Working Hard?

[redduck]

Is/was your job truly hard? What makes for a hard job--a job that has you[-] ranting [/-]talking about earning your “hard-earned money” (or something like that)?

 

[Hyperborea]

Or hardly working?

 

[target2019]

Working for the man is really hard. He forces money into my bank account twice a month. Unreasonable!

 

[RobbieB]

Nope, pretty easy. I didn't go to school and get a degree so I could work hard -

 

[Ready]

I always think of "working hard" as digging ditches, not going into an office. But I suppose everyone has their own perspective.

 

[Ronstar]

Working on a survey crew in the 1970's and 1980's was hard work. Pounding stakes in the ground all day - sometimes very hot, sometimes very cold. Chopping trees to clear line of sight. On my feet 10-12 hours a day.

 

[Hyperborea]

Sure, the hard physical labour is hard work. I did my share when I was young. Summers during high school in a printing plant lifting heavy loads from the time I was 14. Summers during university working as a shipper in a compressed gas plant rolling hundreds of cylinders a day two at a time. I certainly wouldn't want to be doing that work at my age now.

Certain kinds of mental work can be hard in different ways. Some of the "office" work you can leave behind and not have to worry about it in the evenings or on vacation. Some of it you can't and it's almost always with you. That's a different kind of hard work.

 

[Just_Steve]

Managing (baby sitting) a shift of 50 unionized workers in a dysfunctional state govt job is no walk in the park.

 

[redduck]

Nope, pretty easy. I didn't go to school and get a degree so I could work hard -

Yep. I remember having the thought while in school: "How can I make decent money and not work too hard?" The second consideration was working at something I understood and enjoyed. Found it. But, the odd thing is that talking to others in my profession--the vast majority of them would say the work was hard. I think that they thought they (wow, five words in row starting with the letter "t" --but I digress) were supposed to say how difficult it all was.

 

[redduck]

Managing (baby sitting) a shift of 50 unionized workers in a dysfunctional state govt job is no walk in the park.

Did most of those 50 unionized state govt. workers complain that they had hard jobs?

 

[MRG]

I was in a group(IT) that's reputation was to do the impossible.

We did a number of development projects that were sure to fail, only they didn't. It wasn't because they were easy.

Many times we waded into places and commitments that others were too smart to be involved in. The teams I was part of always delivered.

Getting told in the middle of the day to pack and go...... somewhere...... anywhere.... and you can come home when the client/country/continent was happy.

You never knew who the unlucky person would be. Several years I w*rked on the same floor as the CIO. I learned not to walk past his office. There was a danger of walking by and hearing "hey you, I know you can un-blank this"

There were the disaster recoveries. Not the drills. I was fortunate enough to get to go to the real things. I have lived in data centers in some really great places. Spent a fair amount of time in Boston, someone told me there's water around there.

I was thinking about a guy today, he worked for a hardware vendor. I worked with him on different mutual client disaster recovery adventures.
We were both in our 30's, but he always looked like he was dying. Like he was purple, not cause he was trying to be purple, he just was. I always thought his head might explode, but it didn't. Hope he is still breathing.

There was on DR I remember so well. We chose to implement a 36/12 shift. You and someone were a team. Each worked 36 hours while the buddy had 12 hours to sleep. You had 12 hours of overlap and turnover. I never saw so many stupid people.

 

[Fedup]

Yes up until I got my first job at a bank when I was 17. Cleaning office, picking oranges, cleaning people's yards, cleaning people 's house, all for spending money. The hard part is working 30-35 hours at a bank and still maintain heavy full time course load, then I changed major from accounting to engineering, I had to hurry up because money was running out. Same with getting my MS degree while working full time. I graduated within 1 year.

But after that it was mostly office jobs that I was hardly working at. Some are harder than others. But not physical hard jobs.

 

[Just_Steve]

Did most of those 50 unionized state govt. workers complain that they had hard jobs?

Yes, they did.
They worked harder avoiding work than if they just did the work assigned.
Like I said dysfunctional.

 

[swakyaby]

Most of the time I enjoy my work: an air-conditioned operating room (okay, it's really cold), working with other medical professionals, meeting all kinds and ages of people from different walks of life makes my job interesting. Then there's . . . 2 days ago, the rupturing aortic aneurysm patient taken emergently to the operating room, the kind that John Ritter and Alan Thicke had. Torrential blood loss and massive blood transfusions, for 5 hours. A heroic effort by all, but couldn't change the course of events. It was mentally draining and I would say very hard work.

 

[brucethebroker]

Our sons worked for a swimming pool company during summers. They dug out the areas where the scoop shovel could not get in. THAT was hard work. They still shake their heads (20 years later) when they talk about it.

 

[Redbugdave]

I think for me it was the drudgery of the sameness every day. "Same Sh**, Different Day". I welcomed physical work, but most of my job was mind numbing boring. Some places have glass ceilings and the pigeon holes people are put in can be deep. In that sense...I worked hard to keep my mind straight and attitude in control to retire and become FI.

 

[FUEGO]

Working on a survey crew in the 1970's and 1980's was hard work. Pounding stakes in the ground all day - sometimes very hot, sometimes very cold. Chopping trees to clear line of sight. On my feet 10-12 hours a day.

I did this for a summer during high school and that experience persuaded me that getting an engineering degree might not be a bad idea. The surveying job was probably the hardest one I've had. Being a rodman is hard work.

During my 10 year professional career, it was pretty cushy. Mostly office work, not too much field work. I did spend a bit of time around construction sites and hauling a$$ through the woods so got my fair share of mud exposure when I wasn't in an air conditioned office. Stress levels weren't off the chart because I was never a high level manager/executive. Mostly project management level where I'm managing a team of employees and/or contractors taking care of business.

For the last few years of my career it was government work, so the standards were pretty low and no one cared if stuff sucked ("good enough for government work"). In fact that attitude was frustrating when you actually wanted to, you know, do your job and do it well.

For the money they paid me (between $48000 starting in 2004 and ending at $69k in 2013) I can't complain about difficult jobs. Maybe tedious or frustrating but not that hard. Not like the guys making $11/hr digging trenches for fiberoptic cable in my neighborhood. That looks like some hard work.

 

[2017ish]

My two cents: brother works mostly 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Bricklayer in true four-season climate...

DW and I work a lot more hours than that, in her case with disrupted (and sometimes no) sleep when on call. Both of us, especially her, have big positive and [much less frequent] negative hits from our jobs, and we have a hard time scheduling time off together even on weekends.

No way would I consider either of our jobs "hard" in comparison to his--especially now that we are all in our fifties. Granted, our jobs are "harder" to do in that they have substantially greater prerequisites (and pay), but hard?

E.T.A.--Agree with others that my summer jobs (with dad) were a nice incentive to figure out how that college thing worked.

 

[scrabbler1]

The office job I had for 23 years wasn't physically demanding but it was mentally demanding a lot. And the commute was physically tiring, having to stand on trains a lot and climbing lots of stairs and ramps to get out of the underground stations.

 

[brett]

Working hard is good. But you also have to work smart.

 

[street]

My last 15 years of work was stressful and made up of decision making and a lot of planning. Not hard work but very demanding and on the spot decisions.

I worked hard jobs like when I was a power lineman climbing pole etc.. I have a PT job now, 90 days worth and work agriculture fields. It consists of hoeing, thinning and harvesting crops by hand. It is a hard job in all kinds of elements but love the hard work. Hard work makes me feel good even if I ache some but I like it.

 

[pb4uski]

My jobs were relatively easy physically... there was the stress of deadlines (sometimes unreasonable deadlines)... and long hours (usually until 7pm on a light day, commonly until 10-11pm whne a deadline was near and occasionally late night or an all nighter).

Not a lot of fun working until 2pm, going back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep and a shower and then getting back to the office to do it all over again.

I do recall returning home from work at 6am one morning to an unfriendly DW who demanded to know where I had been and what I had been doing... I think she was thinking I was having a fling... luckily I was in the office all night with plenty of witnesses.

 

[redduck]

...I think she was thinking I was having a fling... luckily I was in the office all night with plenty of witnesses.

Talk about a job with great, uh, perks: one that allows you to have an all-night fling in the office with a bunch of people witnessing it.

 

[MRG]

First ten years in logging and mills was physically hard and dangerous.
The insanity of some of the guys made it much more dangerous.

One guy who was a cutter was supposed hook the logs on the dozer for me. He wouldn't and you fell a tree so you can get the wire rope under it, otherwise it's a real PIA pushing frayed wire under the felled tree. He'd get way ahead and eventually have to stop. He'd go back in woods, roll up a fatty and get ripped. Then he thought it was funny to see how close he could fell a tree to where I was!

There was a mill configuration where I did 99% of the stacking of sawn lumber and RR ties. Lumber wasn't too bad, but a 7"X9"X8'6" green RR tie was about 300 pounds. The first 50 of the day were OK, they went down. The next 50 went up, and above the head was really hard.

We did a fair amount of custom sawing for farmers. Generally nice pine or hemlock but they often wanted long stuff. A green 26 foot long 2"X12" is pretty heavy.

Yeah that was physically demanding work. Glad I left at 27.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Is/was your job truly hard? What makes for a hard job--a job that has you[-] ranting [/-]talking about earning your “hard-earned money” (or something like that)?

my job isn't hard; I just have to think hard all the time

roofing houses in Houston or Dallas during the summer is hard

mowing yards in Houston or Dallas during the summer is hard

I'm blessed with a photographic memory and top percentile math ability so I just have to think hard