What I don't miss about work.

[Irishgirlyc58]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau Yeah, we had a choice name for 'em. It stated with Circle. YMMV

We had cluster ****s instead.
I of course was in government work. [emoji23]

I don’t really miss anything.

I sure don’t miss sitting through insufferable board meetings. In fact I forgot about those until one day someone asked me about the previous meeting.

I’m only 4 months into retirement. I think it took me 2 weeks to forget about my 35 year career.

[Scout]

Quote:

Originally Posted by street The worry and stress that people don't get hurt/killed and follow all safety rules. No short cuts do it safe every time all the time. Sending crews out in storms and adverse weather conditions in a dangerous job to begin with. I don't miss that stress one bit!!!

What did you do Street?

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack I enjoyed most of the 50-80 local people I worked with daily, even miss/still talk with a few - but I don't miss the half dozen or so who were never happy. And I don't miss "the suits that ran the store" (about half the entitled Corp dweebs). I had a good 35 year run, enjoyed about 33 years of it, that was enough...

Glad you got a good 33 out of 35. I seemed to have 5 or 6 year runs of good followed by about the same periods of bad. My last 7 years was pretty good because I got to do what I wanted to do, my office was at the front of the plant and my windows overlooked a pastoral scene with herds of deer playing and I was financially independent so I simply ignored the corporate cwap. When I was informed I was going to have another bad period, I left within the week. Nice ending to a "checkered" c*reer. YMMV

[street]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scout What did you do Street?

Electrical line superintendent/engineering.

[Koolau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by street Electrical line superintendent/engineering.

Heh, heh, so do you love or hate "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell?

[street]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau Heh, heh, so do you love or hate "Wichita Lineman" by Glen Campbell?

LOL! Well, nice to have a song with that title but not a fan of the song. I have a lot of respect for the lineman and my hats goes off to all in the industry.

[Winemaker]

Meetings and all the gobbledegoop that went with them. Nothing like spending 10 + hours underground on midnight shift, then come out and go to a meeting with guys that worked 8 hours underground and had to stick around until you came above ground and signed the legal books. Then listen to BS about not putting heart into it... Then they sell your a$$ off to avoid liabilities.

[big-papa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Koolau This year's "new age" (or what ever) program to make us more productive: Performance Excellence, 6 Sigma, etc. Oh, and I don't miss Performance Appraisals (both giving and receiving.) YMMV

Just finished giving performance appraisals for the very last time.

My direct manager was let go shortly before the performance review cycle started, so I reported to his boss for a while, who was the one who actually wrote my performance appraisal. But then he was let go. So it was completely awesome to have my performance review delivered by somebody (my new, permanent boss) whom I didn't report to for the bulk of last year and which was written by somebody who is no longer at the company.

But at least I did get to tell new boss that I'm retiring during my performance review. So at least that was something. Felt kinda bad for him because he's somebody I've known for years and believe that I'd enjoy reporting to him. But my plans are in place. Final date still to be determined as I've agreed to stay on as long as reasonable to help replace me and train new person.

Anyway, HATE HATE HATE performance reviews, at least as they've been done in every mega-corp I've worked at for the bulk of 4 decades. Ranking people with different skillsets, applying a forced distribution of scores, delivering bad news to people who are great performers in an absolute sense, but simply had people better than they are in the organization and then having to explain to higher-ups why we have attrition.

Nope, not gonna miss it one bit...

Cheers,
Big-Papa

[Mr._Graybeard]

One thing I don't miss is the software updates, each one of which was designed to wring a little more productivity out of you. (None ever had the goal of making the j*b easier.) And with every update came the bugs that had to be worked around on the fly while the systems guy struggled to straighten them out. A former colleague summed it up: "Every upgrade is a downgrade."

[ElizabethT]

SMART goals. My gawd I hated them.

As a volunteer, I still resent direct requests asking if I can fill in for another volunteer. The answer, for the record, will always be 'No.' I control my life now, including the time I give away to you for free. I work like a dervish during every volunteer shift, but that is all you get. Be thankful.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Shift work
Danger ( oil refineries)
Travel
Performance reviews ( writing or receiving)
Weather extremes whilst working outside

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foghorn Leghorn Shift work Danger ( oil refineries) Travel Performance reviews ( writing or receiving) Weather extremes whilst working outside

I changed careers because of this. When I ran a logyard for several years; they quit buying logs from one producer for a year. When they opened it up to them I was forced to work in heavy rain for 3 days. I spent $600k, 1983 dollars, no knowing if 600k was right, or 400k, 800k because I wear glasses and I couldn't see. In any case 3 months later I started night school for a indoor career.

[Souschef]

My biggest problem was an ILS (integrated Logistic Support) meeting at 4 PM on Fridays. I had to drive 25 miles to the meeting (no pay for mileage).

The meetings lasted about an hour and a half and my presentation was about an hour in.
A number of us relieved the boredom by writing doggerel

[Winemaker]

Oh yes, performance reviews. Bunch of BS. I for a while I was a production foreman, 2 hours before shift started, 3 hours after shift ended. Called off sick 3 days in 35 years, I kept getting 8s or 9s instead of 10s for attendance. I asked my supervisor, what do I have to do to get a 10, he said I never came in to w*rk on my days off!!!! WTF! I asked what about the days off that were scheduled and they asked me to w*rk when somebody else called off, that was different........

[jollystomper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby If I were to think hard enough about it, I'm sure I could recall some things about work that I did not like. But why? I had a successful career that I largely enjoyed, and that career is what allows me to be retired now. So I'll just be happy to remember the good times and let the bad ones slip into the memory hole.

I agree. Ultimately, by the time I retired, any thing I did not like about work was far outweighed by the compensation and status I had gained. They were more irritants than things that stuck in my mind. Almost all of the tedious reporting tasks several of us had figured out how to automate and minimize the time. I got along fine with most folks, and for those that did not they were more likely to get "if you cannot get along with Jolly, there is something wrong with you" feedback . Those long meetings of a cast of thousands were either a a good time to do real work in the background, or to have a private chat session with other trusted participants and keep ourselves amused. I was working from home, so any commuting was my choice. There was a lot of travel, bu also a lot of travel perks and benefits. In general my career was more of a hobby that I was paid very, very nicely for .

[Theoldbreed]

Happy Sunday! Retired Veterans Service Officer.Loved my job and the people I served…but don’t miss the commute…the structured schedule …and bureaucracy! Semper Fi!

[Jackietime]

Performance evaluations, salary disparities, unexpected and unwanted new assignments to name a few.

[RobbieB]

I miss eating lots of good food on the company dime.

I still eat lots of good food on my dime.

Oh well.

[GalaxyBoy]

Open floor plans.

Conference table right behind my seat in the open floor plan, complete with speakerphone and big screen computer monitor.

Getting chewed out for not getting enough work done while sitting in the open office listening to multiple calls on speakerphones.

Performance reviews by somebody with half my experience when I’m less than five years from ER (but they didn’t know that).

[FLSUnFIRE]

Today's Facebook memory was a really bad poem/song about something I don't miss about work from 2012:


Song I wrote about work (sung to the tune of the Hokey Pokey):
You make a decision once,
Then you reverse it twice,
Then you rebaseline the whole thing
And you actually wonder why,
We're not all on the same page
when we go brief Mr Dee
It's systemic don't blame me!