How do you like your job?

[zabu of nΩd]

I know we have a work thread already, but I want one that's more about how people "rate" their job and how they generally feel about it rather than just what goes on at it. Work eats up about 1/3 to 1/2 of our lives, and it obviously has a huge impact on how we live the rest of our lives, so I'm interested to know what that impact is for you - how it helps you, holds you back, slowly kills you, etc.

If you want, feel free to post a 0-10 score of your job, with 0 being absolutely terrible (i.e. Evil?'s job probably) and 10 being your dream job (not that a 10 needs to be something absurd like being a Congressman or a movie star).

NOTE: although people are probably going to vote before reading this, the last two poll options are supposed to include all forms of self-employment, and could be anything from being in a band that plays paid gigs to growing weed for money, whatever you think fits the descriptor of "self-employment". Hope that wasn't too unclear in the poll.

 

[Matt]

3/10. I work as a basketball official in the winter and umpire baseball in the summer. Baseball is much better paying but is an extreme drag and basketball is just horrible.

Stuck with it though, as I can't find a job ANYWHERE else. Even McDonalds isn't hiring around here. Gotta pay for college somehow.

 

[SweptbackFlame]

I wouldn't say it's the best place in the world, but I'll rate my job in retail a 7...the people that work there are so fucking awesome...the manager's are totally kickass.

It's a shame I might get laid off because I'm part time...if it does fuck them...Most of the kool people are getting laid off. It sucks.

 

[unknown]

well I have two jobs. My main job, I absolutely love and would rate at least a 7 or an 8. I'm a program coordinator for an academic organization on campus. This means I teach a section of a freshman class, advise students, and do other projects asked of me. I find it to be really rewarding. My boss is one of the last persons left in the CSU system with any academic integrity and decency. There's only 8 people in our office, and we all get along really well.

My other job is I work one day a week at Henry's, a grocery store, as a receiver. I like the job. I'd probably rate it a 5. I work by myself in the back away from the customers, deal with drivers and shipments and whatever comes into the store. It's cool. I get 20% off my groceries there, so I can't complain

 

[Badbird]

3/10. I work as a basketball official in the winter and umpire baseball in the summer. Baseball is much better paying but is an extreme drag and basketball is just horrible.

Stuck with it though, as I can't find a job ANYWHERE else. Even McDonalds isn't hiring around here. Gotta pay for college somehow.

Cool jobs Mathias!I hope you are better than the NBA officials.
I don't have a job right now since I am in school.

 

[panzerfaust666]

Im laid off for the winter at my job ( Line Cook at a high-class winery here in Kelowna ). I personally fucking hate it, I hate work to no end.Im so stressed the whole, so much to do, so much yelling at me, and I just hate it. Other than that it pays me quite well ( 17ish an hour, once tips are calculated in).

Of course, the end goal, which I would like to arrive at ASAP, would be to live on music.

EDIT: I rate it a 7, regardless of how much I hate it. It is a great job to have, just not for me . I think its time I work as something else perhaps(?)

 

[Matt]

Yeah I hate work too. I get way too stressed about it.

 

[Einherjar86]

Now that I'm home I'll be helping the family business. I work as an office assistant (i.e. answer phones, file work, paperwork for incoming orders) at my father's label company (i.e. adhesives that go on products).

I enjoy working with the people there and it's interesting work. I don't plan on staying there for long, and when (and if) I get accepted to grad school I hope to get a job as a TA. Speaking of which, for unknown and Cyth and anyone else who works on campus, how does one usually go about applying for a TA position?

 

[waif]

I'm a clerk at Walgreens. I rate it maybe a 4.

I checked these:

My job is mind-numbingly tedious
My job gives me good exercise
If I have to keep this job for the rest of my career, I will probably snap...
My job pays too little
I am a nobody/grunt/peon at my company/organization

Basically, I have all day to think, which is a mixed blessing. I've learned to ignore or embrace the store radio. I'm moving around and lifting stuff all day, which is good. I'm a nobody, true, but I don't really care because this is just a temporary job. It doesn't pay much, but again, it's temporary, and I'll have the money I need in another 8 months and then I'm done. The fact that I'm leaving is what prevents all the other problems from becoming completely unbearable, though. If I was doing this as a career I would be completely fucking miserable.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

My 'job' (which I rate about a 6.5) is a paid internship in an IT department at the headquarters of a bowling equipment manufacturer, where I've been for a little over 2 years. It's a pretty big international company so there's all kinds of stuff going on here from sales to accounting to engineering, and it's pretty cool having a position where I get to interact with all those departments and see what everyone's job is like. I mainly just do typical tech support stuff, and every now and then they throw me some new software to try my hand at and see if I'm any use to them with it, but very little of the work is actually relevant to my college major.

The IT department here is pretty laid-back, and my coworkers are all friendly (my boss is an Indian lady, and she's like the mellowest and most agreeable person on earth, haha) so it's a nice work environment even if I have little in common with nearly anyone here. My work load is extremely light, which is nice in that I can spend a lot of time doing my own thing on the computer (i.e. working on my website or surfing forums), but it sucks in that I often feel pressured to "look busy" and of course there's always the question in my mind of whether they're just going to cut me loose at any moment because they clearly don't need me here. Their approach seems to be to just cut back my hours when there's less work for me, so I've gone through a few periods of working 1-2 days a week. I have to mooch off my parents and grandparents periodically to get by, but thanks to them I do have a decent amount of 'discretionary funds' available.

So overall the pros seem to be low stress and a good deal of freedom while the cons are shitty, unreliable pay ($10/hour) and not a lot of career development. Not bad overall, but I could certainly be doing better for myself if it weren't for the almost non-existent job market.

edit: I like WAIF's idea of posting your poll choices, so here's what I picked:
* My job is interesting / mentally stimulating
* I could tolerate this job for the rest of my career, but I'd rather not
* My job pays too little
* I am a nobody/grunt/peon at my company/organization

 

[unknown]

Einherjar: I was actually asked by my boss. I had developed a friendly relationship with her and had worked with her in the past on some projects, so she knew what I was capable of and the quality of work I do/did. On my campus, some GA/TA positions are posted on the jobs website for our campus. I imagine it's a little bit of both, being asked and just applying.

my advice is to develop some sort of relationship with a professor you like working with on campus and even just flat out ask a professor, "Hey do you need a GA?"

my job is also salaried, which is nice

 

[cookiecutter]

I don't have a job, and that's fine by me! (aside from making no money)

I am in college and I am lucky enough to have parents who can pay my way. This is nice because it allows me to completely focus on my classes. It's also nice to have some free time and only be stressed about school and not about work. I have worked over the summer at my Dad's office doing minor administrative assistance and I did not like that. It was boring and it was hard to make friends because everyone was at least 6-10 years older than me.

 

[Zephyrus]

My parents are paying for my undergrad at UMaine, and aside from that my only income is from tutoring Latin at school and tuning organs with my father on vacations.

The past couple summers I've done groundskeeping-type work at a local bed & breakfast. The pay is better than usual, but it can be grueling work and my boss, a chef from Switzerland, can be very manipulative.

I'm planning on getting some sort of stable job this summer (if not at the B&B again) because I need to save up for grad school.

 

[Ben_t]

My work situation will change in the near future as I got an offer for something at a higher position in the same organization.

Right now I would have said my work is quite boring as I don't really enjoy what I'm doing. Basically I chair meetings with vendors and some of our data centres and we discuss service levels on a monthly basis. I also take care of doing and renewing maintenance contracts for the equipment we need. I've been part of a process review team for the last year and we need to standardize some processes.

My job isn't very stressful and had me travelling in the country a little which was nice. I'm paid fairly well (or extremely well compared to all of you with your part time jobs). The people I work with are all fine, but we have a virtual organization within the team which means I very rarely see any of them, it's all phone conferences and emails. Basically I'm the only one of my team in the location I'm in and the others are all in different provinces.

I wouldn't say I'm a nobody in the organization but I wouldn't rank myself as important either. Somewhere between the 2 I guess.

I can't wait to change though and have more challenges and a better position as well. My team would also be all located at the same place which is a lot nicer as dealing with people through phones and emails isn't the best. I guess I could do this survey again in a couple months with my new functions and have totally different results.

 

[Estellise Sidos Heurassein]

I work in a store on weekends. I only work for a few hours at a time. Sometimes I also work for a few hours after school if they need my help.

It's not really a career but I enjoy it and most of the people I work with are very nice to me. I'd rate it at 7.5/10 because I don't expect to be able to do anything else at my age.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

I work at a local convenience store about 5 nights a week stocking shelves, taking inventory, and monotonous stuff like that. I'm pretty much by myself for 6-7 hours during the night, which allows a lot of thinking time that I'm really thankful for. It's just about perfect for a high school student, as I still have enough time to get studying taken care of, and I have plenty of cash to piss away on music whilst putting money away for college/grad school/future expenses.

 

[metal_wrath]

I worked for myself for the past few years. Before that I worked in overnight stock in a retail store for $10/hour.

I always have the entire day to myself. The downside is that I don't make a whole lot of money right now especially due to the fuckin economic Depression. I make more money than I used to make though, and I can potentially make much more money, also I can't lose my job which is good.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

I don't have a job, and that's fine by me! (aside from making no money).
I don't have a job, and find my life pretty boring/unfulfilling without one.
I don't have a job, and I don't like how much time I waste without one

I picked these three, because the reality is somewere in between. I've had jobs before and don't miss any of them, but I have a pile of student debt right now, which means I need a job. Life is definitely pretty boring and unfulfilling for me right now and I'm disappointed by all of my wasted potential, but this is no different from how I felt when I actually did have a job. If it weren't for my obligation to pay off my debt, my desires to eventually rent my own place and buy a car, and my inability to be financially self sufficient without a job, I would probably just not work, period. I know this makes me sound extremely unambitious, but it's quite on the contrary. I feel like I have enormous potential and I have very high expectations for myself. I almost feel like I'm "destined" for greatness, but my obligations to work and to meet others' expectations in place of my own have only made my goals increasingly more unobtainable.

EDIT: I literally feel "trapped" inside myself whenever I think about this. I would even say that having a job is prohibitively expensive, when considering the opportunity cost of not being able to do more productive and relevant things with my time.

EDIT2: But I guess that's just life, isn't it? Oh well, it could be worse. At least I don't have a child or a dead beat ex to support.

 

[arg]

mind-numbingly tedious, could tolerate but rather not, pays enough but still tight, nobody/grunt/peon.

i do data entry.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

mind-numbingly tedious, could tolerate but rather not, pays enough but still tight, nobody/grunt/peon.

i do data entry.

Ugh, I feel sorry for you. I've had to do that a few times at my job, but fortunately it's never been for more than 3-4 days at a time, and pretty far between.

EDIT: I literally feel "trapped" inside myself whenever I think about this. I would even say that having a job is prohibitively expensive, when considering the opportunity cost of not being able to do more productive and relevant things with my time.

Er, maybe I'm missing something but couldn't you be doing productive and relevant things with your time right now? You have a home, a computer, and presumably at least limited access to transportation. You could at least be volunteering somewhere. If you really lack the motivation to do anything productive with all your free time, I don't think you have much to worry about regarding the opportunity cost of having a job, and if I may presume to say so, you really don't sound "destined for greatness" either.