This is more a work related question for those wondering…
If you had a choice between a job which you don’t like that pays extremely well but you are surrounded by people who on the best of days annoy you and worst of days ruin your day OR a job that you enjoy and sort of pays the bills and has coworkers you like working with who make the suffering of work a little better.
I have had both and I would rather the 2nd option than the first. Who doesn’t want more money? The only thing I miss about the first job is the money. I disliked what I did and could barely stand my coworkers at the best of times. Despite the fact I got laid off there, I have no real desire to go back.
The worst related advice I ever got was from someone who has been fired from more jobs than anyone I know (17 at last count). It was “follow the money.”
My dad, strangely enough, gave me the exact opposite. “Don’t ever follow money, it will get you more trouble.”
Considering my dad was retired comfortably and worked for one company in Canada, he might be right.
Don’t get me wrong. Having money is a lot better than not having it but life is too short to suffer working with people you dislike/despise.
So anything else on your minds?
i follow the money
co-workers are a thing i tolerate
unfortunately unavoidable in my line of work…unless i go in to business for myself
ive not followed that much money yet
but till then ive found that i know what i’m doing fuck off…works fairly well on co-workers
tho me dad always said…if your job is your hobby…you will always be happy
and i did follow that advice
i love my job….and money
i just fucking hate co-workers
Your dad was smart, and I hope you can figure out where that came from.
It’s easy to get stuck and think monthly expenses are carved in stone when they’re not. If you have the luxury to spend a few months looking for better options, that is.
eh monthly expenses are kinda carved in stone when you rent mate
i have to make at least 2 grand a month so everyone eats and the house doesnt go away
after years of making ends meet taking any job i could get….im lucky to now actually have my chosen profession…tho…i was expecting to be automotive….not coffee machines
i mean…. panelbeater/welder doesnt exactly scream coffee machines now does it…
but metal work is metal work
I’m thinking more in terms of if you wait until the last minute to decide if you’re renewing the lease, then you’re stuck. But if you start thinking six months early to weigh your options, it’s surprising what you might find.
It seems like the basic law of housing is good options never show up when you need them, so you have to figure out how to play coy and string them along until you can pounce. Sort of like a cat hunting a beetle.
in cat terms…..this me
but honestly…..no matter how early i think,,,,unless i win the lottery i am stuck renting
and unless i move into the sticks i am not going to rent cheaper than i am now
and the money i save by moving into the sticks will be offset by needing a car again
catch 22
I always have felt that people who are super duper “ohh follow your passion, do what you love” have never lived paycheck to paycheck with no safety net.
I definitely think if you have the choice between a job you hate that pays well and a job you like that pays less but still covers your expenses, the 2nd one is smarter in the long term for your sanity though.
I went the first route at first and then the second route. I scored a job that was a large jump in pay. I lasted six months before I resigned out of boredom and frustration, although I loved my coworkers. My bosses, though, were useless time-servers. Those coworkers are still there, 30 years later, and have moved way up in the ranks.
One of the ways I was able to take my much lower-paying job (although it got lucrative toward the end, but that was sheer longevity) was due to Better Half, of course. If he and I had made the same salary at the time we would have had a roommate or two and would have lived in somewhere like Queens or something. As it was, we could float our glamorous Manhattan lifestyle (/s) in true 90s fashion.
I’m torn. It’s better to work with people you like but you have to be able to make enough to support yourself and put something aside for retirement. And as much as I like the idea of doing something you enjoy I also think the concept of your job being fulfilling is part of a capitalist lie to convince people to settle for less money and more difficult circumstances because they’re passionate about what they do. The ideal situation would be to earn what you need and be treated with dignity and respect. So I guess I’m in favor of having a job that allows me to live a good life. Instead of a job that is my life. But what do I know?
oh also…renew my lease?
thats not how it works here….this place is mine long as i pay rent…forever
I think Hannibal has the right of it.
welp…im still awake
and that means its nakatomi o clock
next time i get bored im doin dune
huh…it deleted the rest of the post when i edited…..
welp whatever
…for me I think it boils down to what’s coming in & going out of the tank
…which the increase in cashflow has a bearing on…but doesn’t really decide the thing for me
…so…I’ve worked places just to get the bills covered…& sucked it up & turned up & made nice with co-workers I’d have actively avoided all other things being equal…was even halfway good at it a time or two
…but what I learned is that I can only stand so much…under the right circumstances it seems like a lot more than it is…whatever reserves of patience I have with which to over-ride my natural inclinations for the sake of collegiate civility aren’t particularly hard to deplete…but they top themselves back off given some let up
…but…they seem to not be one big tank so much as a bunch of individually labelled ones…& once someone ran theirs all the way dry before anything went back in the tank…that tears the bottom clean out of the thing apparently…because after that just being in their vicinity was enough to have to make a constant effort not to give in to an overwhelming desire to channel my inner bonfire of the vanities & scorch some earth…burned bridges be damned
…I eventually learned that even one “colleague” managing that feat meant moving on was overdue
…nowadays I get to be a bit pickier about who I spend my working hours with…not as picky as maybe I’d like…& I’m not liable to start boasting about its effect on my bank balance
…but I guess you could call it the other kind of fuck you money?
I’m not gonna lie — this one’s fostering a bit of soul-searching for me.
I mean, when my current main gig found me about three years ago, it really did seem like a godsend of sorts — particularly after it became full-time, which meant that I not only didn’t have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck anymore but also had health insurance that, for the first time in my working life, I didn’t have to pay for out of pocket. And I could interpret all day long and keep my skills at a constant level, instead of progressing in fits and starts with the sporadic engagements over the previous 15 years or so. Sure, I’d miss going out all over the area to work in different places, but with this I didn’t even need to leave the house!
Of course, last year inflation took a bite of things, as did a trip to Spain that I mistakenly thought I’d had enough PTO to cover and a trip to the emergency room that I only managed to finish paying off at the beginning of this year. The calls also started coming in one after the other, barely buffered by the 30-second grace period between them. I started to spend my “lunch” break napping (I start at noon, so I tend to eat beforehand anyway) and would get so exhausted by the end of the day that I didn’t want to speak much at all. And, yeah, since this was all happening from home, that meant I wasn’t really getting out, either.
Things thankfully haven’t been quite as dire so far this year, or maybe I’ve just learned enough lessons and steeled myself a bit more. Either way, though, I think I’ve come to a couple of conclusions about this whole gig. One is that the environment of the call center is just intrinsically full of drudgery, tedium and dispiritedness, and not having to commute there doesn’t change that at all. (Neither does trying to ignore my loudmouth braggart of a Puerto Rican co-worker from on Teams instead of from the next cubicle over.) And the other is that there is almost nothing that kills the dignity of work or trivializes the heart and soul poured into a vocation more than rendering it a service “on demand” — of the Uber strain. (And I say this even after years of working with and for people who are, more often than not, almost wholly ignorant of what my work actually entails — even right down to the job title.)
So, yeah, I’ll probably stick with this until it just becomes far too intolerable or until the minuses really start coming out in force against the plusses, and then I’ll probably get into something else. Or I could always get fired, too, I guess.
Having started my “grown up job” years at a workplace which I later learned was toxic and actually abusive a.f., and then spent most of the *next* decade staying basically stagnant pay-wise, because I was raised in a place where the adults around us when we were growing up said, “Go in, work hard, *always* put in your full effort, and your bosses will notice and pay you accordingly!”?
There are *reasons* that my dayjob & part-time one are Union ones, with Publicly PUBLISHED pay scales…
I *won’t* work long-term at a place where everyone is miserable, or I HATE the place (been there, had the stress-nausea every morning, & autistic burnout, the last year or so, at that first job… it’s NOT worth my health or sanity!
But I *also* chose those “regular step up” published payscale Union jobs, because I was sick & TIRED of working for bosses who didn’t believe in keeping employees paid well enough to only work at *their* company.
And retirement-wise/ pay-wise, those nearly 20 years of working the stagnant-wage jobs (they paid WELL when I started–but no raises for years, makes a person fall WAY behind!), means that I know *multiple* folks 20+ years younger than me, with *less* experience, who make significantly *more* than I do🙃
Because although I have the “degree in my field” and more than a decade of work with kids at this point (between my High school summer-time job, time at my hometown daycare, and my last couple jobs), I have less *time* in this particular *position* than they do, and am therefore lower on that published “Steps & Lanes” scale.🙃
Seriously y’all?
If you know young people–Girls in particular, PLEASE for the love of Pete, TEACH THEM TO NEGOTIATE A PAY CONTRACT, and TELL them to change track semi-regularly to *GET* those appropriate bumps up in pay!!!
Don’t let ANYONE feed them that old bullshit line of, “If you just do the job WELL, you’ll be recognized for that, and paid accordingly!”
Because, let’s face it, we ALL know around here, that the places which do that nowadays are rarer than the proverbial “Hen’s Teeth” and *most* places are ACTUALLY going to keep you in that shitty, overworked, & underpaid position, and promote/pay better the incompetent, ass-kissing assholes, because the HARD worker is cheaper to have working for them, AND puts out more & *better* work!
They’re going to be “Too Valuable!” to promote, and event they’re not going to get by with just the *one* job, anymore, if they stay there.
Do better by the girls y’all know, and teach them to move ON, if they aren’t being given *REGULAR* raises!
And in completely *unrelated* news?
This is gonna be absolutely hilarious, when Florida farmers finally *realize* what ‘ol
Meathead’sMeatball’s law means, for their ability to hire enough migrant workers to bring their crops in, annnnnd then have alllllllll sorts of produce left rotting in their fields!https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/new-florida-drivers-license-law-could-impact-people-with-minnesota-licenses-later-this-year/
i mean, in a state like Florida, there probably *will* be a *few* options eventually, like renting out prison-labor, and low-level offenders who are sentenced with misdemeanors…
But the ability to *do* ^that^ labor “renting” is gonna take 2 years *minimum* to get up & running…
Also–to my fellow Deadsplinter-ers, you may wanna buckle up, because if that law stays in place, your winter/spring produce could be EXPENSIVE, in early 2024!!!
This question popped up in my head as I was applying for a rash of jobs over the past few years.
“What if I hate my coworkers?”
As much as I dislike the job I’m currently doing, I don’t mind my coworkers. I admittedly had a rough time at E because I didn’t really warm up to my coworkers except a couple. It was tough especially when they upped my salary to a competitive level unlike those feckless dipshits at Nortel.
The problem with higher paying jobs is that the employer is usually asking said employee to eat a lot more crap/headaches/responsibilities something my feckless former friend Mr “follow the money” never ever got because he didn’t care about the job except as a stepping stone to the next higher paying job (which is in large part why he got fired so many times despite his constant bragging about his MBA degree because he wouldn’t/couldn’t handle the responsibilities demanded of him.) Unfortunately for our friendship, I saw a lot of the same thing which is why I stopped hanging out with him. Given the choice between toxic coworkers and toxic friends… well, I can do something about toxic friends.
So I was quite curious what others thought.
I am similar to SplinterRIP is that there is a limit to how much I can tolerate fools or idiots or assholes. Unfortunately, that is a very low bar because I start tripping up idiots stupid plans or tell them off.
If it gets bad enough I go all passive aggressive in that if I don’t like you I just pretend you don’t exist which is not good at all.
Anyway I enjoyed seeing what all of you guys thought.