The work shy and bone idle....

[scottsdad]

For me, if I didn't work I'd have to find something to do. Work isn't just about earning enough money to pay the bills and have enough left over for a bit of fun - it's a big part of self-worth (at least for me). 

I must say I do like my job a lot, and the busier I am the more I like it. This is just me though. 

I have only ever quit a job once without having another one to go to. I was a door to door gas and telephone salesman in the summer of 1999. Walking around Glasgow tenements, walking the streets of places like Kilsyth, knocking doors from 11am and trying to convince people to switch their phone or energy supplier. It was terrible, soul destroying. I'd finish at about 9.30pm, home by 10.30pm, call the boss and take a bollocking for not making enough sales...and it was 11pm. 6 days a week unless I missed the targets, in which case I was back out on a Sunday.  The day was gone. The week was gone. I was exhausted and after 4 weeks (of fantastic money, I have to admit), I quit.  I was lucky enough that I had made enough money in those 4 weeks to see me through the summer before going back to uni.

[Miguel Sanchez]

I don't know how much it would take for me to live without a job. Someone start paying me on a sliding scale and I'll tell you when I find out.

[Steve_Wilkos]

Channel 5 needs to bring back Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole.

It was, mainly, hilarious viewing. Doubt it will come back considering that JK has been canned but fingers crossed.

⬇Legend⬇

[Hillonearth]

3 hours ago, Thorongil said:

I agree and I think that office culture even in the home can become toxic. Email and Teams really gives too many people carte blanche to pester others all day with whatever shite pops into their had rather than doing actual work themselves. 
I often get annoyed because there is little time to get anything done because of other people just sending me messages and trying to send me on wild goose chases. 
 

delivering well on your actual job description rarely seems to be enough for people.

I'm with you on that - I had to make the pretense of spending several hours looking for a form that I already knew didn't exist earlier on this week, as somebody quite senior insisted that even if such a form didn't exist, well...it should.

I'm firmly on the life side of the work/life balance thing...working's always been a means to an end rather than the end in itself. I'm in a strange position at the moment as I'm being encouraged to apply for a promotion I'm not 100% sure I want...the money's slightly better but not lifechanging and as the job description's slightly nebulous I suspect it would mean a lot more being dragged from pillar to post:

"Invent faster than light travel. We'll need it by Friday..."

Edited June 11, 2021 by Hillonearth

[Hillonearth]

4 minutes ago, Pato said:

I deal with a lot of this and I don't recommend it.

Management: "We've slashed your budget by at least 5% a year for a decade and we need you to do more with this smaller amount of money"

Me: Well, I can do this or I can do this, but for that money if you want me to do both of those things they will both fail.

Management: "Efficiency Synergy More With Less Work Smarter Not Harder Think Out The Box Success"

Me: No, this costs this much. That's what it costs. If you don't have this much money, it cannot be done.

repeat x ∞

Totally...tends to be middle manager types who think they can utter a series of buzzwords in a specific order and they will have the ability to reshape reality...sweaty David Brents thinking they can apply some sort of Nietzschean will to power through their negligible charisma.

[Duszek]

I sometimes fantasize about quitting my job.

 « Duszek, I’ll need that edited report by six. »

«  Ah yeah? Well good luck with that. »

[switches off computer. Stands up. Exits]
 

I also have a domestic equivalent.

 « Are you listening to me? Get Duszek Junior off of Roblox and supervise his homework. »

 « Actually, f**k that. »

[stands up. Grabs jacket and wallet. Exits]

[johnnydun]

Hard work never killed anyone.

Spoiler

It certainly won't get me!

 

[Left Back]

11 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

Totally...tends to be middle manager types who think they can utter a series of buzzwords in a specific order and they will have the ability to reshape reality...sweaty David Brents thinking they can apply some sort of Nietzschean will to power through their negligible charisma.

This is because they’ve already told their equally clueless boss they’ll do it (i.e tell someone else to do it then blame them when it fails).

the higher up the food chain you go the less grasp of reality they have.  I have to work for far too many melts like this.

[101]

Were employers better in the old days?

Like you hear about a real sense of community in more traditional Scottish workplaces despite them being infinitely more dangerous things like shipbuilding and mining was it because employers gave secure jobs often for generations that it fostered such a good community and "work ethic" or was it because you could kill someone at work that meant you trusted people in a different way or finally was it that the employers in the main have always been shiftless b*****ds who can't wait to throw their employees under a bus and society in Scotland has sadly moved away from a powerful unionised workforce coupled with Tory crackdowns on unions.

I think wrongly people conflate work ethic with hours worked rather than productivity so back when you had to work 5 and a half a week maybe folk look back at that and think they worked harder. They also were younger and look back fondly at those times.

[ICTChris]

3 hours ago, Adam said:

I would say there aren’t many people in this world that do a job that they like, unfortunately. It’s about finding a good balance between the scale of wanting to tan your wrists each morning and having your dream job.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I liked my job, but I tolerate the work I do, doesn’t give me any feeling of warmth or fulfilment at the end of each day but doesn’t make me want to throw myself off a bridge either. I think I could probably say the majority of my friendship groups feel the same about their job. It is an utter nightmare to dread going to do a job you hate for 7 hours a day.

 

 

It would be interesting to see that broken down by salary, different employment type or sector.

I've been in the workplace for nearly 20 years and I've been very fortunate, I have had a lot more positive experiences than negatives ones.  I've had four fulltime jobs since starting in work and I'd say three of those were very positive.  One wasn't a great place to work but there were positives about it - some people there were good and working in a place with major issues in all sorts of ways is actually a valuable experience.  I was lucky in that I was in a position to jump ship though.  

My job is reactive which is a big advantage because it means that things are varied and no two days are the same.  I also work in a very pressured role which I actually enjoy and have mentally adapted to pretty well.  One thing about being in pressurised situations all the time is that you eventually get used to it and unless you are very unlucky things are never as bad as they can be.  I can't really articulate it but I enjoy when things go wrong as it's interesting,  I enjoy disruption and chaos.  I like having things thrown at me that I don't understand and having to get my head around them.  People do burn out in this sort of role though and that has happened to colleagues but I enjoy it.  Maybe my burnout is in the post, we'll see.

 

 

 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

9 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

 

It would be interesting to see that broken down by salary, different employment type or sector.

I've been in the workplace for nearly 20 years and I've been very fortunate, I have had a lot more positive experiences than negatives ones.  I've had four fulltime jobs since starting in work and I'd say three of those were very positive.  One wasn't a great place to work but there were positives about it - some people there were good and working in a place with major issues in all sorts of ways is actually a valuable experience.  I was lucky in that I was in a position to jump ship though.  

My job is reactive which is a big advantage because it means that things are varied and no two days are the same.  I also work in a very pressured role which I actually enjoy and have mentally adapted to pretty well.  One thing about being in pressurised situations all the time is that you eventually get used to it and unless you are very unlucky things are never as bad as they can be.  I can't really articulate it but I enjoy when things go wrong as it's interesting,  I enjoy disruption and chaos.  I like having things thrown at me that I don't understand and having to get my head around them.  People do burn out in this sort of role though and that has happened to colleagues but I enjoy it.  Maybe my burnout is in the post, we'll see.

 

 

 

I've had one pretty pressured job where things changed all the time and there was a crisis every other day and would take it over the slow and steady drudgery of my current role every day of the week. 

[Granny Danger]

11 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

 

It would be interesting to see that broken down by salary, different employment type or sector.

I've been in the workplace for nearly 20 years and I've been very fortunate, I have had a lot more positive experiences than negatives ones.  I've had four fulltime jobs since starting in work and I'd say three of those were very positive.  One wasn't a great place to work but there were positives about it - some people there were good and working in a place with major issues in all sorts of ways is actually a valuable experience.  I was lucky in that I was in a position to jump ship though.  

My job is reactive which is a big advantage because it means that things are varied and no two days are the same.  I also work in a very pressured role which I actually enjoy and have mentally adapted to pretty well.  One thing about being in pressurised situations all the time is that you eventually get used to it and unless you are very unlucky things are never as bad as they can be.  I can't really articulate it but I enjoy when things go wrong as it's interesting,  I enjoy disruption and chaos.  I like having things thrown at me that I don't understand and having to get my head around them.  People do burn out in this sort of role though and that has happened to colleagues but I enjoy it.  Maybe my burnout is in the post, we'll see.

 

 

 

I imagine being unemployed for any length of time would be awful.  I cannot imagine many folk would enjoy being unemployed.

[btb]

Crazy situation @ work about 5 years ago - a Time & Motion study was made into how long it took to do a product changeover.

We have 4  x 12 hour shifts running continuously so each shift was timed on said changeover, we were last and the other guys took a "let's be quickest" decision while I bumbled about however we were the quickest & the decision was made if we could do it in 20 mins all the shifts could - a rod on our backs that we have borne ever since.

[ICTChris]

That looks good.

[Bairnardo]

Crazy situation @ work about 5 years ago - a Time & Motion study was made into how long it took to do a product changeover.
We have 4  x 12 hour shifts running continuously so each shift was timed on said changeover, we were last and the other guys took a "let's be quickest" decision while I bumbled about however we were the quickest & the decision was made if we could do it in 20 mins all the shifts could - a rod on our backs that we have borne ever since.

You should have seen that coming.

Not unionised, presumably?

[Alert Mongoose]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

Were employers better in the old days?

Like you hear about a real sense of community in more traditional Scottish workplaces despite them being infinitely more dangerous things like shipbuilding and mining was it because employers gave secure jobs often for generations that it fostered such a good community and "work ethic" or was it because you could kill someone at work that meant you trusted people in a different way or finally was it that the employers in the main have always been shiftless b*****ds who can't wait to throw their employees under a bus and society in Scotland has sadly moved away from a powerful unionised workforce coupled with Tory crackdowns on unions.

I think wrongly people conflate work ethic with hours worked rather than productivity so back when you had to work 5 and a half a week maybe folk look back at that and think they worked harder. They also were younger and look back fondly at those times.

There’s probably loads of reasons but a lot of people these days work for an employer who they know would punt them at the drop of a hat as soon as they can get someone/something to do the job for a £1 cheaper. Hardly fosters a good relationship.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Alert Mongoose

[parsforlife]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

Were employers better in the old days?

Like you hear about a real sense of community in more traditional Scottish workplaces despite them being infinitely more dangerous things like shipbuilding and mining was it because employers gave secure jobs often for generations that it fostered such a good community and "work ethic" or was it because you could kill someone at work that meant you trusted people in a different way or finally was it that the employers in the main have always been shiftless b*****ds who can't wait to throw their employees under a bus and society in Scotland has sadly moved away from a powerful unionised workforce coupled with Tory crackdowns on unions.

I think wrongly people conflate work ethic with hours worked rather than productivity so back when you had to work 5 and a half a week maybe folk look back at that and think they worked harder. They also were younger and look back fondly at those times.

Traditional heavy industry certainly wasn’t about employers looking after employees.  You were just a lump of meat to get the job done and if you died as a result of their lax heath and safety they just employed someone else, probably raging about the lost production.

Maybe employees looked out for each other more tho.

24 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I imagine being unemployed for any length of time would be awful.  I cannot imagine many folk would enjoy being unemployed.

I was out of work for a little while and it was hell.  Didn’t even have to deal with financial worry as i was living at home, had been working decent hours and knew that the job I was in would start giving me shifts again in a few months.

Ask any snidey c**t who looks down on the unemployed if they’d want to swap.  The cushy life of handouts they claim they are living suddenly doesn’t exist.

[ICTChris]

I have a couple of cousins who work in the same industry as their dad, who was a trade unionist in the 1970s.  The cousins were out on strike a few years ago and one of their colleagues hid in the toilets when they walked out (strike began at noon) in order to break the strike for extra pay.  My uncle, upon hearing this, said in a misty-eyed way that in his day they'd have taken the guy out the back of the building and kicked his head in the next day for doing that.  He isn't some sort of mad Commie either. 

[btb]

22 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

1. You should have seen that coming.

2. Not unionised, presumably?

1. I did and presumed that short of turning the changeover into a Three Stooges sketch the object for us was to go as slowly as possible - turned out I was in a minority.

2. Yeah but increasingly people won't join or are leaving making the union progressively weaker - conditions (that were hard won) are being given away due to a mixture of fear & indifference.

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by btb

[Bairnardo]

1. I did and presumed that short of turning the changeover into a Three Stooges sketch the object for us was to go as slowly as possible - turned out I was in a minority.
2. Yeah but increasingly people won't join or are leaving leaving the union progressively weaker - conditions (that were hard won) are being given away due to a mixture of fear & indifference.
 

Too common on both counts