Henry wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Ha, Are you one of the engineers here?

I was. Still on camp, but now I investigate the problems the engineers can't fix and write procedures for them. Oddly, I'm now doing a similar thing with rules for a job that I do for Guildball as a hobby. If someone had told me as a kid that having a knack for memorising obscure rules, being able to apply them and being able to create improvements was a way of making a reasonable living, I'd never have believed them.

 Ribon Fox wrote:
Retail for 20 years... I hate evey, single, day. Contemplated killing my self just so I can get a day off then remember I still have things to build and paint so I don't.

 Da Boss wrote:
Hmmm. I am a teacher, I teach science (Physics, chemistry and Biology) to kids aged 11 to 18.
It is a challenging job, but can be very rewarding, and it has excellent holidays where I get a lot of hobby stuff done.
I really enjoy planning lessons, and the part where I am actually teaching the children. That is by far my favourite part. I love my subjects and enjoy getting to explain them. I am fething excellent at this part by most accounts these days, though I did not start out great but I have been at it fifteen years.

But the job was wearing me down. Most people would expect that teaching is mostly what I have described above, but that is only part of the job. Of course, there is marking to be done, and some of that can be quite onerous. But that is par for the course. Every job has parts that are unpleasant but required. Marking is important and it helps me do the rest of my job better

What gets me down is the constant organisational changes for no reason. I am constantly being asked to build and rebuild curriculum to various different specifications and educational trends. In fifteen years, I have written at least two entire curricula per year every year. I often have to transfer curricula between online platforms and so on so my managers can pretend they follow up on it. Most of the stuff they make me do they then make me throw out the following year when some new trend comes along. The other plague is whole school initiatives. To get a promotion, each manager must oversee a whole school initiative. So every year we have a least four or five initiatives in play simultaneously from the various ambitious managers. Usually, they hang around for two years, implement their stupid initiatives, and then leave to a position managing somewhere else. Then the new person comes in, scraps all the old initiatives, and implements their own. This cycle repeats every 2 years at most, so I have been through it more times than I can count now. I even was one of those people for a while It is utterly demoralising and exhausting. Because overseeing an initiative apparently just means assigning a bunch of work to staff with no oversight on the workload. Because of this, I used to[b] regularly work 60+ hours a week and sometimes have to work 70[b]-75 hours. Remember this is while classroom teaching, a job that requires you to be fully mentally switched on and full of energy.

Over the past five years this came to a head to the point where I was pretty burned out. My managers tell me I am a super valuable member of staff and they want my help with things, but I was utterly exhausted and just trying to make sure I do not let my students down. I tried to communicate the issues to my managers but it falls on deaf ears, as they promise that "once these initiatives are done, it will all be over!" while beefing up their CVs for their next job, not caring what comes after.

Added to this, some of them are extremely ideological about education, for example they have insisted on a system whereby detentions are run centrally instead of me running my own, so dealing with trivial discipline issues is made more complex by having no consistent system and a management who are overly sympathetic to poorly behaved students. I can manage the behaviour stuff pretty well but it annoys me that it is made more difficult so pointlessly.

I cut my hours back last year, now focus on the older kids and exam classes and try and wall myself off from the incompetent managers as much as possible. Got my mojo back

I was a Head of Year for a long time, and gave that up. Due to no-one else doing it, I took on numerous co-ordinator roles. Gave them up two years ago. This year, I had dropped to four days per week. Now I can maintain my energy levels, and instead of bein exhausted on Fridays, I feel able to socialise. I spend every Wednesday at a local library writing a novel, which I think is going well, and love it. It has changed my life and I think I can keep teaching long term, if I need to, whereas previously, I would have been 110% burned out within three years

 Ouze wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I feel like painting miniatures for work would suck..well wouldnt suck, but I wouldnt enjoy it.. its the reason I never went into anything art related despite having somewhat of an artistic bent.

I feel 100% the same way. I loved art related stuff when I was a teenager, and still do as an amateur hobbyist (just as almost certainly every single person on this forum does, presumably).

I intentionally avoided doing anything art-related when I was in college because I felt that if I did it professionally, I would grow to hate it. Since I also loved computing and technology, and now loathe almost anything related to IT and tech, I think that was a pretty good call in retrospect.

I know people say "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life", but I always thought it more likely if you "do what you love for money, eventually you're not going to love it anymore".

 lifeafter wrote:
I love my job. I work in upper management in a government organization. My division has 50 employees. When everyone is getting along and doing their job, I have the best job in the world. When people aren't, it's not. Most days it doesn't feel like I'm going to work. I think that's a good barometer for my job satisfaction.

Sometimes I feel like I'm more of a therapist than a manager. I don't mind supporting my team, it just seems at times that a therapy degree might be more useful to than my administration degree.

The worst part of my job is the long, drawn out discipline processes we have to go through because we're a government organization. They require tons of documenting, meetings, and chances before you can finally separate from a problem employee. It can take six months to a year. I see how some people get complacent about problem employees in this environment. I refuse to be that guy. It's always addition by subtraction for your culture when bad eggs are removed.

The second worst part of my job is telling people they didn't get a promotion. Some people understand, others don't. Both conversations suck.

 Da Boss wrote:
Good managers are like gold dust. My current direct superior is great, a very experienced guy with a heart of gold and strong ethics. He is also not ambitious any more, and focuses on doing the job at hand. He is not perfect, but I would have quit already without him.
Unfortunately the people above him are less competent, even though most of them are well meaning in their way.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


The second part? Was made clear to me quite early on at my employer (and serious respect for their transparency) that if you’re turned down, you are watched after. If you just get on with things, that’s a positive sign the management might’ve made the wrong decision. If you throw teddy from the Pram and turn into The Incredible Sulk? That’s a sign they were absolutely 100% right.

Me? I can throw a grump initially. After all. Bad news is bad. And disappointing. But I soon belt up and do my best to show they made the wrong call.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 lifeafter wrote:
I love my job. I work in upper management in a government organization. My division has 50 employees. When everyone is getting along and doing their job, I have the best job in the world. When people aren't, it's not. Most days it doesn't feel like I'm going to work. I think that's a good barometer for my job satisfaction.

Sometimes I feel like I'm more of a therapist than a manager. I don't mind supporting my team, it just seems at times that a therapy degree might be more useful to than my administration degree.

The worst part of my job is the long, drawn out discipline processes we have to go through because we're a government organization. They require tons of documenting, meetings, and chances before you can finally separate from a problem employee. It can take six months to a year. I see how some people get complacent about problem employees in this environment. I refuse to be that guy. It's always addition by subtraction for your culture when bad eggs are removed.

The second worst part of my job is telling people they didn't get a promotion. Some people understand, others don't. Both conversations suck.

On the first, you’re doing the right thing. Red Tape be damned, a bad employee impacts more than their own output and that. As someone who loves a challenge, nothing honks me off more than a colleague clearly intent on simply coasting by, at best, and nothing happens. Never mind it means yet more work for me to do, it speaks poorly of the manager.

The second part? Was made clear to me quite early on at my employer (and serious respect for their transparency) that if you’re turned down, you are watched after. If you just get on with things, that’s a positive sign the management might’ve made the wrong decision. If you throw teddy from the Pram and turn into The Incredible Sulk? That’s a sign they were absolutely 100% right.

Me? I can throw a grump initially. After all. Bad news is bad. And disappointing. But I soon belt up and do my best to show they made the wrong call.

You really sound like the sort of manager I’d get on well with! Provided you know that once I’ve demonstrated I can be trusted, you leave me alone to just get on with it!

When i got turned down the second time, i was really bummed, i had a 4 hour session after that and man was that rough, i was the only one there with a client who wasnt verbal, so i was left alone so i kinda kept going back. Especially cause i lost 10 hours of work because i was requested off a case recently so i needed good news lol. It got to the point i was considering leaving and going. but i been there 3 years so IDK.
But i had my performance eval recently and my supervisor asked "are you going to apply again? it should be coming up again soon and we do need more, you are good at your job and we know you can do this"
So honestly, im really confused about it LOL.

 lifeafter wrote:

When i got turned down the second time, i was really bummed, i had a 4 hour session after that and man was that rough, i was the only one there with a client who wasnt verbal, so i was left alone so i kinda kept going back. Especially cause i lost 10 hours of work because i was requested off a case recently so i needed good news lol. It got to the point i was considering leaving and going. but i been there 3 years so IDK.
But i had my performance eval recently and my supervisor asked "are you going to apply again? it should be coming up again soon and we do need more, you are good at your job and we know you can do this"
So honestly, im really confused about it LOL.

I don't know enough about your situation to give you real specific advice, but I have a few general comments. A lot of supervisors really struggle with giving honest feedback. It's a lot easier to explain to someone, "you don't have a master's degree, or they have more experience," than it is to say, "this person is a better fit culturally for where we are right now than you." I'm not saying you say the second sentence to someone without a lot more conversation getting to it; I'm oversimplifying because this is a forum reply. Sometime supervisors say, "oh this is going to open up again so you should apply again" as a way to soften the blow. It's a natural way to try to soften the disappointment of delivering bad news but they don't really mean it. Other times they do mean it. Remember that delivering bad news is stressful too, and sometimes people are looking for shortcuts to dealing with the stress of it.

The other thing to keep in mind is you never really know who you're up against or what they sold during their interviews. Don't worry about them, sell the best you. I've walked away from several interviews not hiring someone but having a heck of a lot better impression of them.

Be honest in your self assessment and honest in how you process your supervisor's feedback. If you keep getting passed over and you want advancement, go somewhere else. If you believe the organization cares about you, stay. Just be honest enough with yourself to recognize when the actions of the organization are showing a promotion's not coming. Because, unfortunately, not all managers are going to be honest enough to not string you along.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
While im still new to work culture i like to think this job is a lot more honest and open then others. It helps that our job is one where we work with alot of kids and it ends up being better.
As too feedback, I get it all the time, its part of the job, like a big part of our evaluations the happen every month is "did they accept the feedback properly throuout the month" and such.
But as too not feeling honest with the culkturally sometimes i feel that. Like it stings when someone got the job who has been there only 6 months and has less of an education than you. they then tell you are not creative enough and they want to work on you with it, when your pretty sure that the person who got it because they are always chipper and happy.
Im not gonna lie and say i wasnt bitter for quite a bit, never let it show though.

 Polonius wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
While im still new to work culture i like to think this job is a lot more honest and open then others. It helps that our job is one where we work with alot of kids and it ends up being better.
As too feedback, I get it all the time, its part of the job, like a big part of our evaluations the happen every month is "did they accept the feedback properly throuout the month" and such.
But as too not feeling honest with the culkturally sometimes i feel that. Like it stings when someone got the job who has been there only 6 months and has less of an education than you. they then tell you are not creative enough and they want to work on you with it, when your pretty sure that the person who got it because they are always chipper and happy.
Im not gonna lie and say i wasnt bitter for quite a bit, never let it show though.

Well, a positive attitude will get you promoted faster.

In my experience, promotions tend to be far more about soft skills than about technical skills, at least in any job where you are working with people.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

That I understand, but honestly that is the gakky thing, if your job has technical skills that it is about, then that I why you should get promoted.
I get that isnt how it works, and will never work, it does make me wonder, why bother sometimes.
God.......is this what being an adult in the workforce is about? I have a long road ahead of me.

 Da Boss wrote:
"Soft skills", yes, as a euphamism for blowing smoke up the right arsehole.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

That I understand, but honestly that is the gakky thing, if your job has technical skills that it is about, then that I why you should get promoted.
I get that isnt how it works, and will never work, it does make me wonder, why bother sometimes.
God.......is this what being an adult in the workforce is about? I have a long road ahead of me.

 Da Boss wrote:
"Soft skills", yes, as a euphamism for blowing smoke up the right arsehole.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My problem with that is, my ability to climb and therefore make a better life for myself is based around skills they never tell you you did need. They say you should have X skills with x requirements, but then there is this how other thing they never tell you that you need.
I know I'm young and this comes across as incredibly petty or something and I will understand when I'm in the work field longer but I can't help but feel in all my jobs there is this weird song and dance to do.