Poll: Job Satisfaction

[Midpack]

Sometimes we see posts stating ‘I want to retire/retired early because I hate my job’ outright, along with subtler variations. Fortunately I enjoyed my career mostly but at the end I got bored with my job but I could do it in my sleep, and there was still satisfaction in each success, and in developing/promoting people. In the end hiring and developing people was the most satisfying aspect of my job, I “produced” more “promotables” than any of my peers. I left more because of a handful of people at my site, and a bunch more at Corp, they filled my BS bucket, much more than the job itself.

So I wondered if there were others where it isn’t/wasn’t the job as much as the people.

• Job includes the work itself, workload/salary, facilities/tools/budget, benefits, rules & regulations, etc.
• People includes bosses, coworkers, direct reports, customers, shareholders, auditors/regulators (not standards or regulations)

Where it’s both, just do your best to delineate.

 

[pb4uski]

I liked my work, my colleagues and most of our clients. I retired more because I didn't need to work anymore and had better things to do wih my time than work and travel associated with work. Once we had plenty, if I had continued to work the principal beneficiaries would have been the federal and state governments, our charities and our kids... and that wasn't good enough compared to having every day be a Saturday.

 

[Alan]

For most of my career I enjoyed my job, and I had some great bosses for most of it. At age 50 my latest boss, who I really liked, got promoted and moved on, the new one was a bit of a micro-manager but an okay guy. However, I was now FI but wanted to keep on with the company for another 5 years to qualify for Health Insurance so from that point it became a drag. I was fortunate that an opportunity arose to move out of State to Corporate HQ and take on a very challenging role for a few years. In those last 5 years I worked for 5 different managers, 3 good, 2 not so good but I was so pleased when my ER date arrived at age 55. (The last 5 years I was considered to be a 'fixer' and moved from one problem area to another so it certainly helped the time pass quickly but was very tiring).

 

[Aerides]

I liked what I actually did. I liked the people I worked with closely. I liked most of my bosses over the years.

I didn't like artificial deadlines, politics, some of the corporate culture and decision, and general BS. I didn't like being told that I couldn't take my team out for a lunch - even if I paid for it - because of "optics". Or that the best person who worked for me couldn't get a stellar rating because they weren't on the super-star project. Or that I had to fire someone quite good, and keep someone quite terrible, because the terrible person was more technical. Or working on a 10 page powerpoint for 2 months only to have the CEO cancel the meeting the night before.

So it's more nuanced than job or people - it's the BS factor.

 

[scrabbler1]

For me, it was mainly the commute. Reducing it to less than 5 days a week wasn't enough. Only zero days a week, after a while, was the solution. Job satisfaction had declined some over the years, but I still basically liked the job and the people. It was just the damned commute which wore me down and eventually overtook any job satisfaction I had.

 

[Dtail]

I liked my job and most of the people.
Excellent pay, job was diversified and challenging. Mainly my own boss.
Alas, was getting too old for the office, so took a package, then discovered this site leading to retirement decision.

 

[MOSAT]

I liked what I actually did. I liked the people I worked with closely. I liked most of my bosses over the years.

I didn't like artificial deadlines, politics, some of the corporate culture and decision, and general BS. I didn't like being told that I couldn't take my team out for a lunch - even if I paid for it - because of "optics". Or that the best person who worked for me couldn't get a stellar rating because they weren't on the super-star project. Or that I had to fire someone quite good, and keep someone quite terrible, because the terrible person was more technical. Or working on a 10 page powerpoint for 2 months only to have the CEO cancel the meeting the night before.

So it's more nuanced than job or people - it's the BS factor.

I felt much the same. The last few years were the worst, corporate culture changed, and not for the better, resulting in increasingly inane BS. I was FI a couple of years before I actually left, it was the BS that put me over the edge.

 

[GravitySucks]

The farther away I get the better it looks.

 

[Cobra9777]

I answered, "I didn’t like the job or the people." I've used the word "toxic" in the past to describe my work situation. But it's much more complicated than that. I actually had great relationships with most of the people I worked with. Still close friends with 2 or 3 and keep in touch with maybe 10. But there were also a few egomaniacs that made life miserable. Getting away from them was definitely part of the motivation to retire. Most of the conflict was because I didn't like the way they treated people, which frequently resulted in good people leaving.

It's difficult to say about the job itself, mainly because it evolved continuously over 25 years. I loved the first 15 years, worked very hard, and kept taking on more responsibility. But the last 10 became increasingly stressful, partially due to constant international travel as well as having 3 bosses (operational, functional, regional) with conflicting priorities. I also had to deal with regulatory people in several developing Asian countries who do not operate within the same ethical framework as Megacorp. So it was slow and painful to get even simple stuff done.

But perhaps most important, my job responsibilities had grown to the point that it was consuming all my time and energy. I had no time for the many hobbies and interests that I enjoy. I started planning my exit strategy around 46-47 and pulled the trigger at 52 when the numbers looked pretty solid.

 

[jimbee]

My job was 'ok to good' for about 10 years. Too bad I worked full time for 32 years. I did like most of the people I worked with.

 

[Walt34]

I enjoyed my job, many's the time I went into work and thought "I can't believe they're actually paying me to do this!" I one of the first people (although not the first) to begin working in the then-new field of computer forensics and online crime. The job I had sounded like it was straight out of a Robert Heinlein novel. Bear in mind I started on this in the mid-1990's and I retired in 2002 so what is old hat now was legally bleeding edge stuff back then.

Several factors made me retire. Number one was realizing that we were FI and if I retired I could make more money selling T-shirts out the back of a van (although I never aspired to that lofty goal). Another was the traffic in the area we lived in, one has to plan one's entire life around the ebb and flow of traffic and that was wearing very thin. The third was that it was getting harder and harder to get the ongoing training, software, and hardware needed to keep up in that field and I was frustrated with the bureaucracy.

We had zero debt and when I retired my net pay actually went up by a single-digit number (I forget what it was) because I'd been maxed out on the 457, and some employment-related expenses went away like contributions to SS and the retirement plan, and a few other minor expenses.

 

[Sojourner]

I think for me it was mostly about the drudgery of having to get up and drag myself into the office and then sit there for hours and hours doing a job that had become somewhat boring and unchallenging after so many years. Eventually it became very clear to me that my FI status was completely robbing me of any motivation to continue the daily "9 to 5" worker drone routine, so that's when I knew it was time. The people and the work itself were generally OK and not the primary reasons for ER in my case.

 

[MRG]

For 25 years I loved my job, coworkers and what I did. Then the recession started and the VP I'd know for many years left. We were not close or buds, however he understood my value.

Then the pretty people took over. Well it's funny now. I'd explained to our new VP the pretty people had a history of creating applications that were unsustainable. Looking back, almost 10 years later and their "new" system is not fully implemented and its technology is starting to show it's age.

I left that part of the organization for a planned two more years.

My last year I was in a totally dysfunctional part of the organization. A remote manager with a hair trigger temper. A local passive aggressive 75 yo child and a very angry, hateful guy. Our VP, while an ok guy, was scared to death of the new CIO.

I left after one year of total insanity.

 

[ChiliPepr]

For me, the job and people are OK... what is starting to drain me is the corporate "stuff"... review rubrics, fighting to get my people deserved raises and promotions, the kissing up, and generally not wanting to play the game that I see happening.

 

[jollystomper]

I like most aspects of the job and most of the people. I am getting paid a lot and some of the job is more like a hobby. The number of good people I work with far outweigh the bad ones I have encountered. I am retiring primarily to give me flexibility in choosing what I want to do (or not do) from now on.

 

[Just_Steve]

When I was an hourly the j*b was great.
When I was a Line Supervisor the j*b was good.
When I first promoted to shift superintendent the j*b was OK.
When I promoted to middle management the j*b sucked.
When I self demoted to shift superintendent the j*b was OK.
After 25 years it was time to go.

 

[RobbieB]

I had no problems with the job or the people.

I had enough dough and I wasn't getting any younger so I retired.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

I would say for me it was the people I didn't like to work with. Everything from the work schedule to vacation time was a competition among the employees and I just got tired of it. That greatly accelerated my desire to leave the job. When I was in a position to do so, I did it.

I will also add I didn't care for the higher ups in management. I didn't let the door hit me on the way out.

 

[Midpack]

So it's more nuanced than job or people - it's the BS factor.

IME BS usually comes from people ultimately, but not always I guess.

 

[MichaelB]

IME BS usually comes from people ultimately, but not always I guess.

If I'm not mistaken, it also comes from bulls ..

 

[MRG]

If I'm not mistaken, it also comes from bulls ..

Yes but the bull has no choice....

 

[msieweke]

I liked the work I did on a day-to-day basis, although it was becoming repetitive. I really liked the people I worked with, and my boss was OK. The middle manglers started making it unpleasant, forcing us to support multiple old versions of software and back-port bug fixes constantly. Add a healthy dose of corporate bs as the company went from startup to bigco. The last straw was having to work an entire 3 day holiday weekend fixing bugs on a software release that had only started testing a week before the release date, and which no customer wanted, just to tick a box on some manager's to-do list. And a middle mangler had the audacity to come and challenge me on how I chose to take my vacation. Life's too short to put up with that.

I had always planned on retiring early - "some day" - but didn't understand the math. The corporate/management BS was the incentive I needed to educate myself and pull the plug.

 

[rayinpenn]

Complacency->Some will spend their years in a job they hate because to move and change is to take risk. I am happy with my job but it is time to go.

 

[AS2019]

I like the people I work with, and for the most part I don't hate my job. I've become less interested in the job in recent years. I just don't find it that stimulating any more. So my tolerance for things that I dislike about my job is decreasing month by month. When I really love what I'm doing, then I'm willing to put up with a lot of annoying things. As the love fades, the annoyances seem to increase in intensity.

 

[marko]

Loved every second of my job for 34 years. The last few were getting tedious with the place slowly being taken over by accountants and B-School know-nothings.

We sold the company and I was part of the 'redundant' management team. Had a $uper platinum contract, RE'd and never looked back.

Wasn't my choice but turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.