In Good Company, But Not Working for One

Today I make a confession. Like nearly half of you, I hate my job. I’ve found statistics claiming that every other one of us hates our 9-to-5 working lives. That’s one hell of a statistic. Seems we’re all in good company, just working for a bad one.

Truth be told, I really have no right to complain. I get paid well, with enough flex time for regular visits to my shrink (i.e., health insurance). My colleagues aren’t crazy (at least not in the clinical sense). And I’ve never been sexually harassed in my life (and why the hell not, I’d like to know). Still, I hate my job. Hate, as in the black hate of death…as in fake a sick day to avoid it…as in cry on a Sunday afternoon just thinking of the week ahead. I can’t for the life of me figure out how this happened.

I had dreams, like all of us. And I think I started out on pretty solid ground. But somewhere along the way, amid the office politics and corporate culture, I got lost. Maybe I was too busy watching my back, covering my ass and putting everything in writing to step back and wonder if this was really what I wanted.

Now my days are marked by relentless meetings, a pertinacious buzz of the office intercom and the yapping of my bosses — all three of them — when I’m late coming back from lunch. It’s the fact that a good day means I was only marauded once for that memo with a typo. Can you believe I’ve actually lost sleep over that stupid memo with a stupid typo?

My job leaves me gasping for air first thing in the morning, and shuffling out with my tail between my legs by the end of the day. It’s getting to me, dear friends. And I’m starting to wonder if it’s just me.

So of late I’ve been scouring the daily job listings looking for a different (better?) job and I have to wonder if there’s an escape from this existence I’ve created for myself. What would make me one of the lucky 50 percent who like their job? Would I know it if I saw it?

Thinking about work always reminds me of my Dad. His advice was the sound kind of a doting father to a naïve child about to make her way in the world. “Work hard and do what you’re told,” he said when I started my very first job as a waitress at the local steak and stein. “They call it ‘work’ for a reason, dear. You’re not supposed to like what you do.”

These many years later, I think back on his guidance often. And I have to wonder this: In our MTV, feel-good, instant-gratification, 2-outta-3-marriages-end-in-divorce society—we can hardly stay with our mate but we’ll stick it out for a job we hate. Why?

So like Odysseus beginning his voyage into the unknown, I begin this blog. I’m putting it all out there, asking questions (even stupid ones), and looking for answers. What I need is perspective. And I am asking anyone — even you, the guy who stumbled upon this thinking it was porn — to give me your feedback, nay, counsel, as I try to discover if it’s even possible to be professionally satisfied.

So my question for you, dear readers: Do you like your job? What is it that keeps you satisfied and coming back for more?