I've been asking these questions for such a long time and I think the answer is more like door #3. I think the "efficiency" focus is what takes all the joy out of so many jobs. The idea that we always need to do more, faster, with less absolutely kills the enjoyment of anything. I've been thinking about how I do my job for the past year and a half a LOT and experimenting with how I can do it differently. I quit my job 2 years ago - and then they convinced me to stay by letting me work 4 day weeks. I keep thinking if I could work 4, 6 hour days it would be better, but the less I work the less I want to. Yet I actually do enjoy the creative challenges in my job and I have seen that I can be very stressed on my three days off too. I have no choice - I don't have a pension and thanks to some twists and turns in my life I'm nowhere near having a retirement savings at 55.
Sorry to hear the news about Joey, Robyn. I feel your pain, but 17 years was a good run. As for Cubs fans, folks in the Midwest may think they're bad, but I suspect they don't hold a candle to Phillies and Yankees fans. Yankees fans, well, I don't have to explain that. But Phillies fans are worse in some ways because they act like their team now is God's gift to baseball . . . but they still haven't won anything yet. And yes, I am still pissed that they built their current team by overpaying former Nationals. Well, the ghost of Ryan Howard will come around to haunt them and those long-term contracts with aging players soon enough. DJB
Sorry to be the poop in the punch bowl, but I cherished every moment of my active career. Often it felt maddeningly difficult and unappreciated, but I saw glimpses of the impact from time to time that showed me that my efforts were worthwhile. I was paid with a deep sense of satisfaction.
I honestly don’t remember my income, other than I started out at 200 Malawi kwacha per month (a box of cornflakes cost 8 kwacha), but we had enough for our personal needs and enough leftover to pay schools fees for a local kid. Throughout my career, we always had enough and some leftover.
I am sad that Karl Marx is part of this discussion. There is nothing admirable about his personal life. He didn’t provide for his family, depended on a stipend from his parents, he was a racist (read his comments about his son-in-law), and two of his daughters and a son-in-law committed suicide.
Political revolutions based on his ideas resulted in the deaths of between 100 million and 160 million people. There is not a single example of his ideology ever succeeding in creating a just, free, and prosperous country.
Yep -- I’m at a community college, and out of my 20 years here I’ve taken off a handful of summers (9-month contract). It’s so blissful. I’m gonna be such a happy retired person!
A.) If you had asked me in March of 2023 if I was satisfied with my job I would have emphatically said yes, and explained how and why. Now, since old rich dudes with sociopathic tendencies found they couldn’t live without a command and control system in place I am deeply, irrevocably satisfied.
I retired earlier than intended because of the increased pressures of my job and the threat of being sent back to the office. I worked for state government, and almost all of us were sent to work from home at the start of the pandemic (some people chose to stay in their offices in part because there were so few people there at the time). During that time I took a promotion, but when the pressure started to have people return to work, I balked. Well, my husband did too. He was already retired and didn't want me back in the office.
It was a struggle--mentally and emotionally--to retire, though, because in this society we are hardwired to believe that our worth as human beings can be (and should be) measured in a paycheck. I don't have a problem with working. I work all the time now that I'm retired. I just don't get paid for it. I write, knit, weave, clean house, garden, tend to my cats, and cook. All these things are work. The difference is I don't get paid to do any of them but they all (frankly) give me more meaning in my life than my jobs ever did.
I'm not an economist, but I think capitalism is here to stay. I just don't think the system has to be as demeaning and dehumanizing as it currently is.
"Working sucks because selling your labor in order to survive, friends, is alienating!" -This, and degrading. And exhausting. And depressing?? Also, though, I think conditions of late-stage capitalism have made it so that most people, no matter how much they work, can't really afford to pay their bills and have much if any leftover...and who can buy a home anymore with just regular job money? So it feels like work is rigged--which is not great for morale! I have a job that I mostly like and still would quit in two seconds if I could, and just enjoy my life and my child and my partner and my family and do projects on the side...
Really feeling this, Robyn. I left my last position working intensely and directly for someone else (alongside my self-employed work) last February. I was a college dean and, especially coming after teaching college since 2016, it did me in. So much dread. So underpaid and under appreciated for the all-hours nature of the work 7 days a week. In leaving that position, I left behind financial stability. Part of me feels that was a colossal mistake. Part of me, on a body-and-soul level, can never choose such a job again.
I wouldn't return to full time work even if I was offered $1,000,000 a year. I LOVE retirement.
I've been asking these questions for such a long time and I think the answer is more like door #3. I think the "efficiency" focus is what takes all the joy out of so many jobs. The idea that we always need to do more, faster, with less absolutely kills the enjoyment of anything. I've been thinking about how I do my job for the past year and a half a LOT and experimenting with how I can do it differently. I quit my job 2 years ago - and then they convinced me to stay by letting me work 4 day weeks. I keep thinking if I could work 4, 6 hour days it would be better, but the less I work the less I want to. Yet I actually do enjoy the creative challenges in my job and I have seen that I can be very stressed on my three days off too. I have no choice - I don't have a pension and thanks to some twists and turns in my life I'm nowhere near having a retirement savings at 55.
Sorry to hear the news about Joey, Robyn. I feel your pain, but 17 years was a good run. As for Cubs fans, folks in the Midwest may think they're bad, but I suspect they don't hold a candle to Phillies and Yankees fans. Yankees fans, well, I don't have to explain that. But Phillies fans are worse in some ways because they act like their team now is God's gift to baseball . . . but they still haven't won anything yet. And yes, I am still pissed that they built their current team by overpaying former Nationals. Well, the ghost of Ryan Howard will come around to haunt them and those long-term contracts with aging players soon enough. DJB
Sorry to be the poop in the punch bowl, but I cherished every moment of my active career. Often it felt maddeningly difficult and unappreciated, but I saw glimpses of the impact from time to time that showed me that my efforts were worthwhile. I was paid with a deep sense of satisfaction.
I honestly don’t remember my income, other than I started out at 200 Malawi kwacha per month (a box of cornflakes cost 8 kwacha), but we had enough for our personal needs and enough leftover to pay schools fees for a local kid. Throughout my career, we always had enough and some leftover.
I am sad that Karl Marx is part of this discussion. There is nothing admirable about his personal life. He didn’t provide for his family, depended on a stipend from his parents, he was a racist (read his comments about his son-in-law), and two of his daughters and a son-in-law committed suicide.
Political revolutions based on his ideas resulted in the deaths of between 100 million and 160 million people. There is not a single example of his ideology ever succeeding in creating a just, free, and prosperous country.
Yep -- I’m at a community college, and out of my 20 years here I’ve taken off a handful of summers (9-month contract). It’s so blissful. I’m gonna be such a happy retired person!
A.) If you had asked me in March of 2023 if I was satisfied with my job I would have emphatically said yes, and explained how and why. Now, since old rich dudes with sociopathic tendencies found they couldn’t live without a command and control system in place I am deeply, irrevocably satisfied.
B.) GO CUBS, GO!
C.) I know you love me anyway.
Sometimes I even consider if being a full time writer would make me hate it eventually. Work sucks, especially on a Monday. Good timing.
I retired earlier than intended because of the increased pressures of my job and the threat of being sent back to the office. I worked for state government, and almost all of us were sent to work from home at the start of the pandemic (some people chose to stay in their offices in part because there were so few people there at the time). During that time I took a promotion, but when the pressure started to have people return to work, I balked. Well, my husband did too. He was already retired and didn't want me back in the office.
It was a struggle--mentally and emotionally--to retire, though, because in this society we are hardwired to believe that our worth as human beings can be (and should be) measured in a paycheck. I don't have a problem with working. I work all the time now that I'm retired. I just don't get paid for it. I write, knit, weave, clean house, garden, tend to my cats, and cook. All these things are work. The difference is I don't get paid to do any of them but they all (frankly) give me more meaning in my life than my jobs ever did.
I'm not an economist, but I think capitalism is here to stay. I just don't think the system has to be as demeaning and dehumanizing as it currently is.
"Working sucks because selling your labor in order to survive, friends, is alienating!" -This, and degrading. And exhausting. And depressing?? Also, though, I think conditions of late-stage capitalism have made it so that most people, no matter how much they work, can't really afford to pay their bills and have much if any leftover...and who can buy a home anymore with just regular job money? So it feels like work is rigged--which is not great for morale! I have a job that I mostly like and still would quit in two seconds if I could, and just enjoy my life and my child and my partner and my family and do projects on the side...
Really feeling this, Robyn. I left my last position working intensely and directly for someone else (alongside my self-employed work) last February. I was a college dean and, especially coming after teaching college since 2016, it did me in. So much dread. So underpaid and under appreciated for the all-hours nature of the work 7 days a week. In leaving that position, I left behind financial stability. Part of me feels that was a colossal mistake. Part of me, on a body-and-soul level, can never choose such a job again.