I enjoyed a lot of facets of my work, like finding and buying and integrating companies that were a good fit with mine. What I hated were the politics and bureaucracy. I also hated 2am conference calls. I hated it when our global CFO belittled my people to the point of tears for not knowing something he thought they should know, that happened several years back, when they just joined 3 months prior, etc. I hated that I had to do it, but I literally stood up for them (yes, got out of my chair and threatened him if he continued to act like an @$$. He was eventually fired, not long after I hung up my spurs).
I was talking to a guy yesterday, who had retired 4 years ago. He had been lured back to work in a supporting industry to the one in which he had built a name for himself. This new company offered him money that most couldn't refuse, but he did, at first. They begged and begged, he put his conditions on the table, which was mostly time related (he has a 90 year old mother that he has to help from time to time, he goes abalone diving every year, and he had scored 3 deer tags, and was intent on finding and bringing home a deer for each tag, etc...each of those takes time). They essentially told him, they'd take whatever he could offer, no politics, etc. so he went back to work, and is loving what he is doing because he doesn't have to deal with cr@p and he can take all the time he needs for his other interests. I'm guessing that if something like that came my way, I might bite. But for now, I'm happy doing (or not), what I'm doing.
