2017/04/02 01:21:13
jude77
craigb
jude77
Considering I'm retired, yes I do love what I do.  When I was "employed" I was a clergyman and licensed psychologist.  The business end of ministry got utterly soul-sucking and draining by the end (my last church had 2,000 people and a $4 million budget: it was sort of like being mayor of a small town where you're also the police chief, sanitation department, food services provider and comptroller).  However, I always loved working with people and find great satisfaction and joy if I could help them find a measure of healing and peace.  So overall I'd say "Yes" I was happy with what I did.




Hey Jude, don't make it bad! 
(Must learn to resist some day...)


Craig, everybody does that.  I love it!!
2017/04/02 12:32:49
Slugbaby
JohnKenn

 
Did anybody find their dream job?
 
John


Nope.
I have an incredibly stressful, yet meaningless, job.
However, I earn a paycheque roughly double what the statistics say I should get for my level of education. So I do the job I'm paid for. I use the money to pay for an after-work life that I love, but those 8 hours every day are the penance.

Having said that, my grandfather worked 6 days a week in a coal mine, just to put food on his table and clothe his kids. Whatever I do in an office, and whoever I have to put up with, doesn't compare to that.
2017/04/02 12:39:55
jamesg1213
I spent 25 years in the signmaking industry, which became more and more stressful as the years went on. Both the companies I was with ceased to exist, and I would imagine all the signs that were so crucial to be fitted by a deadline have long since been replaced. Kind of pointless really.
 
Now I'm a self-employed gardener, and I like it, but I wouldn't say I love it (too wet in Scotland for that )
2017/04/02 14:28:07
paulo
I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.
 
Well, maybe some days I do, but everyone has the odd day like that so I figure that I'm no worse off than anyone else on that score. If a windfall came my way, would I continue to do it even if I didn't really need to any more ?
No. Absolutely not. Never understood people who say that they would get bored if they didn't go to work.
 
Did the corporate thing for many years, which suited me at the time, but have now been self-employed in a totally unrelated way for even longer,  always earning less than I would be if I had stayed put in the corporate world, but having a much more laid back life and I would really struggle to go back to having to work for someone else now. Just the thought of having to put up with people that I don't really care for all day, having limits to when/how I can have time off and then there's the politics..... I sure don't miss any of that BS. 
2017/04/02 14:35:49
synkrotron
I'm a designer in the chemical plant industry. I started "on the board" back in 1979 and eventually started using CAD software.

After ten years in a staff position I went "contracting" and, despite the perceived lack of job security I have only been out of work for about a year, in the last 37 years or so.

Lately, I got fed up with working on crap projects and I threw my ticket in. I am lucky, I guess, that I have some savings to live off in the meantime (I say lucky, but I spent six weeks in hospital at the time... long story...) and I am currently working part time for a mate, at home.

Do I love it? Well, as an inherently lazy bar steward, I would rather pack in work altogether, but, over the years I can honestly say that I have enjoyed what I do (or did...)
2017/04/02 15:28:19
bitflipper
I did indeed land my dream job, once.
 
It was 1984. I'd been a passionate computer hobbyist for over a decade at that point, so getting hired at a computer manufacturer was indeed a dream gig. I had a roomful of computers to play with, big ones with more computing power in their disk controllers alone than I had in my Apple ][. Access to every programming language ever invented. All the company-provided technical training I could absorb.
 
And a real internet connection! Just one, 9600 bps and shared by the entire office, but it hooked me up with dozens of people around the world who were into the same obscure stuff I was doing. This was before the advent of the World Wide Web, so searches were always an adventure. My employer was based in Boston so I got to go to MIT - no, not the university, the university bookstore. There I found books on the most arcane subjects imaginable, and a community of like-minded uber-geeks - I had found my lost tribe.
 
Fast-forward 33 years. Although the job I have today was made possible by those earlier experiences, the excitement is gone. My one-time dream job has morphed into something repetitive and dull. Part of it's due to the industry changing from seat-of-the-pants innovation to corporate market-manipulation. New inventions no longer seem like breakthroughs, just attempts to sucker consumers out of their money. 
 
Fortunately, music-making is the most fun it's ever been. I am determined to NOT make a living at it, though, for I know that it would become drudgery, too. Prior to the computer gig I had played in a band full-time for 5 years, and at the end hated it. And it wasn't entirely because of Disco.
2017/04/02 18:33:54
craigb
paulo
Just the thought of having to put up with people that I don't really care for all day, having limits to when/how I can have time off and then there's the politics..... I sure don't miss any of that BS. 




Wait a minute... and you post here??! 
 

2017/04/02 20:39:27
paulo
craigb
paulo
Just the thought of having to put up with people that I don't really care for all day, having limits to when/how I can have time off and then there's the politics..... I sure don't miss any of that BS. 




Wait a minute... and you post here??! 
 





Politics is not allowed here.
2017/04/02 20:42:00
craigb
Oh, yeah.  Riiiiiiight...  
2017/04/03 12:32:46
Slugbaby
paulo
... Just the thought of having to put up with people that I don't really care for all day, having limits to when/how I can have time off and then there's the politics..... I sure don't miss any of that BS. 


I figure that about 50% of my paycheque is actually for the work product I provide, and 50% is paid to put up with that corporate/ office politics BS. 
© 2026 APG vNext Commercial Version 5.1

Use My Existing Forum Account

Use My Social Media Account