, much less sports writing. He says that trying for years to get into sports writing and finally giving up on his dream and settling for construction work for the paycheque has changed him drastically, and not for the better. He lost a lot of optimism and general good spirit, he says.
His complaints about construction work are the same as yours, raizok. He feels that there are very few people that he can have a decent conversation with, and he has very little in common with any of his co-workers. He is, however, trying to move into the construction safety field, where he feels he will be doing work of a less “trained monkey” nature, with an eye to possibly becoming his own boss as a consultant at some point.
My god we’re all so unhappy with work, myself included. Who wants to form a commune or something? 
Seriously, I posted another thread about career switching last week. I work in IT as a network admin. What I really want is a job where I don’t have to worry about staying employed because the hardware and software you use changes radically in such a short time. And right now with the tech economy in the crapper getting another job in this field is not likely. So I just try to get through each day until I am finally motivated enough to change it myself.
I worked retail for six years. I worked fast food for six years prior to this. Working at these jobs made me feel more jaded and cynical about the general public. I was apalled at the way people treated me. Even in the worst of circumstances I would never be so abusive to the staff. In most cases I would recognize that the problems were not their fault nor were things they could control. I learned that not only are a lot of people rude and just plain stupid, but they are stingy and were willing to do anything to save money or not even spend it at all if they could somehow finagle a freebie or two out of us.
The fast food job often left me feeling tired as well as irritable at the end of each day, leaving me with little motivation to want to do anything else, so I was glad to get out of that. While retail work wasn’t as physically demanding, it was still mentally exhausting.
Still, these jobs were not the most soul-sucking ones I experienced. I had a two-day stint (yes, two DAYS) as a construction work laborer. I took this job out of desperation since I was tired of dealing with the public, plus a new owner took over the franchise and was screwing everybody over. It only took me two days to realize what would become of my life if I had kept it up at the construction job. The work was ten times more laborious than fast food, which I expected, but the tradeoff of not dealing with the public was not even. Each shift would have been ten hours, six days a week, working during the swing shift. I realized that I would hardly ever see friends or family and I would never have time to date (not that this matters now, not relevant to this thread). My car and my clothes were getting dirty from all the dirt I dragged in from the job I was doing. I also didn’t like being exposed to all the noise and the dust, though I thought I could handle these elements. A week of doing this work would have sent me straight to the insane asylum.
Someone save us!!
It’s a little “funny” (not funny ha ha, funny strange) that we all hate these emotionally menial and spiritually stressful jobs. Do we all realize what the cause is? Do we all know what to blame our unhappiness on? People.
People are evil, stupid, mean, lazy, heartless, callous, clingy, emotional, cold, aggressive, power-hungry, and so on and so forth…
People are the cause of other people’s unhappiness, and it hurts to even think it. I want to have faith in my fellow man, damn it! It sucks to know that I can try and have faith, and probably be screwed somehow. No one wants to give more than they get anymore, myself included. I’ve got to protect myself and my daughter, and it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for anyone else. Which makes me very sad but how can I change without getting screwed?
Sorry for a tangent gone so very awry.
I disagree raizok, I think we have to create, it’s an imperative. That’s why cavemen painted in Lascaux (sp?), and why thousands of people who listened to the Velvet Underground started bands.
U degree in Zoology
Became a trader at 22
An IT analysyt at 26
A financial advisor at 27
PR for Sony Canada right now at 28.
I DESPISE EVERYTHING I’VE DONE SINCE UNIVERSITY. ALL I EVER WANTED TO DO IN MY LIFE WAS WORK WITH ANIMALS or work in a museum.
…sigh…but with car and mortgage, what the heck can I do now?
Most animal jobs are low paying as are most jobs in the museum. They are often looking for Masters or Ph.D folks to work for very little pay
At a glance of my history, can anybody suggest a decent paying job that has something to do with animals? Even dangerous jobs…
Crocodile Hunter?
God, if that don’t sound familiar…
I’m in much the same situation these days. I’ve been working in the environmental consulting field for about the last nine years. For the last three years or so, I was at a company that had major issues. Bankruptcy, acquisition, total lack of business or new customers… I hated every minute of being there. So finally I find a new environmental job that pays well, is with a great company that treats their people well…
And I hate it too.
I finally realized that it wasn’t just the lame-duck company I worked for – the work itself was boring the hell out of me! That was a blow to realize that the last nine years of my professional career, I’ve spent in jobs that aren’t challenging or interesting. In a way, I feel like I’ve wasted a good chunk of my working life (as well as my education) in fields that I’m really not suited for. But in another way, I had to go through those experiences of bad jobs and soul-searching to find out that I needed to make a change.
So this coming fall, I’ll be going back to school. Not sure what for yet, as there’s a number of ways I could go. Between now and then, I’m going to do some career counseling to try and find my path, then I’m gonna walk it. It’s scary to be going back to school at age 31, but I figure it like this – I need to do the things that will result in my eventual happiness, and finding my career that really ‘fits’ is the best way to do that.
(And I’ll echo Ringo – go get 'em, Slainte!)
And best of luck to you, Zanshin. 
Life is too short to stay in a job that makes you miserable.
No, we don’t all hate our work. I actually kind of dig my job, but it’s a long way from where I started.
I worked in the retail world for years, miserable, cynical, and misanthropic. Finally, I found a brochure for our local museum, and decided to take the plunge. I quit my job, and became a volunteer.
When a position came open, they offered it to me. The money is so little as to be arguably a symbolic guesture, but, honest to God, I’ve never been happier. I feel like my work will actually matter in the future-- that I’m really doing something important. There’s a deep satisfaction in that.
Does the fact that I’m making so little set us back in our future plans, and limit our current discretionary spending? Yes, but getting up in the morning and actually being excited about going to work is worth it.
What are you disagreeing with exactly? I didnt say creative thought should be repressed, I was just commenting on how difficult it is to become inspired after working a 10 hour shift with a two hour commute time. I just want to rest, in fact, I NEED to rest, or I’m going to feel like shit the next day.
Looking over all the new posts on this thread, I’m getting depressed at some of the stories 
Arent there any more people who’ve rebounded from these jobs or are we all doomed?!?!
Heh. After ten lousy years working in hotels - night audit, front desk, front desk manager…
I rarely see people at their best - they’re away from home, strung out by travel, and just plain psychotic.
Somehow, I’m getting out. Whether it be with my writing, my leatherwork, computer skills - something!
I’ve worked for the past year or so now as a telephone salesman for American Express. Each day of work, I take a random selection of between 30 and 40 business owners who call in and say, “Sell me a card!”
I used to really hate this work, but I’ve kind of reached a placid emotional stasis with it for the time being.
I don’t -hate- it so much anymore, but I do find it kind of boring. I’ve had so many different angry and irate and stupid specimens of human nature call me that I don’t even break an octave or work up a sweat anymore when one of them decides to take it out on me. Actually–having a really angry caller is something I’ve been finding kind of exciting lately, because it breaks up the monotony of the other calls, and there’s nothing quite like having a really angry person on your hands and knowing that you can demoralize them further by showing them just how much their displays of rage are -not- affecting you.
I really wanted to go to college and become a doctor. But I can’t afford school. I can barely afford to put groceries in my refrigerator. I can’t even afford car or health insurance. I am -dirt- poor. My earnings each year are below the federal poverty line, actually. I can thank my parents and their fickle ‘love’ for my current situation, certainly.
I’ve been taking a local course in Certified Nursing Assistance, and have been paying for it entirely on my credit card. It’s not much, but it’s at least in the same general field I wanted to get into. Once I become a CNA, I’m thinking of putting my plans for college off awhile further and taking further courses to become a LVN. At least then, I’d be able to get a job that paid enough to manage my life -much- better.
After that, I’m not sure.
I might decide attend the technical school further to become an RN, but I also still am clinging to childhood dreams of becoming a doctor…and I’m worried about being too old to be of much use in that field by the time I graduate medical school if I put it off for longer and longer.