Burying children.

*hugs ColdChef*

I am sure that your efforts make a hard time easier for parents, ColdChef.

Respect.

I like my job, but I can relate to CC...helping a grieving person choose flowers is not a Happy Thing. And we have had to do flowers for babies' funerals...I don't envy ColdChef's job one bit.

But back to petty annoyances...I don't like the fact my schedule is so irregular (because one of the other employees has to work around her other job and her other job is a PITA.)

(HOpe your stuff gets sorted, btgog...I would NOT like to do event planning AT all.)

dont worry, that anonymous thread is not me! I gave advice in it though. I have put my foot down and told various bosses I wont do event planning unless absolutely necessary and they listened LOL

I hate that me and so many other people I know got their asses handed to them on a platter because some asshat on Wall Street got his greed on.

Be thankful you even have a job right now.

harsh? you bet. I'm pissed.

I am SO grateful I have a job and I think you're ossem LT and would be totally happy to help in your job search and also send general waves of hope to you and all the other job searching bunnies.

Yea, happy to have a job even if I don't like it a whole lot. There's actually not a whole lot that I like about my job except that every other Thursday, they put money in my bank account. That part, I like very much.

I'm right with you, LT, but way more than just Wall St. got its greed on, and Wall St. started getting its ass plattered before anyone. I think it starts when we raise the threshold for how much greed is acceptable, or even when we start to consider any amount of greed good. Because there are plenty of good people out there who fundamentally want to be better than the rest; if greed is good, then for some greedier is better.

I came to New York steeped in Gandhi and though I spent the last five years losing and chasing his equanimity, I've retained his advice that we're all just elements of systems -- the feeling of being a helpless cog simultaneously plagued and sustained me during my years in derivatives and risk capital -- and since I tend to see structures within structures, I have trouble blaming the asshat.

In fact, I'd like to see the whole edifice come down. I think greed's the been the mode since I was about ten, and I hope globalization hasn't simply spread its toxin worldwide. Boom boom; out go the lights.

Event planning/organization sucks, indeed. Not having a job of any kind would suck far, far more, I know.

The thing that is most painful about my job right now... I do academic advising in a smallish liberal arts college, and we are currently SWAMPED with people coming back to school because they've been laid off, or fear they might and are trying to bolster their credentials, plus a lot of students who normally would be graduating this year are choosing to stay on and take another year of classes rather than throw themselves out into the job market. And the most painful thing, and the one I hate most, is telling students we have no space for them, literally, anywhere, in any of our classes, we are full up, no can do, no room at the inn. Especially when these are people who, upon receiving their "Congrats, you're admitted!" letter, left wherever they were living and moved here and are now *depending* on their financial aid to pay rent and buy food--financial aid they will only get if they are actually enrolled full time and oh, did I mention, we have NO SEATS LEFT FOR ANYONE.

Oh, and also, while I'm kvetching -- I've gotten my spiel about "The value of a broad-based liberal arts education" well-polished over the years, but you know, it's one thing to deliver it to a bored 21-year-old who has options and time to explore them. It's another thing altogether to try to sell that same concept to a 45-year-old lumbermill worker who's just been laid off and is full of rage and terror and with no idea of how he's going to feed his family, who just wants a credential that will get him a job again, and whom I'm trying to sell on the value of studying, oh, philosophy and art history and cultural studies. And who, while I'm blithering on about the importance of broad transferrable skills like critical thinking and writing, is fixing me with the steely glare of "shit, you get PAID to do this??"

I think there are way too many laid-off folk here right now for job-hating to be enjoyable reading, for me. I still haven't paid my rent for March! But I will see myself out and let y'all get on with it. (I don't resent you. I'm just sayin'.)

Thirding that it's not a fun topic at the moment. There are things I really dislike about my job but I'm still working hard to get the grant funds to extend it, because I depend on it for health care and income as well as career development. It's not ideal but it's better than no work.

I dislike that I work in an industry that was part of being patient zero for this mess but thankful that I still have one.

I like my job. For a job, it is pretty good and pays well, too. I like the people I work with, I enjoy the kind of work I do.

It's just not my passion. It's what I do and have done for a long time and I'm pretty good at it. In fact, I wish it were my passion. That would make my life easy.

But I have something else that fires me up and I don't make any money at it. One day, maybe, but also maybe not. On a certain level that doesn't matter. For now, at least, my work pays for my passion.

Sorry guys who don't have jobs, i feel really bad about posting it and probably shouldn't make any comnplaints about my job until the crisis is over.

I'd like to reiterate my offer of help to anyone who doesn't have a job.

It is probably a bit jarring for this to be on the front page so if taz wants to delete this that is fine by me..

As penance, you must repeat Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing 3 times.

You know, no reason ot harsh on btgog's thread here. We are all grateful to be working (those of us bunnies who are employed) but every job has its pet peevy aspects that could be shared with good humor. I mean, Dilbert is popular for a reason!

And btgog would like some commisseration and laughs, I think. Is it too much to ask?

I just found foung Angrydesigner who all caps RANTS about things that bug designers which is sometimes funny. What I hate about my job is that I can not plan anything ever. I just got nagged by my daughters preschool about when we'll take a vacation this summer. Truth is, as a freelancer I don't frickin' know until I notice a no-job spot of two weeks and take off. It doesn't combine well with kids.

The fuckwittery Dilbert-esque management is the worst thing about my job. I enjoy the casework very much. Oh, and the money sucks, but that's a given in the public sector.

Hectoring was not my intent, and I'm sorry if I came off as harshing anyone's thread here.

I love being unemployed. The pay sucks, though.

I'm with essexjan - I love the work that I do, and I think I do a pretty damn good job, but I'm sick and tired of management pissing all over my engineering decisions without at least asking for my input. I understand that they're busy and don't have time to explore all the options - that's why they hired me, right? Apparantly not.

Also, the artifical barriers that make up our "quality system." Like, creating detailed drawings of the whole system with a finished parts list and a Production Cover Sheet before you can order a washer. Changed your mind about the style of washer? Oops, now you need to submit a Change Order approved by the President of the United States.

"you need to submit a Change Order approved by the President"

A good QA consultant should be able to clean up that kind of mess. One of my best jobs was straightening out the approval procedures for architectural changes at a nuclear weapons facility. By the time our team arrived, the federal bureaucracy had run rampant for almost 4 decades. The existing procedures were so conflicted that the contractor was committing at least 40 felonies a day. They had no choice. We went in, made a few changes to the way things were actually getting done, threw out the Dept. of Energy's refuse, and rewrote the entire book. In 4 months! When we were done, the contractor's architects threw us a huge pizza and beer party. I was thanked and had my hand shaken more that evening than any other time in my life. Some of those guys were on the verge of tears.

The worst (and best) part of that job was constantly telling the feds (DOE pukes) to fuck off. Of course, my very next job was working for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission where I immediately went to work trying to rewrite their lab procedures and often hitting a brick wall. "... but you disposed of that instrument 3 years ago and the manufacturer went out of business!"

I liked or at least tolerated* every job I had. The problems were always with management, co-workers and customers.

*The only one I was close to disliking was a data entry job for Culligan (through a temp agency). It was the same bits of info over and over and over and over and over again. It was so bad I'd start to doze off while entering the data.

Everybody has to deal with office politics. My office politics sometimes include real, actual politicians. That's the part I hate--let us IT folks sit down here in the basement and grind out data, and I'll be happy.

I hate when my boss takes things out on me. Since I'm the only employee, I'm frequently the target when something goes badly at home, or when he's stressed about something. Which seems to be more frequent now. Sigh.

I love the work I do and the responsibilities related to my daily tasks. I just wish it was less damaging to my psyche.

kat allison: if it's any consolation to the people listening to your spiel, technical degrees really aren't getting anyone anywhere either right now. Maybe nursing...? But I know of lots of out-of-work electricians, contractors, diesel mechanics, etc. It's the ripple effect of the economy. If there are jobs for liberal-arts types, there are jobs for technical-arts types, and vice versa. If there are not enough jobs, there are not enough in most sectors.

I think that's the weirdest thing about this recession which is different from the other ones I've experienced as an adult - it's not really confined to one sector. I can remember times when there were widespread job losses in specific sectors - real estate, savings-and-loans, stock firms, silicon valley/ dot.com boom, journalism, etc. But this is my first one which really has just torn apart the web of interdependency we all live upon.