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[mosaic]

I miss my 4 to midnight job at the ISP... with as many hours spent playing FPS games as helping customers... and getting paid too damn much besides (and then Earthlink bought the company and sacked everyone).

A good job rocks even if you have to work 12+ hours a day.

Another case in point, I know a guy that works 50-60 hours a week at an auto dealer doing service. Sounds hard, right? Actually, most of the work is rather routine, and even though he sometimes gets crudded up, he loves it because the guys hang out a lot and the company provides free sodas, coffee, donuts, and sandwiches at breakfast and lunch.

A crummy job on the other hand... I worked in the classified department at a newspaper just long enough to start daydreaming about ways to commit suicide and about fun ways to kill the old buzzards who'd want to place a ton of freebie ads for $5 items. I'd go in around 8AM, leave after 6PM, and be so seething that I'd pass out around 8PM. Ironically, they added OBITUARIES to my repertoire after 2 months.

Nowadays, I just do freelance review gigs and such, which means the hours vary (20 hour weeks sometimes, 60+ hours others), and I don't always have extra money after bills, BUT the freedom to take a nap or not put on pants all day is kinda nice. One of these days I'll hop back on the 9 to 5 bandwagon (I'd like to), but I've learned my lesson.......

Working at a job you hate just to pay bills will kill your soul.

 

[DarienA]

7-4 here... though I now turn in alot earlier that getting out of work one hour earlier is a godsend.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Blah blah you can't complain, my job's worst blah blah shut up until you have to do what I do blah blah more crap blah.

Guess what, it doesn't work that way. If we could only complain or think something is shit if there aren't people who have it worst than us, then none of us could justify complaining, as there are millions of people out there worst off than any one of us. And I can guarentee that there are people out there working 60 hours a week and yet are still happier than some rich guy who only has to work when he feels like it.

So if the first guy thinks his 9 to 5 job is crap, let him. He certainly shouldn't have to be happy just because he's not had to work in your crappy jobs.

 

[OmniGamer]

I reiterate...boo hoo. It's called putting things in perspective...thinking about how some people don't even HAVE jobs(like myself currently), or how people in other countries might be worse off, is how I got through those times I really hated being at my job.

 

[Mama Smurf]

So? It's not like he's quit his job. Is he not allowed to complain without people mocking him like he's crying?

 

[djtiesto]

7-4 here... though I now turn in alot earlier that getting out of work one hour earlier is a godsend.

Yeah, I try to get in 20 min or so early, so I can leave 20 min early... Those 20 min make all the difference in the world when it comes to driving in rush-hour traffic.

You live near DC, right? I could imagine it being even worse there... Maryland drivers.. *shudder*

 

[Prospero]

My hours right now are 8:00-4:00 and I love it. It beats hell out of the last job I had (where I had no fixed schedule, but was easily working 60+ hours a week).

 

[OmniGamer]

So? It's not like he's quit his job. Is he not allowed to complain without people mocking him like he's crying?

Yeah he's free to complain...just like people are free to offer different perspectives. I'm just saying, if work was a walk in the park, it wouldn't be called "work".

 

[Mama Smurf]

I don't mind the other perspectives, it's the boo hoo attitude which gets to me.

Anyway, back to the thread. I once worked in a debt collectors (ugh) 9-6, 5 days a week. I can't drive so I had to get the bus into and back from work and it took at least an hour, often more...it was hell. It's not like I was even getting paid well. Never again.

Seriously guys, never work in a debt collectors. On top of normal work, you get to feel liek a right asshole all day.

 

[DJ Demon J]

I crashed at 11:30 last night.

Hah, n00b. Wait till you start going to bed before 11. Getting old sucks.

 

[buck naked]

...the freedom to take a nap or not put on pants all day is kinda nice.

Hooray for underwear and pyjamas!

 

[DarienA]

Yeah, I try to get in 20 min or so early, so I can leave 20 min early... Those 20 min make all the difference in the world when it comes to driving in rush-hour traffic.

You live near DC, right? I could imagine it being even worse there... Maryland drivers.. *shudder*

OMG DC is CRAZY in the evenings...off...da...HOOK traffic...... I usually don't drive though, either the missus drives me in on her way to work if we head out at the same time, or I just catch the Metro in. BTW I love my job.

 

[distantmantra]

Well, I graduated last May and finally got a real job last week. I was all excited because I'll finally know how I'm going to pay the rent and all that garbage. Yay 4 paying the bills, right? Wrong. I crashed at 11:30 last night. I haven't gone to bed that early since I was like 14. Plus, I was tired as fuck this past weekend, and my Pabst tolerance is decreasing at an alarming rate.

Oh well... I know I should be happy I found a job in this shitty economy. The costs of financial security are staggering, however.

I work 7:30am-4:15pm Monday through Friday. On weekdays I'm lucky if I can stay up until 11pm.

But that's nothing, during undergraduate summers, I was a roofer for the Boeing company ($18/hour, part of a union, killer overtime, 401k) and worked 5:30am-2:00pm everday. I was out between 9:30 and 10 every night. I'd always pass out a friend's place.

 

[DJ Demon J]

Maryland drivers are the absolute worst drivers in the nation. Kiss an hour of your life goodbye every day if you plan to leave downtown DC and get 10 miles outside of the city after 5PM.

 

[Suerte]

I've been doing a nightshift on a Saturday - 9pm till 6am for the last year, it sucks. Gonna drop it when I go back to Uni. But I do a couple of 5pm till 9pm's - they're not too bad.

 

[DarienA]

Maryland drivers are the absolute worst drivers in the nation. Kiss an hour of your life goodbye every day if you plan to leave downtown DC and get 10 miles outside of the city after 5PM.

If DC wasn't built like such a f'n maze with rows and rows of One Way streets going in the same F'N direction... and streets/lanes that change direction based on time of day, etc....

BTW NJ drivers suck too and not just during rush hour.

 

[Pattergen]

Pattergen, did you have a part time in college? Just curious.
Christ I did a midnight to eight am shift last summer, pulling 40-56 hours a week, and sometimes they'd put me in the other two shifts, and that was a breeze compared to college with a part time job.
I haven't done an actual 9-5 yet, granted, but I've worked 40 hour weeks with crazy ass hours, but after years of class/part time job a 9-5 seems almost appealing.

Yeah I worked at the campus library part time. I've worked a part time (some full times during the summer) ever since I was 16.

I really didn't mean to complain about the job hours or whatever, more my jump from college student to final final real world corporate tool transformation. I never said my job was worse than anyone else's, and I'm happy that I got a job. It's just quite a shock.

 

[Loki]

Try working 4:30pm to 12:30am Mon-Fri. That's been my shift for the past 3 and a half years. Although to be honest I have left early during certain times when it's dead. Can't complain though, good job while I go through school.

Jesus...40 hour work-weeks AND classes? Full-time courseload? Much respect, dude.


I quit my job of five and a half years this past April because I had too many other necessary obligations (classes and extracurriculars)-- I couldn't keep working 30-35 hours/week in addition to all of that; those hours were all on the weekends, however, so it was convenient for school, and the money was incredible (oh how I miss it).


My first job, which I held for a little over four years (from age 15-19 or so), was just a killer, hours-wise. From age 15-18, I was putting in around 50-60 hours in 3 or 4 days. We'd get in at like 10 AM on Friday, get out at 2:30 AM, then have to be in again Saturday from 8:30 AM--3 AM, then Sunday 9 AM-1 AM. Then I'd usually put one day in during the week from like 4 PM-12 PM. Catering/wedding halls suck. The last year or so I was maitre'd, booking weddings and the like, so I got a break on the hours, as I wouldn't have to come in 3 hours before the guests arrived like everybody else did (only a half-hour or so), and I could leave once the function was over (no hour+ clean-up and set-up to hang around for). I was cutting classes in high school at the time, which is how I was able to work so much (friday during the daytime and such).


Looking back, I honestly think I burned myself out working so much when I was so young (even with my second job at the restaurant), although I know that many people do even more-- everyone's different, I suppose. Between the stress of the job (being a waiter in a popular-- read: busy-- place is no joke) and the hours, I sometimes feel like I've already done a lifetime's work.


I'm ready to retire at the ripe old age of 26.

 

[teepo]

Maryland drivers are the absolute worst drivers in the nation. Kiss an hour of your life goodbye every day if you plan to leave downtown DC and get 10 miles outside of the city after 5PM.

funny thing is in a poll in the washington post, they rated us virginians in the dc metro area as the WORSE drivers