What do YOU do when you can't bear your job any more?

(Ah, sorry, Deb. I ask a question then go off bury myself in music for a few hours.)

Have read your post a couple of times. I don't have any advice (you really don't need it, anyway) but do have lots of sympathy.

I think you may be right about the "shelf life" of such a job. I mean it's not a good way to live, for years, is it? I'm not at all surprised you're tired & can't bear your job at the moment.



Awful position to be in: no matter how effective your work is, it's never enough. No matter how much you do, there's piles more to do. No matter what the demands of your clients are, you'll never have the resources to properly meet their needs & feel guilty because you can't ....
Realistically, how long can you see yourself existing like this? Just reading it makes me feel panicked.

But you can do something about the hormonal problems & I really hope you do.



You are being way too critical of yourself. Do you actually think it's possible for anyone to be a paragon of sanity & organized to the max, in a situation like this? Is there one person there who actually is?

I do think, though, that you're right to be thinking of possible alternative ways of living & working. Sooner or later a few which are palatable are likely to present themselves.

Good summary there, dlowan, thank you for 'splaining.
I do remember considering bagging groceries (and painting, writing, etc.) in my off time.

I don’t have all the answers that’s for sure, but you might try a little benign neglect. The concept helped me. For sure it took/takes practice, and you really have to be prepared to let go… and you have to be mindful that it doesn't turn into straight neglect, which would be catastrophic, but, it can be applied to just about everything... from being the guy who always cleans the coffee pot, or being the ‘go to’ guy, or having the best case notes...file reviews…ideas.

Benign neglect sounds like a very desirable state of mind. I need to try it more often myself.

I'm also addicted to having food and shelter.

msolga said:


I can't begin to tell you how closely I identify with this statement and it will probably shock you to learn that I work at one of those repetitive, supposedly brainless jobs that you all think would make a nice change from your demanding careers. I work in retail. I make less than $10/hour. I haul stock from the warehouse on carts (heavy stock -- pots and pans and glassware etc). I build sale displays -- loading up all the crap that didn't sell to return to the warehouse and be replaced with this week's attempt at parting leery consumers from their hard earned $. I carry a portable phone everywhere and answer it wherever and whenever. I do inventory on the fly because the owner's too cheap to bring in an outside inventory firm. Usually there is an envelope from the office with price changes, file corrections and discontinued stock info to deal with as well. There are returns to be re-shelved. I deal with demanding customers and an antiquated computer system that stills runs on DOS. I clean up spills and half-eaten food and ripped open merchandise and try to keep the china displays dusted. Post-Christmas with sales down I'm scheduled for 20 hours this week. Twenty hours to do the same amount of work, to be responsible for the same number of aisles and "dump bins" and impulse items. Sucks to be me.

It isn't the job -- it's the person and the attitude you bring to your job. For $10/hour most people think I should do as little as possible. I just don't work that way. I hate my job -- no really, I hate my job -- but having agreed to do it I'll give it my best shot. I do, however, practice "benign neglect" as Joeblow calls it. Not everything is my problem or responsibility and sometimes I have to shut my eyes to stuff in order to get my work done. (And to keep from enabling less productive colleagues...)

What do I do to keep from going nuts? I spend my lunch hour reading -- anything that takes me far far away from the world of retail. I sing really, really loud, angry songs in the car on my way home. I rant and rave to Mr Fix-it as we crash after dinner. (He protects himself by falling asleep in his chair.) Sometimes I have a beer. Once a year I take 4 months off and run away to the schoolhouse. But then, I have a quit-able job and not a career.

Deb, I don't know how you do what you do. I wish I had the magic answer for how to leave it all behind at the end of the day.

I'll tell you what I used to do. I used to fluff and buff the old resume (or C.V.)
and call some headhunters I knew. They set up interviews and I'd go see what
was out there. Sometime the old job was bad enough or the new one good
enough -- or both -- that I'd switch companies. Ah, those were the days!

But five or six years ago I got laid off and for four months I found nothing.
Recruiters who once called me now didn't return my calls. That kind of thing
can damage a boy's self-esteem, I tell ya. I finally found a job. Not as good a
job and for less pay, but a job.

I no longer go job hunting when this job starts getting to me. It's been way too
long since I used the skills which once made me valuable. I'm 64 and no one's
going to take on an old fart like me when they can get some hotshot kid.

Or you could come on A2K and twist every thread topic to suit your political agenda.

You must be a riot at parties.

BTW I didn't post my rant from a work computer. Just sayin'.

Excuse the intrusion, Tai Chi. Life really is tough for us westerners, isn't it?

JTT, I think it's entirely possible that dlowan would find 2 teaching jobs in Iraq easier to bear than the one she has. I don't know exactly what she does but I assume she deals with some of the worst possible human situations and it clearly takes a savage personal toll on her.

For you to come along and belittle her with your "plenty folks worse off" story is incredibly poor form.

You put me in mind of the coffee shop employees in the news this week who hounded a teenage co-worker to suicide by teasing her for not having managed it on the first attempt.

Ya think, eh Eorl.

"bad form"

You know, I think that dlowan just might be one of those who would.

Er....actually, most of the time I'm fine.

The endless pile of reports is what most of my colleagues deal with.

This is just one of those dips, and I guess I wanted to have a vent...plus being genuinely interested in how others deal with their slumps, and finding out about how often others GET them....(if they are lucky enough to be in jobs they usually like!)

All that is true, but people in better circumstances than that are still going to want to talk about THEIR woes from time to time.

You can simply ignore it if it upsets you that much ya know.

How much longer do you think you'll work for, George, and what's your field?

Thank heavens you DID get a job! I hope it's not way below your previous level?

I figure I'll work another ten years. Got some education loans to pay off.

I'm a "test engineer" right now. I used to be a software engineer.

Yeah, I echo that "Thank heavens"!

A former manager from my old company had moved on to The Widget Factory
before the layoff. When he heard I was laid off he got me an interview with
software. I wasn't quite to their taste. So he asked if I'd consider working
for his group, Integration & Test. I told him, "Neal, I've been out of work
four months. Hell, I'll paint the damn thing!"

We get paid for hours we work beyond 45 each week. So when things are
hopping, I don't do too badly.

You think you'll be able to work until 74?

I figure I'll NEED to, but I am not so sure about being ABLE to!!!

I get it now. It really seems to be more a question of how to deal with the dips, doesn't it? That's much more manageable.

I think, in my post, I might have been doing a bit of projecting. :



Those are pretty much the reasons why I resigned after years of full-time teaching. Too many years of feeling like this & not being able to find a workable solution.

Whoa! Yes...I can see why you would!! Resign, I mean.

You know, some of the less stressful things about the job I am in now, are that:

1. I am in such a specialist area, that, although it is sometimes very hard (that's how I lost control of the paperwork) I can generally respond quickly to the kids, parents and the systems surrounding them....whereas, in the last job, we had an eternal, crushing waiting list. Senior people only ever saw the urgentest of the urgentest, so I (and experienced colleagues) saw only the most difficult stuff...year after year after year...

Now I sometimes see functional families who have had a single trauma!

2. I don't have to be an expert in every goddam thing that afflicts kids!

3. A lot of the work is consultation and training,,,and sometimes people are actually GRATEFUL!!!


I think teachers get a really raw deal, with not very good or nice parents (and governments!) blaming you for every damn thing, and expecting you to fix every damn thing!


I really feel, in my current line of work, for the police and the front-line welfare folk.


They (police, especially), SEE the dead kids (we don't, often...they generally go to the coroner), the injured kids, the truly awful conditions in which kids have been living.

They have to pick up the pieces on the scene when, for example, a father has killed mum in front of the kids, and maybe himself, ...or tried to kill the kids, too...but maybe failed, with at least one.

I don't get a lot of that stuff, only when I am on duty....but my colleagues (often painfully young) are there for the medicals and do the interviews with the kids about what they have experienced.

I am pretty damn strong stomached, because I have seen so much for so long....but I have to say that seeing babies and little children covered with injuries, or neglected until they are terribly sick, is stomach churning. Especially when they have severe brain injuries, for instance, and will basically be near vegetables.

The poor police, for whom there is a horrid macho code where it's not ok to say how bad you feel, or ask for help, get dead eyes. Too bloody many of them kill themselves.

One of my friends is in major crime (includes murders) and has been for ages. He scares the **** out of me, he is clearly suffering from PTSD, but can't admit to it.

I think that sort of stress is pretty common to people-oriented jobs in the public service. Funding cutback after funding cutbacks ... but because you're dealing with the real needs & problems of people, you try & find ways of coping & doing what you feel needs to be done. Without nearly adequate time, resources & support to do it properly. Then (as with police & teachers) you also get constant flack from the public. And (if you're a teacher, especially) your employer, the government, blames your performance for the ills of the system. It's not very nice to be working your bum off & feel hated, too!