Do You Enjoy Your Job?

Plus 1

HR will be experts in employment law.
If possible get acquainted with someone in HR outside of your business.

 

Buy a little van, get yourself DBS checked and do general maintenance specialising in elderly people. No internet, nice old timey hand written quotes delivered by hand preferably. Adverts in day centres etc.

They want all sorts of simple little stuff done or fixed and they have £££ to spend and nothing to spend it on.

 

I had a job in a ski centre once that I thought I would love.. But it was a slippery slope from day 1.

 

Were you wearing glass moccassins ?

 

Skis mate.

 

Loved doing football coaching when I was younger but every other job has been a means to an end. I work so I can pay bills, mortgages, go on holiday etc. I have no love for the job and the only reason I want the company to be successful is so it keeps me and most of my colleagues in work. I will retire as soon as its affordable but sadly a while yet

 

I used to be a lift attendant. The job had it's ups and downs.

 

You are Alan-a-Dale and I claim my five shillings.

 

This bloke?

 

My Dad used to be a central heating boffin and used to do late night emergency call outs but didn’t have the heart to charge OAPs. Got paid in cups of tea and biscuits

 

I hate my job. I handed my notice in recently and am moving to a new job soon.

I'm under no illusions though. I've not enjoyed a job for more than a couple of months before it starts to turn sour. The new company does look good though. Really nice people and all the right noises being made.

I don't think I've ever had a true vocation. I fell into every job I've ever had. Until very recently I really had very little idea about most jobs - I think we are terrible at educating our children about the world of work (at least we were in our day). All my 'successful' friends have jobs that I completely don't understand. Just consultants of some sort or the other.

I never really knew what I wanted to do and so I ended up just falling from one job to another my whole 'career' if you can call it that. I'm also very lazy.

 

I always knew you were Fern Britton.

 

Running 11 accounts on here is surely a full time job ? And you don't enjoy it ?

 

11? And the rest.

 

There’s money to be made doing all the little jobs trades do not want to do. Putting up shelves, leaky taps, Installing washing machines, hedge trimming, changing locks, handrails, putting up repack sheds and furniture. If you have a van, even moving stuff. My mum promised my daughter a family heirloom bit of furniture. It’s too big for a car, so what do you do?

Like most service industries. success is about finding where your customers are, and targeting advertising at them. You can almost do that on facebook. Join a load of local community groups and see what jobs people ask recommendations for. Getting the job done effectively at a fair price. Turn up when and do what you Promise.

 

Only if you are prepared to go with the flow and dam the consequences

 

I was listening to a podcast about this. Apparently they changed the education system in Finland to teach people how to be happy as adults, rather than how to pass exams. Part of that is about teaching them how to figure out what they want to do in life, as a result their population is much happier. I thought that was interesting.

 

I was a grave digger for a while. It's the only job where you start at the top and work your way down

 

On the day I finished paying for my sons’ education I began scaling back the consultancy business I’d spent the previous 20 years building up and I now ‘work’ mornings only and have just 3 retained clients - all of whom pay my invoices straight away and are very pleasant companies to work for. I never paid into a pension scheme in my life and instead ploughed my money into property. As a result we have a modest portfolio of mortgage-free properties and lease holdings that provide another income stream. I turned 55 this year and while I quite enjoy doing next to sod all I’m getting bored and will probably start something up in the new year. No idea what – I have no interest in completely dropping out and running a small holding or living in a croft and taking up weaving or any of the other classic mid-life crisis career moves– but I’ll think of something.

 

I feel really lucky as I’ve (on the whole) enjoyed my working life. However I’m 62 now and know that I may wake up one morning and decide I’ve had enough.
The problem I’ve faced is that I hate the thought of retirement and want to continue doing something I enjoy every day.
This is why I am now actively working on not an exit strategy but a transition strategy. Fortunately my income requirements are small, which means I can have real fun in my latter years.
Too many people hate their jobs but need the money and that makes me sad. Also many people have hated their jobs and can’t wait to do nothing in retirement, a recipe for dementia and early death.
My advise? Find something you enjoy, something that challenges and stay young!
My plan for what is worth is to train as a yoga teacher......I’ll be the oldest yoga teacher in the world and almost certainly the only one wearing a Watford shirt!

 

Yeah maybe. Especially up here where I now live.

No pension or holiday pay though!

I will see once my wife's back at work. Failing that maybe an adult apprenticeship in something.

 

Going back over a decade ago now when I left school at 16, the 'careers advice' was go do A Levels, an then go to Uni. The amount of people I've met/interviewed who have random non-related degrees and gone into something completely different is astonishing. I can't help but think if (from a career perspective solely) University is really worth it for half of the people who attend. There's other qualifications out there that you can do whilst working, and you won't have the debt. Admittedly a lot of people I've spoken to who are graduates loved the Uni experience etc, and most acknowledge that they'll never have to pay the debt back anyway.

For me? My job is ok. I echo the thoughts of a lot of people on here - Find a good boss, and a good team and it's alright. Have had a handful of bad managers in my career, and I dreaded going into work. In your head something can always be better, more money, more free time, more variety etc, but being realistic, happy to have the job I have at the moment, it certainly kept me mentally challenged during the lockdown and there's good people. I have to credit the company on how they acted with Covid - There was no hesitation to get people working remotely, which they did before BoJo's lockdown, and they have approached the "return phase" diligently basically giving people an option to go to the office if they prefer, or continue working from home.

For office workers - How's your company approached the return to work phase? Are they trying to go back to normal and getting everyone into the office again, or are they reviewing a new normal of home working/flexi time? Do people prefer working in an office on here?

 

I work in a university and entirely agree with this. Although, as you suggest, the value of university goes far beyond careers or academic worth. I made lifelong friends at uni and certainly became a more mature and independent person with a much wider range of interests.

Do I enjoy my job? It would be fine without the students. Seriously, I have enjoyed the freedom it gives me but I’m now the same age as Lloyd and beginning to get bored. I’m toying with early retirement but would need some sort of “project” to stave off complete boredom and to prevent me from driving Mrs Keighley up the wall.

 

The 'careers advice' at school was what put me off going to Uni. I can remember from as early as 14/15 being asked by my teachers what Uni I wanted to go to. Errr, what if I don't want to go? The message from my school was that going to Uni was the only way to be successful. I stayed on at sixth form but in truth I dossed for those 2 years. I felt like my school had completely written me off. But that was fine, I actually quite enjoyed the challenge of proving them all wrong. I ended up getting three very good A Levels and easily managed to get on to an apprenticeship course of my choice.

At present, I am now working in my dream job and love going into the office every day. Not going to Uni was the best decision I have ever made.

 

Missed out on a lot of sex though.

 

I'm convinced it's just the Dunning-Kruger m effect.

I'll often think I don't know much about something, get referred to someone who apparently does, and they don't know much either.

Often successful people in the corporate world are just confident, appear knowledgeable and are somehow passionate about touching base, project trackers and daily drumbeat reviews.

 

It is true. I know a lot of idiots who are just ignorant of how little they know and charge for their lack of knowledge.

 

Absolutely. I’m basically a “fixer” and get complex solutions done in a large corporate. But 20% of my time I spend with project managers asking me “what’s the plan? What’s the deadline? Are
we green/amber/red?” Honestly they haven’t a clue about the subject matter and just want me to say XYZ, End of November, Amber so they can fill out a daft spreadsheet. Infuriating.

 

Agree with this to. Although I think the key isn't necessarily knowing the ins and out of a certain topic, it's knowing where to get the information from - be it through research or passing people onto someone else who is most likely more junior than them. There's a phrase for me which I think sums it up well - It isn't what you do, it's what you're seen to be doing.

I have worked with some people at former companies who are paid a extremely well, are loved by management, but in reality do very little. However they always have an opinion, will pass questions over to someone else (deemed management skills) and do the "yes sir, no sir" business. It's all to do with perception. If you can do this, you'll climb the ranks.

 

Do you ever get asked to fix the daft spreadsheet when a formula doesn't work? That's me. Unless you work in IT never admit you know Excel well.

 

You are right, and I did not mean to do ability to refer to experts a disservice. Networking is vital as it is impossible to have detailed knowledge on everything and knowing who to speak to is massively important especially in a large organisation. And of course it’s vital to build up good working relationships and friendships so these experts will take time to pick up the phone and help out!

The best people (in my view) are those who combine detailed knowledge of certain topics, but also understand the big picture and have a network of friendly experts where they don’t know the detail.

Easier said than done of course.

 

Couldn’t agree more about this. I personally think there is too much of a drive to get kids to go to university for the sake of it. Nothing wrong with going to University, but there should be far more focus on what kids actually want to do for a living and what they need to do to do it. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I was a kid and was very easily lead, I ended up doing some random A levels including photography simply because it fitted in with the timetable of the other subjects. I ended up being quite good at it and got an A at A level so then got pushed into doing a degree in it. The reality was I liked it but never enough to pursue it as a career in it, but I somehow ended up doing A levels and a degree in it, totally pointless and I ended up mostly working in finance for the most of my adult life.

Meanwhile a couple of my friends from school became electricians and central heating engineers, I think because I was possibly a bit better academically these were jobs my teachers kind of frowned upon. They wanted me to do A levels and go to uni, but they didn’t really care what I should actually study, it all just seemed for the sake of it. I really think there should’ve been a lot more focus on what I might actually want to do for a job, regardless of that that job might be.

In my finance career I worked alongside a guy who had a chemistry degree, he was similar in that he was good at chemistry so ended up doing it at degree level, but why? He ended up doing a job not related in the slightest that he wasn’t particularly happy doing either.

 

In finance myself. I read somewhere that chemistry is one of the top degrees people hold who work in finance. You obviously see people with Accounting and Finance degrees, but outside of that I see Chemistry or Engineering graduates. I always wonder if this is because there's a lack of roles in the UK in chemistry and engineering. Could add to the argument that too many go to University nowadays and their degrees are worthless - However I guess the old saying of you need to be in it to win it holds true.

I guess thinking about it there could be some transferable skills. Chemistry is all about research and data analysis and collection - Some areas of finance are similar, especially with changes in standards where you might need to look into the treatment of an item or the impact (recently IFRS16 has caused major changes for organisations, of in the practice world IR35 impacts). Auditors need to have good skills for data collection and analysis. I guess similarly in Science, numbers mean a lot more than ink on a page - there's drivers behind the numbers, and this rings true in finance, a number on a balance sheet relates to something in the real world - and there will be factors impacting changes such as depreciation/impairments on assets, changes in accrued and deferred income, for large globals - tax changes (is it local changes in tax rates etc).

I think I might have found out why Chemistry isn't actually that daft after all. As long as they don't compare "cooking the books" as something you do with a Bunsen burner