Work.

It's practically impossible to get fired around here. I suppose if I showed the Students July's exam papers soemone might suggest it at a meeting next year sometime.

i work in the theatah. it's fun! i get to meet a lot of good people. i like that. and there are a lot of performers around, which is nice.

That sounds lots of fun! Where do you do that and what does each day involve?

well, i do it in brooklyn NY. and every day involves a lot of stuff on the phone, and on the computer -- you know, helping our donors become involved in the arts :)

haha yeah i'm not walking around all fulfilled all the time but it's a great place to be!

except when you're on vacation for a week and then come back to your desk...

it dept of a telco, 3 years, nope, be anti pc

Work is super-depressing this week. I'm checking in lots of attractive people my own age who are coming back to the University to recruit for the companies for which they now work.

I never want to run another meeting again. It was so bad I had to post to the new ILX, which is great, btw.

got written up today for screwing shit up at work. ARGHHHHH HULK SMASH

what'd u do??

:( :(

as of last week i work for an opera company. i think some day surm and i have to work together on something.

I'm checking in lots of attractive people my own age who are coming back to the University to recruit for the companies for which they now work.

ehh, it's generally depressing working in/at universities. i used to do data entry next to an art school, and coming out of an office to see kids covered in paint schlepping portfolios around makes you wish you'd made different choices.

my work is o k. i went to washington square last night and felt like the tie-wearing square out of a sixties movie, but it's o k.

I work at a university and I can kind of understand what you're saying schlump. Seeing kids doing their thing doesn't make me necessarily wish I had made different choices as much as marvel at how life doesn't work out as we planned. It won't for those portfolio-schlepping kids either.

I lead a team of students in producing web work for our independent student media. I direct them and teach them how to grow up and be real web professionals. Career-wise I'm moving further and further away from hands-on webmonkey-ing and to more meeting leading, which is what I like.

It won't for those portfolio-schlepping kids either.

not portfolio-schlepping but i am in grad school and i promise, it never works out as you plan, even when you're still in school.

that job sounds pretty neat, susan! by web professionals you mean from a design/programming standpoint, right? not becoming experts in web business tools like social media, etc., or is that rolled in, too?

Actually more of the latter. The kids I have now are all heavy with programming skills. The goal is to make them more well-rounded, beef up the areas they aren't as strong in, teach them how to manage clients & projects, choose wisely between solutions rather than deciding to use an application just b/c they want to play around with Python or something.

It's kind of like how the other units in our department (newspaper, tv, radio) work-along with helping the kids produce their own media we want to help them be ready to go out into the field.

It's pretty good but I'm ultimately planning to move on to something else in the future. I've been doing Web stuff for about 13 years now and am just kind of bored of it.

why the fuck am i still here when my night man was due here 1.5 hrs ago

I'M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!!!
http://www.scene-stealers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/clerks_xl_01.jpg

As part of my new "fighting boredom with self-education" initiative, i have decided to read every wikipedia entry for every u.s. president, in order.

Boooooooo-riiiiing!!!

"get a job doing something you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life."

FUCK

to answer the original q

a video store, just over a year, certainly not, stealing.

A language school, two days, seems alright, dunno - flinging shit at the students would probably do the trick.

kids tv news programme, working there just over 3 months, I have several bosses and I like almost all of them apart from one who is crap at her job and not a v interesting person. don't majorly dislike her tho, just the days she works are more stressful for all.

easiest way to get fired? do anything which would harm/negatively influence a child.

UK Civil Servant for just over 10 years. I never expected to be at it this long. Few of us do.

My boss is whoever is in government and by extension the Great British public; so yeah, they're dicks. And probably liable to get even more dickish when Cameron and his bunch of fuckwit cronies get voted in next year. I think we in the UK can kiss goodbye to anything that even resembles a welfare state once that bunch of lunatics gets going. The NHS will be next for the chop after that.

It's actually fairly difficult to get fired if you're a permanently contracted Civil Servant; a significant amount of sick leave will do it nowadays but you'll end up with a fair bit of compensation if you've been in the job for a while. That said, I had 6 months off with depression a few years back and I've still got a job... The most effective way to do it would be to do something illegal whilst on the job - anything to do with data protection will get you marched off the premises and into the nearest police station in a hurry. Departmental legend has it that the serial killer Dennis Nielson, who worked for us before his incarceration, is allegedly still counted as being on long term suspension without pay.

Not so much a career as a complete fucking waste of my life.

describe, if it helps.

btw 'careers' - overrated imo. (but then i'm young and will no doubt learn)

Irish public sector, housing schemes. 3 years, 1 more until I'm permanent, damned glad to get it when I did, as long as things stay as bad as they are I'll stick with it and get experience. Can't see myself doing it for the next 40 years but pension, conditions, training & opportunities all pretty good so there's a good chance I'll slowly smother my 16 yr old self and settle for it in the long run.

The easiest way to get fired? Irish public service doesn't do 'fired' short of fraud or very inappropriate material being found on yr drive. If I make it through the next 12 months I'll be ok (lots of cuts going on at the moment)

Top 10 (just) UK university. Started 7 & 1/2 years ago as library skivvy in the Audiovisual (read 'film & music') department, and over 4 years worked my way up to running said department.

2 & 1/2 years ago we restructured, combining library & IT, and then student services and the projects office, and then admissions, and then marketing, and then careers, into an enormous Academic Services division. I suffered management hell for 11 months (the manager, who was new, then left by 'mutual agreement'), and ended up as an AV technician, despite never wanting to be and having no aptitude for it.

My new manager for the last 18 months has been really good, and I've had loads of development opportunities, managing web pages, running working groups, doing project management, helping out our Comms & Marketing manager on various projects, all aimed at getting me a new, better, more suitable job.

I've applied for various other jobs at the university over the last 2 years, always narrowly missing out. The last thing I missed out on was a library customer service management job; I apparently made a seriously good impression, but missed out narrowly to someone else with 15 years more experience than me. Having worked with her on some stuff recently, I'm very glad I didn't get that job; it's hellish.

On Monday I start in the university's Communications Services division, where I'll be earning more money, in a better office, with people I've done various project work with over the last 2 years and who I really get along with (my direct line manager is former music editor at Big Issue Manchester, and a European Ultimate Frisbee champion, wtf), as a Web Officer managing and editing web pages for researchers.

To say I'm pleased is an understatement.

've applied for various other jobs at the university over the last 2 years, always narrowly missing out. .............................I'm very glad I didn't get that job; it's hellish.

I tend to think this in advance of just about every job I see advertised tbh, which is why I don't apply for jobs.

It's not even a career, really. I'm just at the end of my tolerance for helping peeps that don't want to be helped.

Just need to find a way to earn a living for the next 30 years that doesn't make me wanna kill self, clients, random bystanders.

i can sympathise with the helping people that don't want it angle, but tbh the only advice i got there is the 'become callous, desensitized and cynical' and i kinda feel that that's basically my advice to you any time we get into politics/society etc threads so y'know, absorb the bad days sand don't become a darraghmac over it or anything is maybe what i'd say to you.

I'm just tired and burning out, plus teenagers are all the most disgusting of savages, plus I don't have any transferable skills and I just wanna work with Not People for the rest of my sentence.

Plus Wednesday. Wd rather be at home playing FM tbh

Pro tip: differences between Aspies and all other kids = Rizla-thin

I bet you've actually got fuckloads of transferable skills, dude. Audit yourself!

see, i could be NV in another 10 years (sorry dude if i'm overestimating yr age there) except i'd need to get nicer, and i can't see that happening.

btw intelligence is hella skillful, don't be an ass

(xp)

Ah I probly need to start taking some active steps here, but no excuse, taking a chance gets harder when yr 40 and you've got dependents.

Could be worse, I could own a PL football club.

stfu the lowest net asset worth in EPL owners is 5m (and that's a dude with a minority stake in everton) i wouldn't be complaining.

mind you he probably has to deal with aspie teens the whole time too.....

I think I posted in one of these before? whatever..

working at a community college in hong kong as a assistant lecturer. on a one year contract. my job involves teaching high school level english to students who weren't able to get into uni the first time around. they hope that by doing well in community college they can get a chance to move on to a real bachelors program. the success rate is only about 20-30%, which is tremendously depressing. teaching to students in their second language is also v. v. depressing. fuck colonialism tbh.

currently bored out of my gourd but the college says they are considering reupping me for one more year and I might take it tbh. studying the lsat and hoping to apply next year - don't really relish the idea of being put out on my ass and having to find a stopover job for a year before going back to school.

srsly, i'm wondrin bout this 'helping peeps that don't want to be helped'

it sounds incredibly irritating but have these kids explicitly asked you to help them? if you think about rigidly folowing the terms of your contract rather than a pedagogic/altruistic imperative towards each kid then perhaps the frustration would lessen

i'm pretty sure they let me 'transition' to this new post purely bcz they don't wanna fire the cancer guy. So there's that!

sweeet

there's this thing people do where they're sick but they work from home. i don't get it. if you're sick just be sick and rest up. 9 times out of 10 these people mysteriously linger on in half-sickness all week. i wonder why! occasionally it'll not even be full-on ill but "not feeling great, going to work from home today". nice for some!

sad!

I mean, I get 6 sick days a year, so I wouldn't want to use one unless I'm genuinely incapacitated

right i get that. i mean it's medieval but i get it. not the situation where i work though.

idk it's made sense to me. maybe you've got snot streaming down your face and sneezing every 0.5 seconds, or you've got bad cramps, but otherwise feel ok. The extra hour or so in bed not having to commute/ put on uncomfortable clothes will actually help you get better in the long run/ not spread it around and you know if you just left a day of work completely un-done it'd be even worse when you get back.

so it's quite nice to monitor email, get the important things done but know you can go and lie down or stuff tissues up your nose if it gets worse without having to make a big deal of leaving the office again

yeah i have this feeling that there's something irrational or even controlling about my attitude towards this, idk

Makes sense to me as well. As well as not spreading germs, it means you can avoid letting people down through leaving work undone, and also make sure sure you don't come back to a stressful to do list.

but yeah if you're doing it all the time instead of using a sick day, and not really doing any work, you should be asked to decide if you're taking a sick day or working.

Well 2 weeks ago my grad student made a big show of dragging herself into work while still sick. Promptly infected myself and maybe 6 other people with her heavy cold, some of whom took sick leave. I had the cold but wasn’t ill enough to not be working, so I stayed home to avoid spreading it.
By the way I also hold the current record for not taking my annual leave like I should, am owed three years’ worth, so I’m not exactly milking it.

I think this happens in places where people can work effectively from home but are not given the freedom to do so, despite there being no reason for this, and so they need an excuse. Not to say they're all lying but my last job that didn't actively allow working from home and wasn't contract work had this a lot, like a way of staying at home without the sin of calling in sick.

Personally I'm a contractor so I don't get paid if I don't work - this means I wouldn't take a sick day unless I actually was sick to the point of needing to sleep all day. Like having a hangover, a bad cold or even a flu, or an upset stomach or whatever, is easy enough to work through if you're in sweatpants at home, or sitting in bed, or lying on the couch, rather than under fluorescent lights having to sit in some kind of acceptable posture.

All of these dynamics are fairly weird. As a catholic, I'm glad if I do take a day off at short notice I feel no guilt because I'm not being paid for it. It doesn't happen often but it's good to be able to feel okay about it when it does.

I mean, I dunno, as soon as you allow things like working from home the illusion of our 40-hour weeks in office starts to erode, really.

I usually do this but I work from home 3 days a week anyway. It is basically what kinder said - you're sick and snotty, but you are awake and can type on a keyboard, so you can get stuff done without having to get through the commute and then spread germs around the office.

our manager is clamping down on it though because one of the product managers has been taking the piss and claiming to be sick and working from home almost every week since she started a couple of months ago. now if you're sick you have to take a sick day. which is fine by me tbh, if that's how they want it, I'm happy to oblige by not doing any work when I otherwise could do. this new product manager is probably going to fail probation (in fact until last week she had never come in on a Tuesday) so I dunno if they'll keep it up after she gets sacked

There are some people around me that use “working at home” as a weapon. If there’s a difficult project that requires delicate conversations/negotiations, I can predict with almost absolute certainty who will immediately update their calendar with ‘working at home’.

(And they’ll harass me on what are the “dialling in details”, even though they know getting people, room and phone lines lined up is a real pain).

I've only ever been sick/injured enough one day in my adult life where I was unable to do work from home. I dunno. I guess it depends on what your responsibilities are, if anyone take up the work for you. I am opposite and get a little weirded out when people don't at least check email from home when sick. But I also want to know as little personal details about most people's lives that I work with.

checking email while you're sick really crosses the work/life balance line for me. i think having a clear division is really important. if your department is set up so that things just don't get done or fall apart if you're not there then there are bigger issues.

sometimes people really need to be told - stop checking your email on the weekend. we're not doing surgery here.

I mean, I get 6 sick days a year, so I wouldn't want to use one unless I'm genuinely incapacitated

this is really the thing. Ontario has a v low number of allocated paid sick days.

its gonna vary hugely from country to country here, let alone corporate culture and individual habit

ppl would be horrified here to be told they were expected to check their email while at work tbh

nice

people should oppose that kind of culture.

Partially thank globalization. The world doesn't stop because your weekend starts.

yeah, most people are so lazy as to be almost worthless.

i like to think of it as a tacit understanding that almost all work practiced in offices is unnecessary and its not rly worth getting het up over

This is also true. Most jobs are completely unnecessary. Places like to hire and lay-off so they have one more metric to change as progress.

After suffering through some of the most stressful years of my life (to the point where I was throwing up in the morning in preparation for the day and having some very, very dark thoughts), due to the convergence of a terrible six-year project, lackluster management, and a toxic environment - I started a new job six months ago and am continually amazed at how pleasant a non-dysfunctional, supporting work environment can be. Best decision I've ever made.

Email itself is old hat. Where I work, senior managers use WhatsApp at all hours, and share a lot of indiscreet comments (very unwise in my view).

lol that is a terrible idea

hat tip to jvc, i switched out of a nightmare gig two years ago and still have daydreams about what i should've done to some of the animals i was stuck with in the old place

that was mighty tempting, but I was just glad to have the light at the end of the tunnel not actually be an oncoming train for once, so I took the high road.

love it when you think you have a lot to do on a cold and snowy monday and it turns out to be really chill and quiet instead.

Okay, so I passed the work test, and it seems I'll be starting a new, long-term freelance gig later this week or early next. It pays more per hour than anything I've ever worked, and it is guaranteed to be a bit of a nightmare, but I'll be making as much in a month as I do in four now.

I'm absolutely terrified.

Thats great, grats

hope you can make it work for you!

i hope so too! thx!

Hate me, but I retired 15 months ago. I feel even better than I imagined I would.

"Everybody's flush with stimulus money and nobody wants to work" is something I've heard from four different people in completely unrelated conversations this week. The restaurant where I tend bar is going to close on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the time being because the owner can't find a prep cook who doesn't throw money in the trash can. The roofing contractor who did some patch-up work for me Wednesday said he can't fill out work crews. An entire shift quit at the local McDonald's a couple of weeks ago because their manager was an asshole to them once too often.

Recalibrating the future of work and the value of work is playing out in some interesting ways. One of the servers at the restaurant, an extremely conservative white woman in her 50s, shocked the hell out of me yesterday by saying how this says more about the state of wages in Mississippi than about anybody's willingness to work.

(If there's a better thread for this, point me to it.)

that lady otm!

if you’re a business reporter or similar there’s always a column waiting to be written about the “skills shortage” in industries x, y, and z where goldurn it they just can’t find the right people - itisamystery.gif