A misleadingly ambiguous thread title for a thread that's about me. Unless of course, any of the following strikes a chord with you too, in which case - jump on board There’s been some ongoing personal issues that I have in relation to the world of work and careers. Given that the Bit-tech boards host a veritable kaleidoscope of beings with diverse opinions (outstandingly well-reasoned a reassuringly high proportion of the time) but often shared interests I thought it might be worthwhile if I were to put the following on here and invite comment in case there’s others like me who have experienced similar. I am male and 31 years old. I am not, and never really have been, a work-oriented or career person. I don’t think I’m lazy, I have just found it hard to find paying occupations that sustain my motivation. I have a reasonably strong education background and obtained a 2:1 BSc easily at a popular university. Whenever I start a job I tend to make a really good impression for the first 6-12 months before getting disillusioned by the amount of stuff I have to subject myself to that, for brevity purposes, I will term ‘soul destroying’. As a result my attitude to the work degrades and any professionalism I may have had tends to walk out of the door, never to return. Whenever I get to the point where I decide I should try and address the issue by becoming more professional and more professionally effective (e.g. at networking and ‘championing success’ (i.e. bullshitting til I’m sick) I keep coming back to the same problem: all of the things the books etc. tell me I need to be do not marry up with how I am and, were I to commit to trying to become them, would probably break me irreversibly. I have trouble visualising myself as the type of person that 'gets on' in the world of work. Am I destined for life as a drifter, posting bloated messages on internet forums when I should be working, and I just need to accept it, or is there another way?
Dear God man..... I feel the same, but only in a job that doesn't interest me any more. If its a job that challenges me and I enjoy, then its a different story.
Have you ever started your own company? I always had great difficulty working for other people as I would find my superior's mistakes so frustrating that I would always end up undermining their authority after about 12 months. Then I decided to try working for myself and I haven't looked back. Work then truly is what you make of it.
I have been doing the exact same thing since 2000. I get bored after six months regardless on how well I am doing. I have been working for a retail bank for the last two years now and have moved up the ladder into different roles every six to ten months. I also have a career plan for the next three years. All because it is a large organisation with many different roles and products I can side-step to should I make the cut. It has worked out very well for me. A colleague of mine had the same issue yet did something different. He worked as a project manager where he would get contract work for six months to a year as a subcontractor to turn a business around, hire and fire and gain new clients. He has now been working for one of these companies that originally hired him for six months for the past five years and he loves it. Don't rule out temporary or fixed term contract work. Having an end date pushes you to excel while you're there and allows you to either re-sign at the end of e term or drives you to find something different. You're CV will look a bit pony unless you position it in a way that shows off skills learned and applied. I originally trained in art and graphic design and, whilst I regret not following it through, I'm not sure I would still garner enjoyment out of it if I was working in that industry. I recently spoke to an Apple employee who works with the product all day and loved it when first starting but now, when he gets home, he doesn't use any Apple products because he gets drained from it during the day! Good luck and I hope you find something you enjoy (for six months) in the not too distant future!
You write clearly and coherently and have the ability to turn a phrase - ever considered trying to make some money out of it? It's how the Bit Tech staff all earn their bread now... And I feel the same way.
Of course there is another way - Nexxo posts bloated messages on internet forums but he's (afaik) a successful and competent psychologist. I think the situation you describe is very common, and you'll probably find that many guys in your age bracket (myself included) are in a similar situation. I worked as a professional drummer and drum tutor for 7 years and eventually grew very weary of it; following in julianmartin's footsteps I started my own photography business two years ago, but I'm already losing faith in it and have been taking pretty big steps back to a life of music making and teaching... as much as I love photography, it stresses me out more than makes me happy. I would rather make less money doing something I love. IMO that's the crux of the matter: you need to find work doing something you love, and you need to be careful not to overdo it. One of my friends is a manager at a pharmacy and about a year ago he changed his job from "hectic" Boots to "chilled" Lloyds; he told me his life has never been better, even though he's doing exactly the same job... just at a slower pace and with less overtime. Unfortunately it's not quite so simple for most of us to simply choose what work we get, but the moral of the story is the same: do something you love, and if it starts to leech the lifeblood from your veins, it's time to make a change.
You're not alone Porkins' wingman. I find myself getting bored of wherever I am within about a year. I've never been a 'settle down' kind of person and the idea of just working constantly for the next 40 odd years of my life just to pay bills scares the hell out of me, seems a bit pointless. I just look for something else, somewhere else when I get bored. Luckily my work is pretty transferrable and offers a little bit of variety, but I just cant stay in the same workplace for very long. I'm driven by learning mostly. When the job i'm doing becomes simple and I understand it all 100% then I know it's time to leave and do something newer or bigger
For some reason, I am all about work. I always have been, even when I was at uni I was all about having a job and excelling at that - which is why, I have unbroken work history back to the day I turned 16 and was legally allowed to work, with only a bought of 2 months unemployment when I was in my second year of uni, thats it in 10 years. But, I will do anything for work - like if I move house to a new town/city, I will always pick up some shitty job in the first week of being there, like telesales or general call centre work, just to keep money coming in, and to keep my employment history consistent - and once you have a job it's much easier to find another. I have also now landed myself in a job that I literally love to pieces - so for the first time ever really in my professional life I am getting a whole load of personal gratification and enjoyment from doing what I am doing. I was adopted when I was a kid by a great family, my dad is quite well off, lives in a lovely house, looks after my mum, she doesnt have to work. My dad also works really really hard, hardest working person I know - so I think this rubbed off on me. But I pretty much idolise him for everything he has got and what he has achieved, and I would quite like to at least achieve nearly as much, if nothing more so that if I ever have kids, maybe one day one of my kids will feel the same kind of admiration and respect for me that I feel for him. Also money is a huge motivation for me - in that, I want alot of it.
As said, you are not alone sir. I'm currently contemplating a job switch which will lose me many tens of thousands of Great British Pounds p/a, purely to not be in the role I am now... and it's not a bad or hard role... and I am really money orientated/motivated. Doing a particular job too long for me, leads to complete brain atrophy. Currently I'm unable to do even basic sums i.e. I can't recall for the life of me how to do "long division", let alone comparatively advanced math function that was trivial for me some years ago. I love my lifestyle and status... and yet they're not enough to keep me from slacking-off at work - being on commission, this is already a worry - I'm barely making bills currently because i'm not pushing myself anymore. I'm still young, but I could certainly see myself in your shoes 7 years from now. I fear I'm on a dangerous road...
Actually, no. I could give you my job title but you'd be none the wiser - Essentially, the main portion of my current job boils down to dealing reinsurance. It still falls under risk management, but is quite a departure from what my username suggests - which by the way is something I really must look into getting changed - people sure do treat me like a douche at times.
Hi, I recognise the feeling of getting tired (even depressed) with a job after a while. At my first job, I was sick of it after about one year. I then searched for new challenges within the job and started improving there methods and there software. But I soon had the biggest problems adressed and started feeling bored again. I then asked my boss for a different, more challenging, position. I got offered a position in a different deparment, same 'level', but a much more complex job all toghether. I loved it for the first few months and learned as much as I possibly could. But.. after about 15 months I got the hang of most of it and started impoving again.. A few months after that I went to my boss again with the same question. He then asked me if I wasn't interested in running that deparment, instead of a different job. I was the youngest employee working there at the time and was a bit shocked by this pretty big promotion. He sed he would coach me to run the deparment and I accepted. I loved it, not only was I in a better position to improve the way the deparment worked, I also had a budget to get things changing quicker and the support of our IT deparment. Things couldn't get better. About two years in the job, I was in the same position again.. I improved the overall performance of my deparment (in a bad economy) but I was starting to get bored with it.. Since that company wasn't too big, they didn't have much more options available for me to grow with them, they did give me a nice raise to keep me, but that wasn't really my concern. So I started looking for other jobs.. I took me about 6 months, but I finally found a company that made a perfect match for me and they offered to create a position for me. I accepted and never looked back.. I'm now project manager for internal strategic projects. Basically I have about 2-4 projects running at the same time.. each projects means I get to focus and learn everything about a certain product, deparment or a specific problem and then find a way to improve or fix it. Each project runs anywhere between 2 months and 1 year. We have a much bigger company with a much more complex production and are the innovator of our product and leader in the market. So everything is always new, so I get to learn and master new stuff every few months.My company is doing very well, so it is growing and starting new productions at about the same rate as I get bored of them So, I'm quite happy and it turned into somewhat of a carriere, although that never really was my intention.. I just needed challenges. I know this might not help you much, but just perhaps, you are the kind of person that needs new challenges often? good luck
I think that's a somewhat common feeling. It might just be that you haven't found the 'right' job or career for yourself yet. What do you feel passionate about? If you think "Uhm..." to that (as the majority of people probably do ), then try and think about the last time you were really excited/motivated about something. And the time before that. And the time before that. Is there a pattern? As in, something which you seem to get motivated/excited about over and over? If so, this could be a passion of yours. Can you get a 'career' (aka working for someone else) in whatever this is? If not, is self employment an option? You sound like you're more independent that the average person (reading what sound like self development books etc), so self employment could be an option?
I've been tempted to post something based on this issue for quite some time, but had been putting it off, so I'm most pleased to see it's got a sympathetic response so far. Thanks. No. And I've never had any business influences in my life so everything would be from scratch. I don't have a problem doing that but I need faith that any idea I have is worth investing the time in. I had an idea that was web/photo/graphics/video/pc based a couple of years ago but for various reasons have never got it as far as putting it to the test - ultimately lack of skills is the biggest factor I haven't pursued that more doggedly, plus every time I mentioned it to others the first comment was, "Everyone's doing that nowadays". I definitely see the sense in this and will be on the lookout for such opportunities, although I do lack project management experience so it's a case of finding someone to put faith in me ahead of others with experience. Plus I hate commuting so I do limit myself by only searching for stuff within a certain radius of my home in sleepy Suffolk. ...Yes, but I have no portfolio of any kind to promote myself with and therefore don't have the foggiest how to make it pay sufficiently from an early stage. I do have a couple of ideas I'd like to develop into books but making that work financially seems a complete lottery. No arguments here, but the way my personal philosophy has evolved over the last 15 years leaves me at a stage where I really don't know what I truly enjoy without it having been affected by some element of cynicism or disillusionment. Pretty opposite to me. I've got no complaints about my parents but one thing I never had was any understanding or involvement with what my Dad did. Also, I'm not money oriented in terms of having spending moola - all I'm after is enough to cover the bills and a feeling that my long-term ability to keep earning is secure, whilst doing something that doesn't feel like I'm letting myself down by accepting a crap situation. Brain atrophy is a definite issue. Been too long working in law enforcement/regulation/public sector **** and feels like the sharpness my mind used to have has just been smothered by a great big blanket of ****. I've been slacking off for the last two years, increasingly so as time goes by, and no-one's picked me up on it yet (the fact that I do less work but the work I do do is generally still very good helps). Oh come on! Elaborate!
I know that feeling, hence my hesitancy in ever posting something like this. But clearly there are people around who know that that is only one, simplistic and negative, interpretation of the situation. Negative people would say it's whining, optimistic people see the potential to make things better. Come now, what is the thread title afterall... Edit: I've just seen I've got a PM.
In my short time as a worker before becoming a student I had 6 jobs in 3 years cause I got bored of everyone of them and the people I worked with very quickly. So after university I have decided to become a teacher and gaining experience before taking up my PGCE in different schools. From my small amount of experience I can honestly say I love it, the job never gets boring as the lessons are what you make of them and the people are easily excitable. Maybe you could gain the qualifications to become a teacher despite long hours, terrible pay and a pension scheme you get nothing out of at the end?
Good try, but I've already started a PGCE and bailed out cos it wasn't for me. Perhaps did it too soon after leaving the police cos I found that behaviour management was too much of telling people what to do, how to behave etc. - too many schools are set up to churn out a particular kind of person - the kids either get moulded into homogeneity or get shat on for not complying - didn't sit well with my developing philosophical outlook. I really need to do something where I'm not working for the state, cos me no likey the state.
