How do you feel about what you do for a living?

[kenny]

How do you feel about what you do for a living?

 

[Marquise_Madness]

I'm at a nonprofit currently doing their marketing and I really like it so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Resonance.Of.Life]

I work in the ICU and I absolutely LOVE it. I love the difference I make in my lives of my patients and their families.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I feel like we have had threads like this before...however, I LOVE my job. It is very, very challenging but I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. This is my second career so I do not take loving my job for granted. My first career was never a good fit.

 

[packrat]

I work in preschool-special Ed and starting this year also gen ed integrated. Up until this just ended school year I would've said I adore my job. I work w/kids who are autistic, kids who have no language, kids w/physical delays, cognitive delays, mixes of all, feeding tubes, a deaf child. This year we had a couple kids w/behaviors, and that has been a challenge I am not sure I care to continue until I retire. I hope next year is better. (add in the new administration that has most of the staff looking for different jobs and boy howdy..)

However. Last night one of the mom's of our spec Ed kiddos posted a video of him pointing to the letters on her sweatshirt as she asked. He started walking this year. He started working on saying names "uh-knee" is mine. My deaf one on one, who ended up w/an actual interpreter half way thru this year, the interpreter and I worked on figuring out how many signs he was familiar w/ and were just blown away. To go from him signing "No" or "yes" or "shoes" at the beginning of last year, to now this year "Missi, can I have some candy please?" and then signing "thank you for the candy, Missi" after...(and it's cough drops, not candy fyi) that's pretty fricken great.

When you see the kids outside of school and they scream MISS MISSSSSSIIIIIIIII! and run to me for huge hugs and some of them jump up into my arms...you can't beat that. Moms that message me to tell me the picture I drew for their child is framed and hung above the bed. That their child was scared to start their 2nd year of pk and said "well, but Miss Missi will be there and she loves me so it will be ok"

Notes on my desk "I love you Miss Missi" with all the S's backwards..man I love those kids. Little turkeys.

 

[girlyglam]

I work in preschool-special Ed and starting this year also gen ed integrated. Up until this just ended school year I would've said I adore my job. I work w/kids who are autistic, kids who have no language, kids w/physical delays, cognitive delays, mixes of all, feeding tubes, a deaf child. This year we had a couple kids w/behaviors, and that has been a challenge I am not sure I care to continue until I retire. I hope next year is better. (add in the new administration that has most of the staff looking for different jobs and boy howdy..)

However. Last night one of the mom's of our spec Ed kiddos posted a video of him pointing to the letters on her sweatshirt as she asked. He started walking this year. He started working on saying names "uh-knee" is mine. My deaf one on one, who ended up w/an actual interpreter half way thru this year, the interpreter and I worked on figuring out how many signs he was familiar w/ and were just blown away. To go from him signing "No" or "yes" or "shoes" at the beginning of last year, to now this year "Missi, can I have some candy please?" and then signing "thank you for the candy, Missi" after...(and it's cough drops, not candy fyi) that's pretty fricken great.

When you see the kids outside of school and they scream MISS MISSSSSSIIIIIIIII! and run to me for huge hugs and some of them jump up into my arms...you can't beat that. Moms that message me to tell me the picture I drew for their child is framed and hung above the bed. That their child was scared to start their 2nd year of pk and said "well, but Miss Missi will be there and she loves me so it will be ok"

Notes on my desk "I love you Miss Missi" with all the S's backwards..man I love those kids. Little turkeys.

I did my masters in teaching English as a second language, and one of my student teaching placements for my elementary school semester was in a special ed/esl classroom. It was probably the hardest and most rewarding classrooms I worked in with the most amazing teacher I've ever met. I was amazing at the way she continued to always come up with the most ingenious, creative ways to help these students learn in a way that made sense for them. On my last day, the kids did a whole presentation for me, made me cards and a poster, and it is still one of the most touching, heart-warming things anyone has ever done for me. I will never ever get rid of those cards or that poster. Ultimately, I never went into the profession...I loved the kids, but I wasn't cut out for the rest. I now work in higher education administration, and I do enjoy it. It's definitely rewarding in its own way, but sometimes I do miss that specialness of working with the little ones. Those kids have all forgotten about me now, I'm sure, but they all have a special place in my heart.

 

[PintoBean]

I hate working for a living. Period. It's my frame of mind. Whatever it is, I like it less when it's a job. Even if it were to be a professional sleeper or ice cream taster.

The flip side, make it a volunteer position and I like it more.

 

[stracci2000]

I hate working for a living. Period. It's my frame of mind. Whatever it is, I like it less when it's a job. Even if it were to be a professional sleeper or ice cream taster.

The flip side, make it a volunteer position and I like it more.

Yeah, I hate working, too. Kinda feels like slavery.
In our society, we have created this awful lifestyle of working to pay the bills, then creating more bills, because we have the money from working. Aarrgh!
I want to live in a tent on a secluded beach, and eat the mangos that fall from the trees. Then I would probably step on a thorn, and die from infection.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Love it!...I'm just mooching off my wife...

 

[lknvrb4]

I hate my job, I do title searching and examining. I find it stressful and can't stand sitting in a chair for 8 hours, I am currently looking for something better, it is hard to do when I live in small town America.

 

[ZestfullyBling]

Just had a convo with DH about this.

Its ok. Id much rather be doing what comes easy an natural to me; making a living in film and tv industry producing,
writing and singing songs. Its not too late though, there is still hope, never know where life will lead.

 

[missy]

I have loved it over the decades and have felt that I make a real difference to the population I work with but now I am burning out with all the changes in healthcare.

I am a healthcare professional working for a non profit multidisciplinary health clinic and examining patients who are intellectually disabled. I get great satisfaction from working with this population and I love them and love helping them. They are the underserved population and it is not fair that many healthcare professionals don't want to take the time and do the best for them that they can so yes it makes me happy that I can and do.

BUT there have been so many changes in health care that make it more and more challenging and cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that we lost over 1M last year and now we are being taken over by a FQHC and will no longer be an article 28 health clinic. Not sure what it means for my patients or the way our clinic will be run but time will tell. Combined with Electronic Medical record keeping and wow each exam just takes so long and sometimes I feel like a typist at work now with much less face time per patient compared to my record keeping and that is not enjoyable at all.

I feel that medical care is suffering all over and it is a shame but I don't know if or think there is any fix. So I am staying for now but if the time comes where I don't feel I am doing the best for my patients I will leave. I have been in my profession since 1989 and I am getting tired and the negatives are slowly outweighing (though not quite yet) the benefits.

My dh loves his work (in the environmental field) and feels he is too making a difference and right now loves where he is working as well. He has the freedom re schedule one doesn't usually get in his field so while it continues this way he is happy to stay and continue his work. Of course things have a way of changing quickly in his field as we saw in 2008 so just hoping he continues working the way he loves working for as long as he wants.

 

[missy]

I hate working for a living. Period. It's my frame of mind. Whatever it is, I like it less when it's a job. Even if it were to be a professional sleeper or ice cream taster.

The flip side, make it a volunteer position and I like it more.

Yeah, I hate working, too. Kinda feels like slavery.
In our society, we have created this awful lifestyle of working to pay the bills, then creating more bills, because we have the money from working. Aarrgh!
I want to live in a tent on a secluded beach, and eat the mangos that fall from the trees. Then I would probably step on a thorn, and die from infection.

Pinto, sign me up for professional ice cream taster...but it has to be dairy free unfortunately due to my skin issues when I eat too much dairy.

Stracci, if I wasn't so in love with A/C I could join you../maybe we could get an air conditioned tent? Also need my Netflix OK? Otherwise living on a secluded beach sounds like fun. As long as there is a Costco nearby that is.

 

[jordyonbass]

I've just started working in land surveying and geotechnician work for domestic housing and loving it at the moment. Company car with all expenses paid, clock on and off when I leave and get back home, I'm driving around the state and getting to see places I've never seen and I've only been there a month.
There's only a couple of drawbacks; first, being in training I'm on a very low salary (which is to be expected anyway). Second, the communication can leave a lot to be desired sometimes. I did about 150 miles of driving yesterday that I didn't have to do, but hey I got paid for it so I'm not complaining too much

Before this I did electricity and gas faults and emergencies dispatch for 3 years, before that I was running pubs and bars for about as many years. The autonomy now is like running pubs while it doesn't have the same pressure as being responsible for an entire business or trying to get crews fixing an insane amount of damage to the power grid after or during a storm.

Btw Kenny, how do YOU feel about what puts bread on your table?

 

[YadaYadaYada]

I'm not sure if being a stay at home parent qualifies as " a living" since I don't actually generate income. However I have always wanted to stay home with my kids, it's always been important to me since I lost my Mom at a young age and I felt like if anything ever happened to me I would want my kids to have some memories with me. So I love my "job".

 

[jaysonsmom]

I'm ambivalent about my job. I work for a global company in the food and beverage industry. Some days I feel like just another cog in the wheel, other days I feel I contributed a ton to the expansion of the brand. Mostly the work is just so so, but I like the employee perks, so I gave it a 7.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

I run the mobile division of a major retailer and I love it. I recently made a career change and love the company I work for. The culture is wonderful for parents, I get more time at home with my children, and my commute is a dream. My goal is to stay here for the next 20+ years (until I retire).

 

[mom2dolls]

I am torn. I love my job, the customers and vendors I work with. We print for companies like Costco, Behr and Sherwin Williams. I don't love the commute or the environment I work in. After five years I am burned out.
I have been looking closer to home, but it is tough out there.

 

[ame]

I feel like we have had threads like this before...however, I LOVE my job. It is very, very challenging but I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. This is my second career so I do not take loving my job for granted. My first career was never a good fit.

Given that our first careers were the same/similar in the same field, I get that same feeling sometimes. I left that field because I left that job and ended up taking what was at the time intended to be temporary. I am still here and I get paid significantly more doing this job than I ever did in my field with a masters in that field. Sometimes it makes me laugh, other times it enrages me. I always felt like if I had my "dream job" in that field that it would be different, because I'd be doing that work, with clients and in the area I really wanted to be in, and my work would always end up in those CommunicationsArts annuals and be, like, award winning and whatever. But I think if I had been paid reasonably for the amount of crap I did where I was, that would've maybe made it palatable, and I wouldn't have been so much of a mess for so many years. I really just realized not long ago that I just did not want to do what I did, for who I did it for, and that I really idealized that career path to be so much like my "dream job" and less the "grunt work" it really is. It's not glamour, it's long days and nights and very little pay or glory. I still do my side work, but it's not really the same thing yknow?

 

[WinkHPD]

Hmmmm. Let's see.

I wake up in the morning, take the dogs for a short walk, go work out three mornings a week, then eat breakfast and go to the computer to check emails. (Sometimes, if I am expecting something I will go to emails immediately after waking up and make the poor dogs wait, which they really DO NOT LIKE).

Most mornings I have new requests for information or videos or even just an order to buy. I then get to go to the vault when I get to work, pull the diamond, and voila, make a video, or send an invoice, or both.

Often I then get to work with the client to create the perfect ring for that diamond, or have them peruse selections from companies like Vatche, Beverly K or other of our vendors.

Soon, I am getting messages from people about how much they love it.

Basically, I am getting paid to work with happy people at one of the highlight times of their lives and helping them to create memory snapshots with their loved ones.

What's not to love?

Wink

 

[ame]

Hmmmm. Let's see.

I wake up in the morning, take the dogs for a short walk, go work out three mornings a week, then eat breakfast and go to the computer to check emails. (Sometimes, if I am expecting something I will go to emails immediately after waking up and make the poor dogs wait, which they really DO NOT LIKE).

Most mornings I have new requests for information or videos or even just an order to buy. I then get to go to the vault when I get to work, pull the diamond, and voila, make a video, or send an invoice, or both.

Often I then get to work with the client to create the perfect ring for that diamond, or have them peruse selections from companies like Vatche, Beverly K or other of our vendors.

Soon, I am getting messages from people about how much they love it.

Basically, I am getting paid to work with happy people at one of the highlight times of their lives and helping them to create memory snapshots with their loved ones.

What's not to love?

Wink

Yea I can't even imagine that you/Paul/John/Lieve/Jon/Brian/Brian/Lesley/anyone else I am not naming due to a brain fart at 330pm can not possibly adore their jobs.

 

[ckrickett]

I love what I do but get tired when people tell me to get a "real" job

 

[diamondringlover]

I despise my job..too old to change and make too much money for what I do and work from home...I am in it for at least 10 more years.

 

[KaeKae]

I work in preschool-special Ed and starting this year also gen ed integrated. Up until this just ended school year I would've said I adore my job. I work w/kids who are autistic, kids who have no language, kids w/physical delays, cognitive delays, mixes of all, feeding tubes, a deaf child. This year we had a couple kids w/behaviors, and that has been a challenge I am not sure I care to continue until I retire. I hope next year is better. (add in the new administration that has most of the staff looking for different jobs and boy howdy..)

However. Last night one of the mom's of our spec Ed kiddos posted a video of him pointing to the letters on her sweatshirt as she asked. He started walking this year. He started working on saying names "uh-knee" is mine. My deaf one on one, who ended up w/an actual interpreter half way thru this year, the interpreter and I worked on figuring out how many signs he was familiar w/ and were just blown away. To go from him signing "No" or "yes" or "shoes" at the beginning of last year, to now this year "Missi, can I have some candy please?" and then signing "thank you for the candy, Missi" after...(and it's cough drops, not candy fyi) that's pretty fricken great.

When you see the kids outside of school and they scream MISS MISSSSSSIIIIIIIII! and run to me for huge hugs and some of them jump up into my arms...you can't beat that. Moms that message me to tell me the picture I drew for their child is framed and hung above the bed. That their child was scared to start their 2nd year of pk and said "well, but Miss Missi will be there and she loves me so it will be ok"

Notes on my desk "I love you Miss Missi" with all the S's backwards..man I love those kids. Little turkeys.

With a few tweaks, I could have written this. I've been in a K-1 spec ed class this year, with a little boy I just adore. Hopefully I will move up to the 2-3 class with him next year. I love my job.

But, there is a lot of frustration with the district (not our principal, she is great, not my teacher, also great.) We are overworked, underpaid and just plain receive no respect for what we do for our students and teachers. Something has to give, and it just might be me, once my daughter graduates in one year.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I feel like we have had threads like this before...however, I LOVE my job. It is very, very challenging but I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. This is my second career so I do not take loving my job for granted. My first career was never a good fit.

Given that our first careers were the same/similar in the same field, I get that same feeling sometimes. I left that field because I left that job and ended up taking what was at the time intended to be temporary. I am still here and I get paid significantly more doing this job than I ever did in my field with a masters in that field. Sometimes it makes me laugh, other times it enrages me. I always felt like if I had my "dream job" in that field that it would be different, because I'd be doing that work, with clients and in the area I really wanted to be in, and my work would always end up in those CommunicationsArts annuals and be, like, award winning and whatever. But I think if I had been paid reasonably for the amount of crap I did where I was, that would've maybe made it palatable, and I wouldn't have been so much of a mess for so many years. I really just realized not long ago that I just did not want to do what I did, for who I did it for, and that I really idealized that career path to be so much like my "dream job" and less the "grunt work" it really is. It's not glamour, it's long days and nights and very little pay or glory. I still do my side work, but it's not really the same thing yknow?

I know. Not that I get paid what I think I am worth now, but I love it. I always felt like a fraud in my previous job/career. Not that I didn't design some cool stuff. In the end it just wasn't a good fit.

 

[ame]

I feel like we have had threads like this before...however, I LOVE my job. It is very, very challenging but I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. This is my second career so I do not take loving my job for granted. My first career was never a good fit.

Given that our first careers were the same/similar in the same field, I get that same feeling sometimes. I left that field because I left that job and ended up taking what was at the time intended to be temporary. I am still here and I get paid significantly more doing this job than I ever did in my field with a masters in that field. Sometimes it makes me laugh, other times it enrages me. I always felt like if I had my "dream job" in that field that it would be different, because I'd be doing that work, with clients and in the area I really wanted to be in, and my work would always end up in those CommunicationsArts annuals and be, like, award winning and whatever. But I think if I had been paid reasonably for the amount of crap I did where I was, that would've maybe made it palatable, and I wouldn't have been so much of a mess for so many years. I really just realized not long ago that I just did not want to do what I did, for who I did it for, and that I really idealized that career path to be so much like my "dream job" and less the "grunt work" it really is. It's not glamour, it's long days and nights and very little pay or glory. I still do my side work, but it's not really the same thing yknow?

I know. Not that I get paid what I think I am worth now, but I love it. I always felt like a fraud in my previous job/career. Not that I didn't design some cool stuff. In the end it just wasn't a good fit.

You said this perfectly...I think that sums it up so well. I am pretty much shutting the side gig down because I miss having free time. I had a rough 2014 with the car accident and family drama. I decided to take a break. But I see what my competition is doing and frankly...it is too exhausting to keep up and still make a profit.

 

[packrat]

KaeKae--same here. I'd like to stay-hell you can't beat the schedule for heavens sakes. Overworked, underpaid and no respect..that pretty much sums it up, I agree.

 

[madelise]

Speech-language pathologist. I LOVE my job. I am a diagnostician and pathologist, so that gets to tap into my analytical side. I am a therapist, so that gets to tap into my people-loving/social side. And I work with children with special needs, so that taps into my need for helping others.

That being said, I still rated 7/10. I have to do a LOT of paper and documentation, and unfortunately, don't get enough credit for my work. I need to constantly spend my own money to buy new materials and supplies since my kids lose interest easily. I've spent almost 10% of my annual income before taxes, on buying my own supplies. And I kept hearing people say that they didn't enter the field to do paperwork, and Im now experiencing it too. I spend more of my time in meetings and doing paperwork than actually doing what I'm good at-- therapy. So yeah, I'm subtracting a few points.

 

[wildcat03]

I work as a physician in an inner city ER. I always worried about burnout, but abstractly. Now, only 3 years out of residency, I see clear signs of the start of burnout. The hospital I work at is fantastic. My direct boss is great. The support staff is variable. The patients are often quite challenging. If you have ever watched "The Wire" then you might remember there was a scene in the season where they had a special class for the behaviorally disruptive kids. They were teaching/role-playing in class how to approach someone in the social services office and the disruptive teenager started screaming/cursing at the person who was playing the social services office worker. I am the office worker on a daily basis. Except I am on the receiving end of behavior like that from people who absolutely should know better. They are not children. They hold jobs. Yet somehow they think it's ok to treat me and my colleagues like that. It gets old really quickly. It is rare that I ever hear the word "thank you" from a patient or family at work.

And the paperwork. Don't even get me started on that.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

I feel like we have had threads like this before...however, I LOVE my job. It is very, very challenging but I cannot imagine anything more rewarding. This is my second career so I do not take loving my job for granted. My first career was never a good fit.

Given that our first careers were the same/similar in the same field, I get that same feeling sometimes. I left that field because I left that job and ended up taking what was at the time intended to be temporary. I am still here and I get paid significantly more doing this job than I ever did in my field with a masters in that field. Sometimes it makes me laugh, other times it enrages me. I always felt like if I had my "dream job" in that field that it would be different, because I'd be doing that work, with clients and in the area I really wanted to be in, and my work would always end up in those CommunicationsArts annuals and be, like, award winning and whatever. But I think if I had been paid reasonably for the amount of crap I did where I was, that would've maybe made it palatable, and I wouldn't have been so much of a mess for so many years. I really just realized not long ago that I just did not want to do what I did, for who I did it for, and that I really idealized that career path to be so much like my "dream job" and less the "grunt work" it really is. It's not glamour, it's long days and nights and very little pay or glory. I still do my side work, but it's not really the same thing yknow?

I know. Not that I get paid what I think I am worth now, but I love it. I always felt like a fraud in my previous job/career. Not that I didn't design some cool stuff. In the end it just wasn't a good fit.

You said this perfectly...I think that sums it up so well. I am pretty much shutting the side gig down because I miss having free time. I had a rough 2014 with the car accident and family drama. I decided to take a break. But I see what my competition is doing and frankly...it is too exhausting to keep up and still make a profit.

It is so stressful. Totally get it. I never had the confidence I had designing as I do counseling. Hope you are having a better year Ame!