I find it hard to believe anyone dislikes work in general, but maybe I'm wrong.
I'll raise my hand.
I enjoyed doing submarine operations and teaching. I'm good at them-- I have the awards & citations to prove it, and although the skills may be perishable they can still be refreshed. The trusting younger generation also lacks my decades of cunning, deceipt, & dirty tricks.
When I went through all the retirement-counseling career assessments and self-interest surveys, they suggested that I'd make an excellent nuclear engineer and/or a middle manager. (Golly.) And when I retired I was offered several jobs involving... submarine operations and teaching.
There are plenty of other jobs out there. Hardly a day goes by that I don't see something and think "Hey, I could do that and make a pile of money at it." Maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong in my assessment, but the things I've tried so far... I've made a pile of money at them. They just weren't worth the hours of effort.
So I feel that I've resolved the questions of upgrading my skills or finding desirable employment. They're not the issue.
What I object to is the dissatisfiers of "overhead" and the hassle factor: commuting, wearing business-attire uniforms, meetings, projects planning, mandatory training, standing on my feet for long periods of time, meeting deadlines, liability insurance, risk assessment/management, crafting carefully-worded e-mails in response to taskers that I don't give a crap about, suffering fools gladly, emergencies... the list is nearly endless. Prove me wrong-- find me an occupation that avoids those hurdles.
I'm happy with the ER lifestyle. Power is not a motivator-- too much responsibility. Prestige is not a motivator-- had it, don't care. Money is not a motivator-- can't spend what I have now. Being a voice for change-- feh. Using my skills to make the world a better place-- hey, that's what our philanthropy is for.
When I evaluated my first job offer (teaching nuclear engineering to shipyard supervisors, what else?) I realized that I lacked a commitment to the mission, the co-workers, and the customers. Even worse, I feared that if I gave it a year or two then I'd send myself down the same old hyperachieving path of trying to be the best and most qualified engineer instructor I could be-- even if it took extra training, weekends, & midwatches. For no other purpose than to pound my chest and bellow that I was the best silverback in the pack.
I'm lazy but I'm not sedentary. I have no problem with doing 2-3 hours of yardwork, or home improvement, or fixing infrastructure at 2 AM, or volunteering for a school trip, or reading/writing/editing, or spending hours at taekwondo. But I'd rather not be hostage to a paycheck.
One of my criteria for evaluating a job has been: "If I decide that morning to take four hours off for surfing, will anyone care or even notice?" There's probably a good reason that the surfers in the Tuesday 9 AM lineup are on retired, on vacation, calling in "sick", or unemployed.
I enjoy surfing. I enjoy teaching surfing even more. But if I had to show up at 10:30 AM next Tuesday to teach someone at $__/hour, I wouldn't enjoy it anymore.
I could be wrong. In 10 years I could be so bored, unfiulfilled, and lonely that I'll be taking defense contracts. But I doubt it. If any of you can think of something that'd knock me out of my comfortable ER rut, I'm happy to consider it! But after six years of ageless exploration, I've pretty much concluded that ER is my avocation.
I used to have a work problem, but now I make enough money to avoid it...