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Comment count is 47
SolRo - 2022-07-15

I have lots to bitch about my job but the pay is really good (for my education level), I’m really good at it, it’s occasionally fun and satisfying and it never ever follows me home.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Just remember: Work sucks, that's why they have to pay you to do it. If you loved everything about it, you would do it for free.

That being said, what particular aspects bother you and are the cons overwhelming the pros?


SolRo - 2022-07-15

I actually do enjoy the base work required as a mechanic (diagnosing and fixing cars). All the frustrations come from coworkers hindering my ability to do that job or generic bullshit that comes with a workplace that runs on productivity pay and dealership owners who don’t want to spend money on anything that would reduce their profits.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

It's been my experience most people like the work they do, just not the associated bullshit.

Which is why people who did remote work during the pandemic are quitting rather than go back into the office.


SolRo - 2022-07-15

It’s particularly bad at my current job.

Not all jobs are a struggle against your coworkers. I’ve worked at several spots where is was more cooperative.


jfcaron_ca - 2022-07-15

I was on a one-year contract as a technician in a university lab, but it wasn't renewed because I "didn't fit with the culture". Currently on government parental leave with a 9.5-month-old baby and will be fully unemployed by mid-September.

I'm applying for a part-time teaching gig at the same university, but I might just end up being a home-dad for a while?


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Being a home dad is more valuable to our society than any labor you could contribute to the economy.

We need to start paying people like it is.


Crackersmack - 2022-07-15

I design molds for a custom yacht manufacturer, I actually submitted a tour of my shop a while back (I was even in the video for a few seconds) but it never made it out of the hopper. It's a great job that pays well and has insane perks; for example I got to take a brand new $500k yacht 'home' over 4th of July weekend, and the company even paid for the fuel because it was formally part of the testing process.

Before this job I worked at a machine shop that specialized in motorcycle race engines, I started with no skills as a shipping clerk and worked my way up to production manager over 14 years, earning a BSME in the slowest way possible during the same time. I would have probably worked there for the rest of my life, but it got acquired by a larger company and moved to a state I didn't want to live in.


Sludge Vohaul - 2022-07-15

Could you throw up a youtube link? I'd love to see it.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Was the machine shop originally a small-time or mom & pop operation?


Crackersmack - 2022-07-15

Here's my current job: https://tinyurl.com/mrdres5v

The race/machine shop I worked at was started by one guy in the 1970s, but by the time I got hired on it had already changed hands to a different private owner. It was always very much a mom n pop operation right up until the end. It basically only exists as a name on a foreign-made product line now.


Sludge Vohaul - 2022-07-16

This is awesome, thank you.

...though I'm now going to forever picture you with the mustache that the host is sporting.


Crackersmack - 2022-07-17

I never thought about growing a Hulk Hogan 'stache to try and get brownie points with Ken, but it's not a bad idea. That video was great though because it really shows off how good our composite operation is. The people doing the real dirty work of laying the glass get paid well and treated fairly too.


radiosquido - 2022-07-15

Sometimes when people are feeling sick they call me up and then me and my friend put them in the back of our truck. If they're really sick we give them oxygen and inject drugs in them. Whoever's driving gets to push a button that makes our truck light up and get super loud and everyone gets out of our way (even po-po). Those are the pros. The con is that God fat people are hard to lift.


TeenerTot - 2022-07-15

This post delights me. :)


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

It seems like, with modern technology being what it is, they could make it easier for you to move fat people.

Because you're going to be encountering a lot of them in your line.

We fatties tend to hat going to the doctor because the doctor will often just tell us we feel bad because we're fat and need to lose weight. While that would help with some symptoms, it wouldn't address the underlying cause of out distress and discomfort.

Also, it's just about impossible to lose a significant amount of weight. It's even harder to keep it off. And both often require us to engage in dangerously unhealthy behavior.

Anyway, because going to the doctor is often humiliating and doesn't help us anyway, we tend to ignore symptoms and avoid th doctor until we're practically at death's door and an ambulance needs to come get us.

I'm sorry we make it harder on you. I know that job has to be stressful enough as it is.


TeenerTot - 2022-07-15

I've been skating along doing freelance graphics and animation for about 15 years. Usually make just enough to pay my bills. I will probably have to take a walmart greeter job instead of retiring when I get old. But setting my own schedule has allowed me to be available to help out my parents. Dad just had a brain tumor removed and is currently doing chemo. I'm poor right now, but so glad I can be there for them.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Let's keep hoping capitalism finally goes too far and we can, for a little while at least, enjoy a society that cares if everyone has food, shelter, clothes and medicine.

Let's not hold our breath, though.

Anyway, what you're doing to help your parents will be worth more than gold down the road. I speak from personal experience.


Adjuvant - 2022-07-15

I was just contacted by a recruiter yesterday with a job that pays a bit under twice what I'm making now with no night or weekend work. I'm turning it down because it is on the other side of the country (I'm in the middle) and it sounds boring AF. Without needing much thought I'm keeping a job that pays less for more work and little guarantee of stability. So my job sucks but I love it?


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

And I'm guessing you like having your social network?


love - 2022-07-15

I am a high-school dropout who currently designs and builds huge data platforms for media companies. I have little to no idea how I got here, I was trying to be a rock star, but mental illness is my super-power and it took me slightly off course.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Take care of yourself.


Sludge Vohaul - 2022-07-15

I don't hate my job, I posted this in a fit of pique while working late, again, as the sun shines outdoors.

I've worked in children's television for almost 20 years and lately I've just hit a wall where I realize I'm going to be listening to inane yet catchy songs about brushing your teeth or w/e for another 20 years while piss correcting tiny things that no 3 year old in the process of filling their diapers is ever going to care about.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Do you have a good work/life balance?

Do you have time & energy to pursue things you do care about?


Sludge Vohaul - 2022-07-15

No and no.

And while you sound like a Franklin Covey book you have asked two very solid questions that I will be thinking about this weekend.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

It's probably going to come down to a choice between staying where you are or taking a job with less pay & fewer benefits, but more time for yourself.

Ideally, I'd like to see you get a new job with better pay AND a good work/life balance, but if you just find one with a better work/life balance, that might be the way to go.


cognitivedissonance - 2022-07-15

This was based on an actual restaurant at Disney World's Pleasure Island. It has since been replaced by a Thomas Edison themed bar that inexplicably has pictures of Nicola Tesla everywhere.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Some Imagineer knew exactly what they were doing.


cognitivedissonance - 2022-07-15

I am an editor of corporate documentation.

I am paid very well to do very little.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

Do you have fun outside of work?


Anaxagoras - 2022-07-15

Holy shit... seriously, CD? I'm a creator of corporate documentation!

Well, I suppose I'm also an editor of it, since I handle its creation, editing, and publishing. It's technical documentation... basically, I create docs that computer programmers use to use various software platforms.

I'm kept fairly busy, but I don't have to work more than 40-45 hours per week. Plus I get to set my own schedule, work from home all the time (even before the pandemic), and I have a boss who isn't a dick. So, you know, all things considered, I can't really complain.


cognitivedissonance - 2022-07-16

S'troo. My job is to make sure the company's style guide is applied and then press the publish button. My job is to lurk in several hours of meetings a day and then I disappear into an editor's meeting for a few more, where we dink around and argue about grammar.


cognitivedissonance - 2022-07-16

I started as a creator, did some work for some warehousing logistic programs, that went well, and failed upwards.


Meerkat - 2022-07-15

My entire career was based on who I could get to pay me the most to sit in a cubicle and churn out code. I can't say I ever hated or loved it. It was a good job for someone like me who just wants to be left alone.

The only complaints I had were office politics related bullshit. Some doofus would think I was stepping on their toes or another doofus would try to get me transferred to a different project because they didn't like my attitude or whatever.

I didn't really get the politics shit at all. I just wanted to put my headphones on and drink coffee and write code and these idiots were buzzing around like ego-maniacal flies.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2022-07-15

I'm a freelance game programmer. I'm super frugal and dont need much money. I can earn as much as I need just doing a couple contracts per year, and doing whatever I want most of the time. Office politics is pure bullshit and I have noped out of being an employee so I can avoid bullshit like that which I seems to detest more than average.

However "put my headphones on and drink coffee and write code" sounds bad to me, imo the most important task in software development is communicating with the rest of the team / client etc. Like...
1. Interrogating proposed features / contraints and making them less dumb
2. Deciding why are we even building this feature, what its purpose?
3. Continuously talking with all other devs so ye all know what you are doing and why, so someone doesnt spend weeks doing the wrong thing or simply making a mess.
4. Continuously talking with all other devs so the codebase has some kind of order to it, in order to stop it from turning into a big pile of dogshit for as long as possible.


Meerkat - 2022-07-15

My code was usually pretty self-contained or well-defined. Like "implement the new tax rate calculations" or "implement this dialog" or "fix this device driver".

The last ten years of my career I spent working out of my basement reproducing bugs and fixing them. Occasionally I had to travel to a customer site to reproduce a problem and sometimes I would have to redirect what the customer thought they wanted into something that would actually work to solve their problem. That was pretty great until the company got bought up by a larger company and office politics started buzzing around. So I retired.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2022-07-15

@Meerket I guess at bigger companies it is like that? I have never worked at one as a programmer, only for small startups. Tho I did actually work at IBM for a bit as level 2 tech support for their Domino server. Where I would do the 'reproduce' part of your job but then other people would fix it.

That server is ancient and a total rats nest of shit, also IBM had loads of custom software needed to do this specific job. I felt the entire time like I had no fucking what I was doing or how anything worked, but when I quit my boss was saying he loved me and had me fasttracked for promotion lol (I just had to work in some sort of tech company for X months as work experience in order to get my diploma, and IBM was what I found on short notice)


Anaxagoras - 2022-07-15

No, at bigger companies programmers usually have to communicate even *more* than at small companies.. Not only are you usually part of a team, but many devs also have to coordinate with all kinds of non-technical people (marketers, lawyers, etc.) depending on the particular position.

YMMV, of course, I'm sure there were positions at the big companies where I worked that kinda matched Meerkat's job description too.


Meerkat - 2022-07-16

@Mr. Purple Cat No it was more what I was good at and the sector I worked in (rugged mobile devices and hand-held scanners). I worked on low-level machine control and device drivers and operating system code.

I only ever worked on the applications side for one small startup so there wasn't really any big company structure in place. I resigned from that one due to office politics.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-15

I thought I hated my job, but it turned out I just hated working for a monster.

At this place a supervisor can't fire you just because they don't like you, they have to have a valid reason. Lots of people there knew I worked hard and did my job well. When the monster failed to paint me as a bad worker, they heaped all the heavy physical labor on me while everyone else got nice cushy desk jobs. They made me work in the heat and cold and kept increasing the workload, hoping I would get miserable enough to quit.

The sad truth is I not only applied for positions in other departments, I applied at other companies, but nobody wanted me.

Eventually, the monster started trying to provoke me into having emotional outbursts. The second-quickest way to get fired at this place is to make someone feel physically threatened. I slipped up a few times and they tried to report me, but there were always witnesses. The monster tried to say they felt "unsafe" around me, but they were always asking to meet with me alone.

I ALWAYS insisted a third party be present.

Eventually, I developed a physical disability and the monster used it as an excuse to push me out of the department. They made me a cashier, the only job I could sit down to do. It was 2 years of Hell.

But then the monster was gone. The higher-ups wouldn't say why, just that they were gone and would not be back, a strong indicator that they were fired. The quickest way to get fired here is waste, fraud & abuse. It's usually what it takes to bring down a a manager or supervisor, but again, we can only speculate.

A new supervisor was put over the department and immediately wanted me brought back into it for my creativity and experience from 15 years working that job. They gave me one of the desk jobs and that's how it is today.

Things are much better.


Anaxagoras - 2022-07-15

Why'd the asshole want to get rid of you??


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-16

They just didn't like me.

And in most other companies, they would have been able to fire me without cause.


Meerkat - 2022-07-16

I had one team leader in my early career that hated me so much he worked to sabotage the stuff I was working on. Wouldn't give me access to the source code I thought had the bug in it, wouldn't let me apply fixes to the compiler that could potentially address the issue (because it "could cause other problems").

Had me in a meeting with management to blame me for not finding the problem. I defended myself but it didn't matter, he was just really focused on getting me off the project. By that time I was already interviewing for other jobs because I saw the writing on the wall pretty early on.

Anyway later I heard that the bug ended up being in the source code I thought it was in. The project had failed and the company went out of business. So that was fun.

(another fun fact: another company took over the project and finished it and sometime later ended up hiring me coincidentally)


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-16

We always teach kids that if they work hard and do their job well, they'll get ahead at work.

They never teach you someone with authority might just dislike you and there may be nothing you can do about it.


SolRo - 2022-07-17

“America is a meritocracy!”

But also cronyism and nepotism is everywhere.


The Mothership - 2022-07-17

I manage the international student exchange program at a major university. I love it and i have excellent work / life balance. It pays fuck all and with the rent continually being raised i will have to change jobs or move my family of 4 into a smaller apartment.


Binro the Heretic - 2022-07-17

Fuck all the landlords and realtors.

May they all rot in Hell.


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