Do you have a job which doesn't make you feel alienated and depressed?

[spanglechick]

Yes (I'm a teacher - secondary age Drama).

I feel connected to the world in the most enormously meaningful way, and i mostly feel massively uplifted...


But it comes at a cost.


I work ten hours in the school building on a standard day, sometimes longer (up til nine). I almost always work at home in the evenings for between 1-4 hrs on average. And much of it is full-on work. It's like doing a six-hour stand-up routine, five days a week. To a TOUGH audience. Then... well, the data analysis, the planning, the assessment... it all fucking *matters* so much: you can't cut corners.

And the money isn't bad, at my age, but it's not fair recompense for the hours, responsibility, or the impact it has on my life. I do NOTHING else. I can't go to a book group, I can't visit my mum of a weekend... I have my job, and i sleep - pretty much that's it.

And it's much, much easier for me because I'm good at it. Not being a concieted dick, but my personality suits the job, and my brain works the right way. I think a lot of teachers find it much harder.




So yes, now, I don't feel alienated or depressed, despite all the negatives. In fact, it's often joyous.


Worth saying, too, that in my last job, at a large adcademy chain, I was destroyed. I'm very lucky, right now.


edit - bit verbose? I'm fairly pissed.

 

[fishfinger]

Saw operator I love it, cut cut cut

I've seen all your films

 

[Thora]

I work with very small children. It has its frustrations but I never feel alienated or depressed.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

J Ed

Is it the job or is it you? Be honest.

 

[J Ed]

J Ed

Is it the job or is it you? Be honest.

Well, I work in a supermarket for slightly more than minimum wage and I would assume that it is the job, rather than me, making me feel bad when I am shouted at because I cannot make a self-service till work while I am serving another customer, or when I am personally blamed for the 5p bag change or when it is made very clear to me that it is my fault that the supermarket is out of pak choi.

Then again I suppose that for a Blairite cunt like you I'm part of the 'Corbynjugend' I'm not being aspirational enough because I don't enthusiastically embrace the cognitive dissonance necessary to perform the emotional labour involved in customer service that means I don't starve.

 

[Orang Utan]

J Ed

Is it the job or is it you? Be honest.

surely it's the system? nearly all jobs are alienating and depressing. all of them are at times.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Well, I work in a supermarket for slightly more than minimum wage and I would assume that it is the job, rather than me, making me feel bad when I am shouted at because I cannot make a self-service till work while I am serving another customer, or when I am personally blamed for the 5p bag change or when it is made very clear to me that it is my fault that the supermarket is out of pak choi.

Sounds like you don't like the customers. Can't you transfer to the warehouse?

 

[Orang Utan]

Sounds like you don't like the customers. Can't you transfer to the warehouse?

oh fuck off

 

[Teenage Cthulhu]

I am sorry you haven't had a positive experience with HR jed. I never looked at it like that.

Do you think HR attracts a certain personality type then?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

So the people on here who are alienated and depressed are alienated and depressed because their jobs make them alienated and depressed. It's all capitalism's fault.

I suggest that there is no utopia, no perfectly ordered society in which either Orang Utan or J Ed would be rays of sunshine. And it's the poor sods who can't get their pak choi that I feel for.

 

[Orang Utan]

So the people on here who are alienated and depressed are alienated and depressed because their jobs make them alienated and depressed. It's all capitalism's fault.

I suggest that there is no utopia, no perfectly ordered society in which either Orang Utan or J Ed would be rays of sunshine. And it's the poor sods who can't get their pak choi that I feel for.

you're a wally. you fail to recognise that people are inevitably alienated by their jobs and suggest they jump from the frying pan into the fire.

 

[J Ed]

Sounds like you don't like the customers. Can't you transfer to the warehouse?

You are being flippant and rude but, I am sure without meaning to, you actually do raise a fairly good point with your question. In the average population there is always going to be a relatively high number of people who are introverts, no one likes doing the emotional labour in low value low skill work but it undoubtedly comes easier to people who are extroverted. In late neoliberalism there has been a huge shift to the service economy, and with it a huge shift towards 'customer-facing' roles but has there been a corresponding increase in the amount of extroverts in the general population? I doubt it.

The idea that if someone simply does not like a job like this then they should do another really does expose the fraud of neoliberal choice theory. Clearly if I had a choice I would not be doing this job, just as millions of people in this country would not be performing emotional labour as their job if they had a choice.

 

[J Ed]

poor sods who can't get their pak choi that I feel for.

You know, I've always wondered what sort of person berates someone working on a shop floor for something that is so far beyond their means to control just for the fuck of it. It's you.

 

[wayward bob]

while nothing like the drain of spanglechick's people-facing hours my hours are also lonnnng. i've maybe had one full day off (as in weekend day) since i started back 2 months ago. i'm not customer facing in general thank god, but i can easily be working 12 hours a day without more than a bus-ride and a sandwich at my desk as a break. because my work is so varied i can flit from one task to another without taking a breath and i have to keep an eye on that. my family see even less of me now than when i was studying...

 

[Maurice Picarda]

you fail to recognise that people are inevitably alienated by their jobs.

I hope you don't take this absurdity out on the kids. They deserve better even than the pak choi buyers.

 

[Orang Utan]

I hope you don't take this absurdity out on the kids. They deserve better even than the pak choi buyers.

what absurdity? it is a fact that employment inevitably leads to alienation.

 

[J Ed]

what absurdity? it is a fact that employment inevitably leads to alienation.

Nah we are all consumers with infinite choices available to us. If you think otherwise he compares you to the Hitler youth.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I don't hate my job, but I don't relish it when it's my basic bread and butter of editing cop shows. Luckily I only have to work half the year, but that doesn't stop me worrying about getting more work when I am out of it (freelance).
I wish I got more music work (where I am generally on my own) I find it very soul enriching, I am much more happy with myself working at home at my own pace and feeling some self worth. I also pays pretty good, but the jobs are few and far between these days, so sitting down and editing cops all day has to be done. . . better than a log of of jobs. Better than a lot of editing jobs.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

what absurdity? it is a fact that employment inevitably leads to alienation.

It's certainly a central tenet of Marxist theory. I'm not sure that it's generally accepted by people with jobs.

 

[J Ed]

It's certainly a central tenet of Marxist theory. I'm not sure that it's generally accepted by people with jobs.

Yes, I have been told by bigots like you 'at least I have a job' while literally serving them in a customer service role. These days for (Red) Tory scum like you it's not enough to be employed you're also scum if you're in low paid low status work. What a hateful cunt you are.

 

[Orang Utan]

It's certainly a central tenet of Marxist theory. I'm not sure that it's generally accepted by people with jobs.

most people hate their jobs.

 

[machine cat]

most people hate their jobs.

I don't. The pension, 15% discount on a travel card, flexible working. Could be worse.

 

[Hellsbells]

alot of the time, yes, apart from when I'm actually in the classroom teaching.
I'm a sessional (crappy zero hours) teacher so tend to come into college just to teach my class and then leave. I don't have a desk or a phone. Once I've finished teaching, I stop being paid so although the work doesn't stop (ha ha - I wish), I'm normally reluctant to stay in the college building so tend to spend most of my non teaching time working at home, by myself, or in coffee shops, by myself. I hated the boredom of working in admin before I started teaching, but it was nice to be part of a team I saw every day.

 

[bi0boy]

I don't work any more and fucking love it, because I hated my job.

 

[equationgirl]

I'm an engineer, I work in r&d. I like the job itself but the politics and petty point scoring and general fuckwittery do depress me. I feel alienated every day because I'm a woman and there are at least five different ways how this happens.

 

[Cheesypoof]

Yes (I'm a teacher - secondary age Drama).

I feel connected to the world in the most enormously meaningful way, and i mostly feel massively uplifted...


But it comes at a cost.
.

Secondary school teachers in the UK have it the worst - it sounds like exploitation from hundreds of stories online from stressed out, overworked teachers. Some say they work 60 hour weeks, and always have to work at weekends. One said she quit cos she hadn't seen her kids! It seems that Offsted's ridiculous demands and neverending paperwork is ruining the teaching profession in the UK. Some stats say that over 50% of qualified teachers leave the profession within 5 years of qualification, which is scary. Actually, recruiters were over from the UK to Ireland recently to try to recruit Irish people, offering to train them for FREE in England. They had a site on Facebook presenting a sugarcoated view and got thousands of angry posts from teachers telling the real story of what life is like as a teacher in England.

 

[Chick Webb]

Some people would seem to be completely immune to alienation.

Ahh now.

I can answer yes to this thread, even though the job is nothing special - secretary/admin in a lawfirm. The reason why I'm happy with it is that is it just that, a JOB. I don't expect a "career", just a job whereby I get money, then go home at the end of the day and forget about it. I've been working as a legal secretary for over ten years and I've enjoyed it (even though lawyers and lawfirms are fairly evil - I haven't worked in one of the non-evil ones).

That said, I'm probably not going to back after maternity leave

 

[Teenage Cthulhu]

I like my job. Great perks such as a gym, dental care and a new mobile phone every year.

 

[Orang Utan]

I like my job. Great perks such as a gym, dental care and a new mobile phone every year.

I don't get suspicious about newbies and prefer to take them for their word, but fuck off Ninjernky

 

[machine cat]

I get a laptop and phone so I can WFH when I want. I don't really like it in the office. The lighting's shit. But I'll go in a couple of days a week if I fancy talking to people.