72 good reasons to never get a job

macgeek

macgeek

Member
https://www.prolificliving.com/72-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/

they bring up some good points in this article... working for a living is so difficult now, worse than ever before. 100 or so years ago families worked at home on their farms (and spent time together). hard work for sure. wonder if they were happier and better off than people are today?

these days we leave home and their loved ones, go somewhere 40+ hours a week (often battling lots of traffic daily to get there), spend all day around people they don't like, doing something they dread just to earn a living. its been said that 70% or higher of Americans hate their jobs. wonder why?

Any thoughts on why so many people hate their jobs? Low pay? politics? Bad bosses? Reduced benefits? Crappy hours? All the above or something else?
 
macgeek said:
https://www.prolificliving.com/72-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/

they bring up some good points in this article... working for a living is so difficult now, worse than ever before. 100 or so years ago families worked at home on their farms (and spent time together). hard work for sure. wonder if they were happier and better off than people are today?

these days we leave home and our loved ones, go somewhere 40+ hours a week (often battling lots of traffic daily to get there), spend all day around people we don't like, doing something we dread just to earn a living. its been said that 70% or higher of Americans hate their jobs. wonder why?

Any thoughts on why so many people hate their jobs? Low pay? politics? bad bosses? All the above or something else?
Click to expand...
40 hours a week ?...that's part-time.. I was working 40 hours a week at 15... and 60 hours by the time I retired. My o/h works 80 hours a week at 60 years old ..

anyhoo..just off to read your list...
 
There are a lot of assumptions in that list. I had my own consulting business for a while and didn't like the business part of it at all. The engineering was enjoyable, as it is on a job as an employee. In retirement, I take a short term engineering contract, working three months, three days a week, and do it as an employee of a contract house so all I have to do is the fun part. In a sense (possibly stretching it a bit for those who might take it literally), working for yourself is a bit like working for yourself as compared to owning a condo, might be a bit more like working for somebody else.

In working for somebody else, I get to do that part of the work that I enjoy and somebody else does the marketing and sales, the accounting, etc. Granted, just as with owning a house you could hire out all the stuff you have to do yourself such as caring for the yard and the upkeep of the house such as patching the roof, fixing the driveway, etc., but then that is that much less revenue for you.

I feel very fortunate to have ended up in a line of work that didn't feel to me as those 72 choices painted being an employee. I have known people who were unhappy in their work and that is a very sad thing. I have also known people who loved their jobs as employees. I can't comment on those people because I didn't walk a mile in their shoes, nor can I tell somebody that they should think and do as I do or they are making the wrong choice and settling for less than they should. We are all different, want and need different things, and as a result, these things are simply not black and white, good or bad, with only one type of choice being the right one.

I think either path is fine, working for yourself or working for somebody else. The important thing is to decide what is right for you and then take that path.

This is just my personal perspective, so if others have a different perspective, it doesn't necessarily have to be disagreement with my own choice and associated perspective, so much as just that - a different perspective and associated choice.

Tony
 
hollydolly said:
40 hours a week ?...that's part-time.. I was working 40 hours a week at 15... and 60 hours by the time I retired. My o/h works 80 hours a week at 60 years old ..

anyhoo..just off to read your list...
Click to expand...

Good point. My career was also more along the lines of 60 hours a week or more. That is certainly not at all uncommon. If you enjoy what you do (as I did), I am sure it is much easier to handle than if you hated your job and/or the working conditions.

Tony
 
Every mornin' at half-past four
You hear the cooks hop on the floor
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

Every morning just at five
Gotta get up, dead or alive
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

Every mornin' right at six
Don't that ol' bell make you sick
Hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

The pulley got hot, the belt jumped off
Knocked Mr Guyan's derby off
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

And ol' Pat Goble thinks he's a Hun
He puts me in mind of a doodle in the sun
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

Section hand he thinks he's a man
He ain't got sense to pay off his hands
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

They steal his ring, they steal his knife
Steal everything but his big fat wife
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

My bobbin's all out, my end's all down
The doffer's in my alley an' I can't get around
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

The section hand, standin' at the door
Ordering the sweepers to sweep up the floor
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

An' every night when I go home
A piece o' cornbread an' an ol' jawbone
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

Ain't it enough to break your heart
Have to work all day, an' at night it's dark
It's hard times in the mill my love
Hard times in the mill

---Pete Seeger, American Industrial Ballads
Songwriter: Woody Guthrie
 
I got about five reasons in before stopping. I wasn't impressed by the article. I found the first five all to either be incorrect or something one doesn't have to choose. For example:

1. You lose your genius. Slowly but surely, you stop feeding your own genius at the expense of someone else’s agenda.

Gotta completely disagree with this one. By not working a job you often do not get exposed to other people you work with who help you increase your genius or open new areas of genius that you either didn't know about or weren't aware that were a good fit for you.

2. You stop dreaming, and you think of everyone else that dreams as childish and immature. They don’t understand the real world, you say.

BS, not in the work I've done. I've worked with a lot of other dreamers who do the work they need to do for their job and either apply what they've learned to their dreams or apply what they've earned to follow their dreams. One often needs to fund various aspects of their dreams and very few people are able to do so without having some sort of job.

Just because some people fall into these traps doesn't mean that most do and doesn't mean that you have to.

I would have been much more impressed with a positive article that addressed these concerns with strategies for avoiding them or finding ways to find jobs that don't do these things to them.
 
The only job that I can truly relate to on that list is as U S postal employee. The pay & benefits were great, the repetition of the job was mind numbing. We talked about me quitting & decided my sanity valued more than wages & benefits.

After quitting I applied for and worked at a variety of jobs. Each new & different job paid more than the last but became boring. Final wage paying job due to advancement possibility was in upper level management. Given responsibility to manage 240 employees did good since there were no grievances. The best part was to be challenged to think ahead & be innovative. Even though it was the most interesting, highest paying, best for benefits. It was time to quit again. This time due to that position I was able to quit & retire at age 54. Not working at a wage paying job takes time to adjust to, thankfully I adjusted the 1st. day of not getting up when I didn't have to.

#10 on the list promotes working which seems funny since the thrust of the article is about not working.
 
everyone has had different experiences so I can't speak for all circumstances of course.. as far as working for someone else which is what I've done for almost 40 years, we all want a secure job and good pay, and we want to feel like our employer values us... at one time I thought job security was real. Until I got fired the first time. These days companies could care less about us they care about the bottom line. Job security is a distant memory, if It ever was real at all. Perhaps those years I thought I had job security I was just lying to myself.

It use to be good enough to show up to work on time, be a good employee. Follow orders, do what you're told. Do your job well. Now that is no guarantee of keeping a job.

back to the article:

8. You stop thinking for yourself because you become conditioned to do things a certain way.

9. You give up the power of decision, because no matter what, you have a boss who, even at his best and most agreeable, has a boss of his own to please.

I can relate to these. I try to think and find better ways to do things to save money or time and be creative. When you do this and the boss just shoots you down, or ignores your suggestion, or tells you to do it his/her way, eventually you stop trying to make things better and you just fit into the status quo of what the boss wants. that is what I've experienced anyway. Not at every job but many of them.
 
I was blessed to have worked a 35 hour week in a laid back environment with people who became like family for most of my working life. Now, if the author could come up with 72 sure fire ways to get a steady income and great benefits for the years one would otherwise be working a job, then we can talk. LOL
 
The more I think about this article the less I like it. When I think about everything my jobs have brought into my life besides training and paychecks I realize just how much I've gotten from being employed.
 
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post 10
Postal worker beyond any known aspirations
a good job was pumping gas,
two gas stations in town lots of competition-owner hired relatives first,

Work gangs: get 20+ men with scoop shovels on army barracks scraping shingles off
in summer, in Texas.
Line up on roof- scrap
straw boss behind line screaming: 'faster, faster'
yea, pumping gas is a cush job

('Cool Hand Luke,' resonates with us folk, we weren't on a chain gang, but there was not much difference, 'cept we got to go home at nightl)
 
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