Do you genuinely enjoy your job?

[Dr. Pomade]

Today I'm a superstar and my hair is good so I love it.

 

I came here to post this.

 

In all seriousness, I very much enjoy what I do for a living.

[Dr. Pomade]

I like my profession (critical care RN); my job could be better.

 

Things I like:

-Troubleshooting and fixing problems. It's like being a mechanic, but waaay more complicated. The body is just a big, complex machine.

 

-Teaching people. This includes RNs that are new to critical care and the residents that cycle through our unit every month. Neither of them have any idea what they're doing, and I enjoy dropping some knowledge on them.

 

-The pace. I work 12+ hour shifts and most of the time, they fly by.

 

-Actually saving peoples lives (sometimes).

 

-I regularly see things most people could never even imagine.

 

Things I don't like:

-I regularly see things most people could never even imagine. There's A LOT of morbidity and mortality in our unit. We are the 4th busiest ICU and Trauma Center in the entire country. I've literally seen hundreds of people die, some quite spectacularly. This includes the 102yo woman whose heart is just plain worn out, to the 14yo kid who fell out of a 50ft tree and hit every branch on the way down. I've mostly gotten numb to it, which I'm unsure if that's a good or a bad thing. There are days where we will clean as much of the blood as we can off someone and then stuff them into a body bag, then turn to each other and say, "I'm thinking pizza for lunch; you guys want in?" It's not normal for most folks, but it is for us. We joke around a lot, most of which would probably be considered inappropriate, but, it helps.

 

-The pay is no where close to commensurate with the amount of work we do or the knowledge we carry around. Its annoying.

 

-Bureaucracy. Hospitals are giant businesses, but they're rather you not know that. I spend my entire day trying to provide the best care that I can for a person, and they spend their entire day counting beans and making my job extremely difficult. Do more with less should be their motto.

 

-Electronic Medical Records. Endless computerized charting. It's become so ungodly complicated to do the simplest of tasks because of the fucking IT side of things. I understand its supposed to make things coalesce more, but it slows my job down soooo much. I have to click on no-less-than 5-6 different warning boxes to administer a single medication. I'm sure you guys have seen the news about the shit that's going on right now with Mt. Carmel? This crap is a huge reason why. It's alarm fatigue, but on a computer. Give me back the days of tri-fold paper charting (never gonna happen...).

 

-The patients and their families (sometimes). A good chunk of them make it to our unit because of something stupid they've done. I do my absolute best to fix them all just the same. I do not discriminate nor will I ever. I will do my best to fix the rapist that got tossed over the balcony in jail just the same as I would try to fix Mother Teresa if she came in (and was actually still alive). But, the patients often make my life a royal pain in the ass, and families can be even worse. I can't tell you how often I get attitude from a family member like it's somehow my fault their loved one ended up here. Its a vent for them, so I generally allow it. But, people are mostly stupid.

 

-Monday morning quarterbacks. Its so ridiculously easy to make a mistake in this profession. Your mistakes cost your company money, my mistakes costs somebody their life. That being said, people love to question you after the fact about why you did or didn't do something a certain way. I personally, don't think I've made any huge errors in caring for people, but I've certainly made my share of mistakes over the years.

 

 

Overall, I do like my job. I make decent money, though I'd always like to make more. I will always have a job (unless I screw up). Its exciting and I thrive on that aspect. If I had to do it all over again, I'm not sure I would go down this same path. But, I also don't have any idea what I would do instead.

 

Great post. Anyone considering a career as a critical care RN should read this for the informational value/advice. Thanks for sharing. Totally get it.

[Tractor]

I really enjoy what I do as well. I do technology field service (basically an IT handyman) and what that means is thousands of national companies have electronics that need a guy with some knowledge and tools to go to sites and fix things to keep stores and offices running. My job never gets boring as some days I'm fixing a TV, running some data cables, or configuring some cool server or network equipment all in the same day.

 

The best part is I am my own boss and take jobs as I can. I'm one year into my own small company and I have tons of room to expand.

[SPL_Josh]

Yes. Love the flexibility and making my own hours. Pay is less this year being home vs on the road but still decent. And take pride in seeing a finished job.

[mmrmnhrm]

Waiting to see what Andy says ('cause I recruited him ) But yer... it so totally depends on the day, what I'm up to, what my managers are up to.... that sort of thing, which I suppose is really true no matter what your job. Three projects currently on my plate...

 

- Major update to our DCIM package... lots of awesome new features that'll make a lot of people's lives better, but with organic growth and standards changing over the past 10 years, it's not uncommon for as much as half our gear to not transfer on the first (entirely script-driven) pass, which requires the vendor and I to identify what's missing and then repair. The work is tedious (tons of mouse clicking followed by partial string search-and-replace), but the guys are already loving it at the two sites where it's complete.

 

- Security overhaul... This sucks. Anybody who has worked IT knows what a nightmare security can be, especially when people have the best of intentions but don't fully understand the ramifications of what they're proposing (or, in some cases, have already done and I'm just now finding out). When you add in the fact that network security in the industrial sector has always been an afterthought (if it was ever spared a brain cell to begin with!!), industrial best practice grinds so horribly against the majority of IT best practice, that you just want to go back to the caveman era.

 

- Total replacement of our wireless sensor network... Now this is fun I'm testing prototypes of an as-yet unannounced product that is a serious contender to replace all the little environmental sensors attached to our racks. The current product is EOL, and the incumbent's replacement is a "known" value. Question is, can this new thing be ready for deployment in a time-frame acceptable to management? The hardware's definitely ready (and definitely better than the incumbent's), now it's just a question of software.

[TurboRust]

I dont miss the automotive world, and i dont miss having a boss. In the first year of owning my own business and going at everything as hard in the mothafucking paint as possible. Its alot of work especially because i do 90% of it myself. Working 17/20 events per month means i'm putting in roughly 136/160 hrs a month / 30 days i guess i'm "working" 6 hours a day not counting all the grocery runs and whatnot. i'm keeping busy and paying the bills and that was the deciding factor on whether this continued or stopped after 6 months. I'm trying to get my meat in as many people's mouths as possible and just make people realize how good fresh bbq really is.

[Otis Nice]

I'm trying to get my meat in as many people's mouths as possible and just make people realize how good fresh bbq really is.

 

Plot twist: Derek's new job is as a stripper named, "Fresh BBQ".

[Not Brian]

Everybody loved your meetz Derek. Glad I tried your chicken wings, they were phenomenal.. definitely in the top 3 I've ever had.

[unfunnyryan]

my job doesnt make me hate myself so thats okay

[cruizin01]

You should always be pushing for the next step. My personal issue with that is there is not really a next step without dramatically changing what I do on a daily basis. I'm a GM World Class Technician, what that means is that there is nothing higher to achieve while still turning wrenches. While I may find some minor amount of money doing the same thing somewhere else, I'm pretty much at the top of working on cars. Techs don't typically move into service advising unless they suck at being a tech, and I don't know that any service managers came from being a tech unless they are a service advisor first. Besides I don't really want to deal directly with customers on a regular basis, which also pretty much kills opening my own business too. I guess as much as I like to keep working upward, unless I take some dramatic steps, I'm not going to do that anymore.

 

I absolutely agree with you. You and I aren't that much different. Ive maxed out what I can do without completely changing what I do aside from being a manager which doesn't appeal to what I enjoy doing. And I think I would still make less money. If I could push for moving up the ladder that would make perfect sense. But as you know in the automotive world, the ladder goes mostly sideways at a certain point.

[coltboostin]

I enjoy my work. I enjoy helping people finance their dreams, even when its a challenging scenario.

 

Even better when I can get them free money from the bank (we have a LOT of no strings attached grant programs). That has been a real pleasure as of late.

[cstmg8]

It's great to hear that so many people on CR enjoy their work, or at least aren't made miserable by it, lol. It's awesome to be able to provide for your family by doing something that gives you enjoyment/fulfilment.

On the other side of this, it drives me nuts to listen to people who are hard up, or in need of employment complain about a job that isn't "fun". There's a fine line between doing something that makes you happy and doing something necessary to put food on the table.

Hopefully all on CR can get to a place of fulfiling employment.

 

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[Richard Cranium]

Yep, I absolutely love it. Being a teacher, you just have to be born for it.

 

I actually look forward to it.

 

Nope. IT work honestly benefits nobody and there are no tangible results from my work because it all just ends up breaking again eventually. So the sense of accomplishment that I feed off of when I'm doing woodworking or anything else really, just isn't there with my regular job.

 

Being an IT teacher is the best of both worlds for me. I love teaching, it's honestly the most rewarding thing I've done. Coming from the world of IT, I did get a sense of accomplishment when I helped someone fix a problem that was keeping them from doing their job.

 

Teaching an IT program is a natural fit for me. I get to teach, but I don't constantly have to teach the same thing year after year. We're always trying to keep the program up to date and as cutting edge as is practical. That's a lot of work for me learning new technologies as well as teaching, but I guess that comes with the job.

 

The acid test for me is the old question "If you hit the lottery and didn't need money any more would you quit your job". I'm happy to say that I would not. I'd probably quit doing paperwork though. The classroom would be a hell of a lot nicer.

[RC K9]

Love it. Pay is great, benefits are absolutely ridiculous, and I get to do/see different things all of the time. I think that's the thing that has kept all of my major employment endeavors interesting, I couldn't stand to do the same thing every day.

I like modding elevators because I get to see the old equipment and buildings, but also install every aspect of the new ones. If I were in new construction I'd probably like it a bit less.

I also enjoy that there aren't that many of us, and that 90% of the population has no idea what an elevator mechanic does.

 

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Ensuring we don't all die would be my guess.

[RC K9]

I enjoy my work. I enjoy helping people finance their dreams, even when its a challenging scenario.

 

Even better when I can get them free money from the bank (we have a LOT of no strings attached grant programs). That has been a real pleasure as of late.

 

How do I get the free moniez?

[Trouble Maker]

How do I get the free moniez?

 

[Orion]

Nope. Not even a little bit.

[2highpsi]

I definitely enjoy what I do and probably even would go as far as to say I "love it" on most occasions. I mean the bulk of the "work" boils down to talking to/hanging out with people and hunting deals on vehicles. Even the crappiest parts of the job (accounting, dealing with compliance, managing employees) really make me feel good once I accomplish the task at hand. Monetarily it more than provides for the family, and offers some sort of flexibility so I don't miss the entirety of my children's youth. (Although to get to this point I feel like I previously traded A LOT of hours and did miss some things)

 

I think in any job there are moments of frustration to where anyone would temporarily think the grass might be greener on the other side. I don't often think that anymore. The only times I REALLY question whether or not I should be doing something else is when I consider the sum of my labor's contribution to society as a whole. In that matter, my impact seems minimal and I feel like I could do something "bigger".

[oh8sti]

Love my work.

No boss

Sky is the limit

I’m “on” 24h a day, but if I manage my time correctly it’s very flexible

[Darkside]

I used to love my job. After nearly 25 years I would say that I now tolerate it. Law enforcement has changed dramatically in my days, and really went down hill with the Obama administration (not looking to get into the political aspect). The best parts of the job come along with the worst parts with it. Helping families get closure is rewarding but dealing with middle of the night calls to violent crime scenes takes it toll.

 

My city pays well, gives great benefits, and the security of a pension is nice. I don't think I would do it again in today's climate if I started over. I think the worst part personally is that the job will change you as a person. I'm a much different person than I was twenty years ago.

[Limitedslip7]

I'm a robotics engineer/integrator. I don't mind the job most of the time when I'm actually designing or programming. Dealing with management, procuring funding, etc really sucks.

 

I do some side work that I find much more enjoyable. I think I really just like working for myself...

[kirks5oh]

I love what I do. Been doing hip and knee replacements for over 10 years. The pay is still very good for what I do (not so much for other docs), and the patients love the end result. Only things I don’t like are electronic medical records, all the paperwork, and tax time

[cstmg8]

I used to love my job. After nearly 25 years I would say that I now tolerate it. Law enforcement has changed dramatically in my days, and really went down hill with the Obama administration (not looking to get into the political aspect). The best parts of the job come along with the worst parts with it. Helping families get closure is rewarding but dealing with middle of the night calls to violent crime scenes takes it toll.

 

My city pays well, gives great benefits, and the security of a pension is nice. I don't think I would do it again in today's climate if I started over. I think the worst part personally is that the job will change you as a person. I'm a much different person than I was twenty years ago.

Interesting to hear, and completely understood. It's unfortunate that the current climate has caused even good officers to question their career choice. I have the utmost respect for those who chose law enforcement and thank you for your service.

On a side note, ready to sell me that Holden.......

 

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[Rocky31186]

I love my job. I work on all sorts of heavy equipment, fabricate parts / tools or just about anything, people rely on me.

 

The only downside is some of the assholes I work with.

 

I also got employee of the year in December which shows my motivation to be better every day.

[10phone2]

I love my job. I work on all sorts of heavy equipment, fabricate parts / tools or just about anything, people rely on me.

 

The only downside is some of the assholes I work with.

 

I also got employee of the year in December which shows my motivation to be better every day.

 

please don't change with wanting to be better every day. The struggles I see with even successful people at work that are okay doing what they always have and the problems they create for their own personal life with complacency.

 

Darkside, thank you for your service