So is your job worth it when it really comes down to it?

[Marc]

For all the people out there that still think working for a boss you dislike and a job you hate - while wishing you could be your own boss, is a life.

“It turns out I didn’t actually like my old life nearly as much as I thought I did,”

“I know this now because I occasionally catch up with my old colleagues and workmates. They fall over each other to enthusiastically show me the latest project they are working on. Ask my opinion. Proudly show off their technical prowess (which is not inconsiderable).

“I find myself glazing over but politely listen as they brag about who’s had the least sleep and the most takeaway food. ‘I haven’t seen my wife since January’; ‘I can’t feel my legs any more and I think I have scurvy but another three weeks and it will be done’ …

What do you think’?”

“What do I think? I think you are all f*****g mad. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f*****g TV commercial. Nobody gives a shit.”

Read more: http://www.businessblogshub.com/2012...eddings-essay/

[Winston001]

Mmm...I'm not a person sympathetic to this view.

Work is what you do to put food on the table for your family and yourself, clothes on your back, a roof over your head. I cannot think of any time in human history that work has been a choice. Work = survival.

Working for yourself - self-employment, is a worthy goal but only a minority of the population can do that successfully. Many do not want or could not cope with the responsibility, the paperwork, the demand to be working regardless of illness etc. Also consider the majority of new businesses fail.

Working for the man might be looked down on but with the right attitude, it is also the way to a decent life.

[McDuck]

Mmm...I'm not a person sympathetic to this view.

Work is what you do to put food on the table for your family and yourself, clothes on your back, a roof over your head. I cannot think of any time in human history that work has been a choice. Work = survival.

Working for yourself - self-employment, is a worthy goal but only a minority of the population can do that successfully. Many do not want or could not cope with the responsibility, the paperwork, the demand to be working regardless of illness etc. Also consider the majority of new businesses fail.

Working for the man might be looked down on but with the right attitude, it is also the way to a decent life.

You have to work in advertising to realise how deluded they actually are.
I totally agree, it’s not a higher calling, it’s just snake oil.

[donna]

The ideal is enjoying your job. Not sure if it matters too much if you're your own boss or reporting to someone else just that it's not a downer having to go to work and that it's not slowing killing you which brings us back to Lindsey Redding - whose essay is amazing.

I am now onto reading his blog - he is dead now unfortunately as he got cancer and learning of it caused a life changing realisation that his life as he knew it was not that great after all. His blog is a wonderful read but you have to be in a good frame of mind as it is his journey from finding out he has cancer to his thoughts along the way and treatment and I guess his last moments - (I haven't got to that yet).

cheers,

Donna

[Winston001]

Agreed Donna, enjoying your job is a worthy aim. But it takes courage.

I recall reading an article by an american lawyer who gave up his $150k job in private practise because it was killing him. He moved to working for a charitable organisation on $30k. The result was that he now enjoyed going into work, he was happier, and his family were happier. Most people though won't give up a high income.