Poll: Loved your Job, or Hated It?

[friar1610]

I liked most of the assignments I had in a 28+ year Navy career and really loved several of them. (The Pentagon tour was the big exception.) I could have remained on active duty until max tenure at 30 years. But I thought that time would be better spent establishing myself in a post- military career.

I tolerated but really didn’t enjoy my 7 years working in the DC-area Defense industry. It was my choice to retire when I did. I saved/invested heavily during those years and this made the decision to retire for good an easy one.

[CyclingInvestor]

I somewhat liked each of my 4 jobs, because they were stress-free and they paid me fairly well (programmer). Still, my best day working was not as good as my worst day in retirement. If I had had enough money a decade or two earlier, I would have been gone.

[FlaGator]

Told this before, probably more than once....

I'm in the "had to" camp.

Had a better career than I could have ever expected at 18, or even 30. Good company, lot of opportunities, supportive bosses, paid more than I ever thought I could make. Built a solid financial foundation instead of expanding the lifestyle.

Wife of 30 years died and left me and 2 pre-teen kids. Became clear I couldn't continue to work and raise the kids as I wished. Last day working was a year after she passed. Best decision of my working life .

[Bullwinkle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby I liked all my jobs and almost all the people I worked with. I retired because I had a lot of things I wanted to do in my remaining life and work was taking up all my time. Plus, I had enough money.

I'm similar, except the part about retiring (not yet). Things are not so simple as love or hate, sometimes I genuinely look forward to going to work to Fix The Things, but I still know they're not really my things, and they're not what I would be doing for myself, and all the time and energy spent on solving some company's problem is not being spent on my real goals... except of course the real goal of not having to worry about money! Sometimes it feels like a video game, in that it gives you a steady drip of tasks which are easy enough to knock down one by one but hard enough to feel some accomplishment when you do, but when you get to the end all you really get is some arbitrary points. Ok I guess dollars are not so arbitrary as pinball points but still it feels like it sometimes.

So work for me is almost like a (very long) distraction from the real mission. Or at least what I tell myself is the real mission, we shall see when the time comes. The thing that keeps me in is some amount of fear of change or risk aversion or golden-handcuffs syndrome... and also DW is not entirely on board... I think with the same reasons.

Things would almost be simpler if they were love or hate! If hate, leave. If love, feel no regret at staying...

[Irishgirlyc58]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlaGator Told this before, probably more than once.... I'm in the "had to" camp. Had a better career than I could have ever expected at 18, or even 30. Good company, lot of opportunities, supportive bosses, paid more than I ever thought I could make. Built a solid financial foundation instead of expanding the lifestyle. Wife of 30 years died and left me and 2 pre-teen kids. Became clear I couldn't continue to work and raise the kids as I wished. Last day working was a year after she passed. Best decision of my working life .

I’m sorry you lost your wife so young.
But it’s nice that you were able to retire and take care of the kids.
There are some things money can’t buy and this is one.

I hope you and the kids are doing well.

[rk911]

my situation wasn't an option. i loved what i did...answering 9-1-1 calls, dispatching the squads and rigs...best job i ever had. i was happy, adequately paid, had a wife who loved me (and vice versa)...life was not only good, it was great!

i was promoted to shift manager less than 5-mos after starting. a bit less time on the phones and radio followed but the extra money was good. i had never thought of myself as a management guy and the first year...ok, maybe 2...were rough. but i soon hit my stride and i was given extra responsibilities...scheduling, some training, IT (such as it was in the 90's). senior manager followed...more responsobility and $ but much less radio/phone time. being a manager meant rotating shifts. 2-mos on days, 2-mos on 3-11, 2-mos on mids and then 2-mos on admin duty. admin duty meant i worked the day watch and 3-11 watch manager's days off and then pulled one or two 9a-5p shifts before my days off. then we switched to 12-hr shifts. two 7a-7p shifts, 24-hrs off, then two 7p-7a shifts followed by 96-hrs off. the 4-days off were nice but converting from a day-to-night sleeper that first day was rough. but that waa better than 2-strIght months of day sleeping.

after about 8-yrs of that the Deputy Director position opened up. by this time our call center was the busiest, multi agency consolidated 9-1-1 center in Illinois. 27-police and fire departments, one thousand 9-1-1 calla per day (in our county 9-1-1 was a request for service number, not just an emergency number). the DD was responsible for every aspect of managing the call center on a day-to-day basis. but my motivation for seeking the position? i didn't want to work rotating shifts after I turned 40. pure and simple. zero phone and radio time but plenty of plates-on-sticks to leep turning, this position came with a different kind of satisfaction.

after 12-yrs of that i began to seriously consider ER. by this time we had a nice nest egg that was still recoverimg from dot.com but we had no debt and guaranteed pensions on which my homemade excel sheet said we could live quite nicely.

my primary motivation? my dad and his brothers all died young, dad at 48. so i decided to try and punch my ticket at age 50 but i couldn't get the ducks lined up. five years later i hung up my spurs and never looked back. it'll be 16-yrs for myself and 15 for my wife in August and neither my wife (who also went at 55) or I have any regrets.

[DrRoy]

None of the above. Was "OK" with my job, didn't love it or hate it, had the $, no longer needed the job so FIREd.

[Midpack]

Wasn’t sure how to vote. I loved my jobs for over 30 years. Still enjoyed my job and local co-workers for the last 5 years at a manufacturing plant, but increasingly disappointed in corporate meddling and their myopic decisions - made from within their bubble. And my last boss was borderline incompetent - the founders son. He never have made it to SVP without a family connection. My successor tells me corporate basically runs everything now, managers at plants, sales offices etc. have little or no autonomy now…

[big-papa]

A mix. The people I've reported to over the years across many different companies would form an almost perfect bimodal distribution: Either extremely good or extremely bad. I've had very few that were just "meh". Outside of bosses, the companies have ranged from marginal to well run from startup to mega. And little correlation between boss type and company. As for the work itself, it was most enjoyable to me as an engineer from the time I graduated to my mid/late 30's. Was an individual contributor, was learning a lot, generated patents, papers, and designs for the company, but there were clearly people coming in who were going to be better than I could ever be. I moved into a management role by my late 30's - but did so with eyes wide open. Financially, it was a great decision. And those days where something I did or caused to happen (or not happen) that turned out for the better were truly great days. Then there are the grey areas where somebody must be held accountable (aka blamed). Like the days of being an individual contributor, there are those that are much better at the game than I am.

Current situation: great boss, but new executive management. Long term the new management will do great things and the company will most certainly be better off, financially, for it. Shorter term there is and will be pain. And long term, not sure I like where the culture is probably going to end up based on other places I've worked. Problem is that my timeframe to retire (<1 year) will likely be fully encompassed by the short term. Only question is whether I can have the patience during this time. Lately the answer has been no.

[big-papa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 It wasn’t black and white. The work was great, the stress just too much after a while and more than ready to move on. Definitely a mixed bag.

Indeed! The stress part can easily and quickly overwhelm the good parts..

[euro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski While I voted "I loved my job and only quit because I had to." the last part isn't true.... I didn't have to, but I wanted to.... I just had enough $ and wanted more pb4uski time and the travel aspects of my job were a PITA at times. I enjoyed all my jobs and the people that I worked with for the most part. There were always some times that were not enjoyable and some people who were a PITA, but overall good. I loved my last boss. He was about 15 years younger than me but we got along well and worked well together and had a lot of fun. While I enjoyed my work and at times got a lot of satisfaction from work, I don't see me ever saying that if I had enough to retire that I would continue working for the enjoyment of it.... there are much better things to do... even if it is just puttering around not doing much of anything.

Same here - there wasn’t an option for me to pick

[Dawg52]

I enjoyed working all but the last few years. Same old work got boring.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by N02L84ER I loved my job and only quit because of the commute. Did not vote.

While the commute was the main reason I ERed, when I include it in my overall satisfaction with my job, I chose the second choice in the poll. This is because my satisfaction with the job outweighed my dislike of the commute in my early years, only to see that differential erode over time to the point where, in my later years, the dislike of the commute vastly outweighed the satisfaction of the job. But it isn't like I totally hated the work; over time, it just wasn't enough to overcome how much I despised the commute, even after I eventually reduced that commute to 1, 2, or 3 days a week in the last 7 years of my career (working part-time, with some telecommuting thrown in).

[John Galt III]

I'm generalizing here, but I hated all my jobs, except cab driving and truck driving. No money in cab driving and I was afraid of actually becoming a truck driver (big rig) due to the horror stories. But after being laid off from one of the jobs I hated (programming) at age 50, I took a shot at long haul tractor trailer driving, and really liked it. 2/3 the salary of programming, and 1/10 of the stress. Did the truck driving for 6 years, stuffing 80% of salary into my 401k, then retired.

[ERObjd]

That BK is about 2 miles from where I live. those employees who quit will have no issue finding better jobs here in Lincoln Ne.. plenty of jobs that pay better without all the drama.

[ERObjd]

I loved all my military jobs which ranged from Infantry, Combat engineer and instructor. Most civilian jobs I had I did not like. Shortest job was working in a call center as a student loan bill collector..I walked away after 3 weeks, most dangerous was garbage collector.. always close calls with traffic morons who don't slow down and nearly run you over , plus you it literally ruins clothing garbage canisters leak and guess where the leaked liquids go. you are ouit in the cold, the rain the heat. I had to get an IV for heat stroke on 2 occasions and broke my wrist falling down an icy driveway and was ran over by a bicyclist and suffered a fractured skull at 5:00 AM I worked as a garbage collector for 2 years and it prompted me to join the military I figured any job in military would be better and it was. Glad I found the militgary or I likely would have really hated life. Military saved me.

[easysurfer]

I loved my job early on, but when I left hated it.

Guess at the start was like being called up from the minors to the big leagues. All wide eyed and green. At the end, the feeling was this is just a business and people are just a number.

The joy of w*rk (what? people get paid for this?) changed to can't wait til I'm able to bolt .

I always loved the problem solving part but the other parts were like going to a conference call and wondering why the heck I had to be in that call.

[Kwirk]

None of the choices fit. As many here are saying, I liked my job but wanted other things more.

[scrinch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby I liked all my jobs and almost all the people I worked with. I retired because I had a lot of things I wanted to do in my remaining life and work was taking up all my time. Plus, I had enough money.

Exactly my feelings. Plus I do occasional consulting now that keeps me in touch with many old co-workers/friends and the most interesting parts of the w*rk I used to do.

[ER Eddie]

Can't vote, because the poll options are too extreme. I'd guess that for most of us, we don't fall into an all-or-nothing, love-it or hate-it situation, but it's more in a grey area.

I liked my job okay. I got some satisfaction from it. I also found many things about it that I did not like, although very little that I hated.

Eventually, I left because I had enough money to retire, and I was no longer enjoying my job enough to warrant sacrificing the other things I'd rather do with the time.

I neither loved nor hated my work. I derived some satisfaction from it, but after a while, that satisfaction level dwindled to the point where continuing seemed pointless. I never got to the point where I hated or even disliked my work, though