Q: Worst part of your j*b?

[spirit]

Thank you

I was feeling sorry for myself. Everything I just read here resonated with me. Ready to quit my job. Then I read these posts and realize my job is not so bad afterall. Going back Monday with flowers for the boss.

 

[rescueme]

Definitely busting your ass(ets) off day in and day out, while some schmuck co-worker (sitting in the cubicle next to you) pushes his pencil around, spends hours typing on his keyboard, and shoves every bit of work onto a subordinate to do.

How about speaking at the top of his/her voice during a speakerphone "conference" (I'm sure to try to impress the folks around him/her).

I've been retired almost five years, but this is one that drove me crazy in years past....

 

[scrabbler1]

Even though I mentioned only the commute as the worst thing about my former job, I had a few other, lesser things I did not like.

I hated doing employee reviews because HR and the higher-ups were frequently changing the style and format of the forms, one time requiring us to attend an all-day class (which started before my regular arrival time, forcing me to get up earlier for this waste of time). Then I had my own division's management marking up whatever I wrote to suit their own agendas and blaming me for not writing it up "correctly." Thankfully, when I switched from working FT to PT, I was removed from having to write up any more of those things in the last 7 years I worked.

Meetings were another thing I hated, from the biweekly divisional management meetings to broader department staff meetings to project-specific meetings which always melted my mind LOL!

I did have a few crummy coworkers and superiors in my 23 years of work. One got so bad I had to file a harrassment charge because she went out of her way to embarrass me in front of a subordinate I was doing work with. Most of the time, the bad coworkers and superiors either quit or got transferred which was nice.

 

[JakeBrake]

I'm a self employed salesman and the thing I hate most is the decline of personal relationships with the buyers. Most sales used to be conducted over the phone and personal relationships developed over time. Buyers got to know me, trust me and respect my knowledge of the product and the industry. Even if my prices were a little higher the buyer knew he was getting a better product at a fair price and also knew that I would be there to back them up on the few occasions where problems arose.

Nowadays, buyers work for MegaCorp and are doing the jobs of 2 or 3 people. They are also buying multiple products lines. They have little time to talk and so many resort to blanket e-mailing their inquiries to every possible supplier they know and end up buying mostly based on price alone. Once I quote the business it is often impossible to get any feedback from the buyer as to what they bought or at what price or if they even bought anything at all.

And then on the supplier side many of my competitors resort to cheating to get the business. Buy one product with low specs and then represent it as something else to get a price advantage.

Been doing this for 23 years now and it is so much less satisfying than it used to be. SO ready to FIRE now but have to stick it out another 3-4 years.

I feel your pain from the other side of the coin. I bought many millions of $ worth of stuff for Megacorp during my working career. I, too, developed personal relationships with trusted salesmen. At some point back in the day (I think it happened after the WWII generation left the company) we were required to buy stuff from vendors selected by higher management. I strongly suspected the CEO and/or other top executives had personal interests in the selected vendors. Higher management never said a word to the salemen who were kicked to the curb. That was left to me.

Higher management would hand down specifications for complex products to be purchased by competitive bid. The specifications were tailored to match the favored vendor's products. So, naturally, the favored vendor submitted the low bid. Often the product was not exactly what was needed. I was then forced to buy the extras required to make the product work properly from the vendor at an exorbitant cost. However, when higher management wanted to show how much money they were saving, they showed only the basic bid cost and not all the extras.

 

[target2019]

How many workplaces still have an abundance of people? Most I've seen have slashed down to the bone and, in some cases, all the way into the marrow.

At least 125,000. There have been cuts, but it seems there is always a way to replace the guy over 55 with a younger "talent." There will be more cuts for the next 3-5 years as defense gets scaled back.

 

[Khan]

- Watching grown people with advanced degrees and self-important attitudes fighting over the "lollipops" (project funding) when there were always plenty to go around.
- "Pencil whipping" - revisions to technical writeups that had already passed spelling and grammar checks with flying colors.
- "Powerpoint Engineering"
- Being sick all the time from the latest cold bug/flu
- A building with no windows, and in winter months, driving to w*rk in the dark and back home in the dark. Sunlight deprivation is not funny over time.

Yes, they kept the programmers in the basement.

 

[Nords]

Yes, they kept the programmers in the basement.

Hey hey hey, I spent my entire career in windowless concrete-block [-]Faraday cages[/-] offices. When the fire alarm rang you frequently had to run upstairs to evacuate...

 

[MooreBonds]

How about speaking at the top of his/her voice during a speakerphone "conference" (I'm sure to try to impress the folks around him/her).

I've been retired almost five years, but this is one that drove me crazy in years past....

You know, it's really funny you mention that - the aforementioned cubicle [-]do-nothing[/-] hard(ly) working neighbor is a prima donna in every sense. He reserves our sole conference room so he can do his 3 times a week conference calls with a contractor, so he can look at the conference room's bigass projector screen, instead of viewing the images on his dual screen workstation.

Meanwhile, rather than give up his use of the conference room for his own self, he expects other people that have conference calls (up to 4 people at a time) to huddle around a phone in someone's half-wall cubicle, having to turn up the volume to the max so everyone can hear and be heard on the call....which completely disrupts half of the other people in the office because they have to deal with excessive background noise.

Oh, and when the neighbor periodically gets kicked out of the conference room for others to use during his calls? Yes, he sits at his cubicle and insists on turning on the speaker phone, so he doesn't have to inconvenience himself to hold the phone against his ear.

Of course, he doesn't keep this just to conference calls. Every so often, he'll feel important enough to simply do a speaker phone call with another person just to exercise and flex his prima donna muscle.

And don't even get me started with him demanding training for software that he ends up never using, and demanding one of the fastest computers in the office to run software he never uses (why should he? He has his slave that he piles everyone on to do for him...)

 

[BTravlin]

I feel your pain from the other side of the coin. I bought many millions of $ worth of stuff for Megacorp during my working career. I, too, developed personal relationships with trusted salesmen. At some point back in the day (I think it happened after the WWII generation left the company) we were required to buy stuff from vendors selected by higher management. I strongly suspected the CEO and/or other top executives had personal interests in the selected vendors. Higher management never said a word to the salemen who were kicked to the curb. That was left to me.

Higher management would hand down specifications for complex products to be purchased by competitive bid. The specifications were tailored to match the favored vendor's products. So, naturally, the favored vendor submitted the low bid. Often the product was not exactly what was needed. I was then forced to buy the extras required to make the product work properly from the vendor at an exorbitant cost. However, when higher management wanted to show how much money they were saving, they showed only the basic bid cost and not all the extras.

Bad situation to be in for sure. Don't know that I've been on the receiving end of such nonsense but it's possible.

My sales are usually in the $20-50k range and I used to deal primarily with the business owner who had the best interest of the business in mind when making purchases. Over time, industry consolidation has changed that to where I now deal with MegaCorp clerk who may be under similar pressures. Very frustrating.

 

[Ally]

I run a nonprofit and some of the things I hate:
Looking for funding, grants, etc.
Trying to make sure we are always covering our backs, since our clients are are often looking to sue ( we had cameras installed, which have really helped with false accusations.)
Dealing with numerous regulatory agencies.

And one of my biggest ones is just having to talk to people, network, do PR, speeches, since I'm an introvert.

 

[Mill]

getting up in the morning. (and Im only half joking about that )

I cant wait until ER when I will sleep when my body is tired, and get up when my body wants to get up.

 

[MBAustin]

I cant wait until ER when I will sleep when my body is tired, and get up when my body wants to get up.

Definitely one of the perks of ER. After decades of alarm clock set for 06.00 or earlier, I was surprised that my "natural" getting up time settled in to around 08.15 (it took several months to actually get to that point). I do get up earlier a couple of times a week for one reason or another, but it's not nearly the drag of 5 days a week.

 

[HeatherB]

180 teenagers every.single.day.

This used to be a good thing. Burn out is very real.

 

[SJ1_]

For me it is easily packing to leave on a business trip (like this week).

Management - Easy commute, pretty normal hours, work with some really
great and intelligent people, but our management is clueless.

 

[Tekward]

Some great replies. It's made me appreciate my j*b, which would be really great except for the travel and work.

At least most people on this site have a plan to avoid being a long term wage slave. I'm amazed at how many unhappy people never take the long term view with a goal of escaping.

 

[RitaR551]

Hands down. The commute. I work with great people and am able to be of help to many, but that drive twice a day.....bleh.

 

[MBAVisionary]

Would say working till 6. My last two jobs I was done at 4 or 4:30 and used to workout regularly afterward.

 

[Lisa99]

As old as this thread is I've probably answered before, but today I have a new answer.

Was recently 'promoted' to management yet again (I keep wiggling out of it, but it just keeps coming back.) This time it was take the role or risk working for someone that I don't respect.

When I agreed to take the role there were two hiring reqs to add to my staff. Well guess what, there is now a hiring freeze and not only can I not hire, I may have to cut. And of course no work will go away.

So, I'm with Ziggy in the opinion that, in my company at least, there aren't nearly enough people to do the work management expects.

 

[studbucket]

I really have a pretty great job, but the thing that gets to me the most is the stress. Just trying to keep up with what needs to get done, the new projects, and the increasing expectations. In a way, these are good problems because they correlate with better performance reviews and pay, but I often wish I could just be a bit less responsible. Only 18.5 years left on my path to retirement

 

[ronocnikral]

the CEO's over-promoted/over-paid/ex-secretary who gets large bonuses and "invests" it into plastic surgery has a 19 yo, pregnant daughter-in-law working in our department who sends out emails every time she will be using the printer/copier for more than 5 minutes at a time instructing the department to get their "copying" done in 20 minutes so she can use the printer/copier. We then get another email letting us know when she is done. My highly sophisticated and detailed time management system has my trips to the copy machine scheduled down to the half hour. (<-sarcasm)

I don't know why this pisses me off, but these 2+ emails per day does for some odd reason.

 

[urn2bfree]

1) insurance-driven healthcare 2) malpractice 3) obnoxious patients

+1
And 1 + 2 + 3 = STRESS!!!!

 

[Moscyn]

Obnoxious dumwit manager, "higher than thou" directors, commuting to and from work, early morning/lunch/late evening conference calls, 360 performance reviews and half-yearly reviews. I don't mind the super urgent requests as long as they all happen during working hours. Even in my second year of retirement, I recall these with much distaste but am thankful these are all in the past.

 

[ejw93]

1) Commute. 2 hours per day staring at tailpipes.
2) "8 Bosses, Bob". I have to answer to about 12 different persons- None of whom can even remotely consider me as a direct report employee.

 

[RetirementColdHardTruth]

Having to work just for health care coverage. I would be so out of there if coverage was affordable independantly.

 

[brewer12345]

On a week to week basis, business travel. I am tired of travelling and sick of airports.

On a more fundmental basis, I am increasingly goddamn sick of sitting in a gray cube while the world is going on out there.