I hate all that sort of crap. All I can remember of school in my mid teens was posters bearing the “Hang in there!” kitten and that heinous saccharine piece of shit poem “Footprints”. Even when I was on 40mg of Prozac a day I found it irritating and a little too fucking sanguine.
Seeing “Footprints” makes me want to go crazy with a Louisville Slugger in a china shop.
Yeah. I’ve seen the stupid fucking Fish! video. Three times at my current employer. (Hospital.)
The last time, I was working in Sterile Processing. When the manager brought out the vid, I couldn’t help myself from saying out loud, “Oh GOD NO! Not the FISH! Video!”
Someone tell me that, before work, those fish guys weren’t toking it up big time. Every single one of them looked stoned to the gills.
Perhaps that’s the key to a happy workplace. Drugged employees?
Every single time my morale was boosted at work, it immediatly followed a raise. Oh, and once when a particularly noxoius douchbag got canned. Other than that, cash did it.
I’m a retail monkey, and a pretty lucky one - the company will pick a product to promote and will offer cash bonuses to stores that sell the most - I’m going out do dinner next week on the company’s dime, and give individual bonuses for exceptional performance.
The pre-christmas roadshow (basically all the stuff we’re pushing for christmas) is kinda cool - they do a rundown of the last years sales and admit when they screwed up. I’m lucky in that I get on with most of my coworkers, and by boss is a cynic who looks out for us.
We sell a lot of those corporate motivation books. I’ve skimmed through a few (I looks after the non fiction books), and some of them make be go ‘huh?’. Like, I’m happy because I’m… throwing… the fish? Okay. And the one about the lady who has to make a million dollars in a week - I want to know if she does. but I don’t have the energy to flick through the application to the story.
I too enjoy my job. I chose my career because I enjoy it and I like where I work. I recently passed on a job opportunity for a significant increase in salary because I prefer this type of development as opposed to web development. My boss and his boss are my friends and I socialize with them outside of work. My boss called several times this past Saturday to try to find out how my Doctor’s appt from Friday went. The people who work for me often call me at home to shoot the shit, tell me about their triumphs and problems. When I was in the hospital 2 years ago there was not a *single * day that I was there all day alone, someone from work came *every * day. In short, we are very much a family in our group.
Yes, I agree, I work for the money. A book I just read said “Those who say money isn’t important probably don’t have any.” But I also gotta say that when I start hating my job as much as many in this thread seem to - well, I’m looking for a new job.
All these stories remind me of a scene from the movie “Blazing Saddles”, where Governor Lepetomayne tells his legislature, “We don’t have money to pay your salaries this year, boys, so we got you these instead. Play with these.” And he hands out a bunch of bolo paddles to the legislators who sit their idiotically playing with them while the Governor pulls a fast one.
Seems to be what’s going on in a lot of places.
It sounds like your boss and your boss’ boss worked to build a real interpersonal relationship with you and your coworkers. It’s amazing what something like that will do for you.
When I was a manager, I made an effort to get to know the people who worked for me. I would play golf with one guy. I would give another worker and her husband preview tickets to shows I was working on. That sort of thing. Because the people felt like they were really valued (and they were) they were happier, motivated, and liked coming to work. I didn’t need to throw fish or hide cheese or anything like that.
That’s my long winded way to say “Good on you, Khadaji!” You’re lucky, and stick with it.
Same here. Several posters & calendars in my cube.
In fact, people around here liked it so much that management configured the firewall to prohibit access to despair.com from work computers.
Love it. Especially the puppy power plant. No, none of those are true. I work at a Title and Escrow company. It’s all direct customer service, and since are fees a re regulated by the state, we couldn’t gouge people even if we wanted to.
The only icky part of my job is occasionally having to help land developers find land owned by little old ladies in historic homes to tear down and subdivide. (The land, not the ladies.)
:eek:
That’s the est slogan, you know.
Not necessarily. I work because I like my job. I need a certain amount of money to live but beyond that I don’t really care how much I get (and no, that doesn’t mean I get paid shitloads). I work with happy people, and unhappy people. We all get paid the same, we all do the same job. Difference is, some people just don’t know how to sit back and enjoy what they do.
I agree that it’s pretty pointless trying to tell someone to enjoy their job. In my opinion, if you don’t enjoy your job, then getting one you DO enjoy and stop dragging the morale of everyone you work with down.
Fine. Tell me where I can get someone to pay me to sit around all day playing World of Warcraft and I’ll be happy in my work.
Play testing new computer/console games?
Such a thriving and easy-to-enter job market! Why didn’t I think of that!?
:rolleyes:
Most of us don’t have the luxury of loving our work. Either we don’t have the skill set to get into what we WANT to do and can’t afford the training/education, or what we WANT to do is such a ridiculously small market the supply for which outstrips the demand by ridiculous amounts, that it doesn’t happen.
Seriously, I work for money. I don’t get up every morning and say to myself, “Self, today is yet another day of selfless giving in the service of the public!” I get up and say to myself, “Self, get your ass out of bed and get to work or they’re going to fire you and you won’t get paid anymore.” Reading about people tossing fish around or reading about fictional mice whose nosh keeps disappearing, or observing a poster that talks about how the persistence of the waves of the ocean moves continents…they don’t get me going. They actually DO provide a valuable service, I must admit, as the involuntary eyerolls that I perform when the subject comes up have kept my orbicular muscles in good shape. Other than that, though, they have very little value for me.
Well, someone has to do it. Is there some reason why it can’t be you?
I’m pretty sure he answered it,
I am starting to dislike IT immensely and don’t want to work in it anymore. Moving from a small company where I had technical control to a large company is a major disappointment. Having to listen to troglodytes whose intelligence is an inverse to the authority they have in dictating technical direction for the company is extremely frustrating. I am sick of the petty politics and having to explain simple concepts to those making the decisions and should know better. I’m tired of being told to be ‘part of the team’. The team is made up of imbeciles. Why would I want to be a part of it? There isn’t a team I’ve seen here yet that I couldn’t have the project completed by myself before they’ve finished all the meetings on determining possible solutions.
So, after my gig is up in the middle-east and I’ve paid off the mortgage, I’m starting career #4. Don’t know what it is yet, but maybe this time I’ll find something that holds my interest and isn’t run by idiots. Maybe if I start my own business I’ll only have to deal with the idiot owner?! 
He may have, he wasn’t specific, and I don’t know if he’d really seriously like to be a play tester.
Look, I understand that a lot of people really can’t do want they want. jayjay is may be one of these people, that’s cool. Also, his initial post about being able to play computer games all day long was most likely a throw away remark not meant to be taken totally seriously. And my main point initially is that there are plenty of people around who do love their jobs. They are the ones who turn up at work on a day off because there isn’t time in the week to do everything they want to (as distinct from the ones who are at work on a day off because there isn’t enough time in the week to do everything they HAVE to.)
What annoys me a little though, are people who are stuck in a job they don’t want, who say they have always wanted YOUR job, and when you ask why they DON’T have your job, they say “aww I wouldn’t be able to do it” or “it’s too expensive” or “but there’re so few jobs available.”
My response to that is that you never know until you try, most people can find money for things they really want (yes I accept that some can’t, most can), and there may be few jobs available but the only way you’ll ever get one of them is to do your best to make yourself employable.
What I’ve found is that a lot of people aren’t working at their dream job because they don’t want it enough. They aren’t prepared to make the necessary long term sacrifices, or maybe it’s just not REALLY their dream job. They are comfortable having a job that just earns them enough money to enjoy their time outside of work. This is fine, it’s a life-style choice, but you then need to accept that you may end up spending eight hours a day, five days a week, for the rest of your working life, unhappy. If this is you, and you’re working with me, shut the fuck up about how you’re feeling, because I don’t want to be brought down by your own life choices.
That’s not aimed at you jayjay, I’m talking about specific people who I know or work with.
I completely agree with your point. However, I also want to point out the dangers of the idea that you have to have your ‘dream job’ to be happy with what you do, or that there is only 1 dream job for a person.
The field where I work currently is not reflected in any of my formal training, and really not part of any life plan I had for myself. I know that in a few years, I will go on to law school and hopefully go on to practice law as my ‘grown up’ career. I guess you might consider that my dream job. But you know what? If I had to spend the rest of my life here, in my current office, I’d still be happy. I’ll never get rich working in Student Life at a small college, but I’ll never go hungry. I never dread going in to work, though some days are certainly better than others. My team has the usual complement of freaks and geeks, but there are a few people that i am very happy to have had the opportunity to know.
And when I (hopefully go into law), if it turns out that I’m not happy with constitutional stuff, I’ll either try another field. Maybe trial law, maybe corporate. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll try teaching, or politics, or go back to college.
Some people are just discontent with their lot in life, no matter what that lot might be. I pity them, but after a while, it just gets too tiring to deal with, and I get fed up with the drama.
And yes, I love my job.
This kind of motivational crap is done by my employer. This is why I have demotivators on my desk.
Anybody want to hire a computer geek who will work really hard for reasonable pay?
I’d be happier if instead of banning office romances they* required * them.
Hey can I come in here and say “nanny-nanny boo-boo, I love my job too!” ??
I have no idea how I ended up with my dream job, it just sort of happened. The only thing I did was to get to know some people in the business and let them know I was interested in it. Things just sort of took off from there.
I make a decent wage, money is really not that important to me to begin with, so while I do work for the money, I also do it because I enjoy what I do. And it’s something to do all day other than scratch my ass.
So in keeping with the thread subject, “you CAN do it! Be POSITIVE! Achieve your dreams through the amazing August West “Dream Job” seminars!” 