As someone who is going to have to get a job in 2-3 years, I’m dreading the day. Going to the same place 5 days a week coming home with no time and energy left for anything you actually like and doing this for FOURTY years or even more if you were unlucky, sounds HORRIBLE!! How could anyone actually like working?
People don’t want to work. They want to live and pay for shit. Work is the only way for people that weren’t born rich to get money. Well, either that or crimes, but some crimes can be seen as illegal work.
Most people don’t want to feel useless, so if you cut their access to cheap dopamine (phones with internet, social media) they might seek out some work out of boredom.
What really sucks is that society expects us to be “specialists” in one thing for the rest of our lives, as if we are fucking ant drones or gears in a complex machine. It’s great for economists and the rich and awful for our individual wellbeing, though some people do enjoy doing the same thing over and over for very long periods of time.
If your really worried about working do your best to find a work place that is fun rather than a workplace that maximizes your income. Assuming you have interests try and find a job that plays to those interests and it helps to feel like your actually helping people rather than being another cog in the machine.
I mean, isn’t school a bit like that?
Not exactly. I get OP’s point. I’m 25 so I’ve experienced both, and they weren’t the same for me.
School is more about the experience and the journey than the results, or at least that’s what it feels like. It’s the place where you get to spend time and joke around with your friends while developing knowledge together. Your teachers form genuine connections with you, and most of them do care about your well-being and development. If you’re lucky, you get to have a mini party on your ride home with fellow students singing and dancing on the school bus. You get to go on fun outings and field trips. You’re ultimately responsible for no one but yourself, and every day yoy learn something new.
With work, there’s a very hostile environment. Everyone has a huge ego problem, your boss makes it clear that they’re not your friend, you’re forced to collaborate and be friendly to your colleagues even though you may not like some. You can’t just decide to take a day off because clients and colleagues are depending on you. It can be monotonous and stressful. Your only social activities are probably icebreakers or eating out on a day that’s supposed to be relaxing (like Christmas holidays and whenever you’re nearby). You have other responsibilities when you get home as well, which aren’t a sports club or music lessons but chores and admin stuff.
I know not everyone’s experience is the same. For some, school is where they met their worst bully and had a miserable time whereas work was where they met their best friend and had fun. This is just me explaining why I relate to OP in our view of school vs work.
School didn’t even feel obligatory for me, it was just a planned fun day. I enjoyed most of it: the teachers, the students, the timings, the duties. I even enjoyed some of the homework (and I hate the idea of homework)! There were little tasks that seemed exciting like taking the attendance to the administration’s office, going around picking up each class’s donations and consent forms, decorating the classroom door for the Christmas competition, getting the keys for the teacher from their staffroom, going next door to borrow a marker, doing group presentations, and being my turn to read the class book, and so on. Work usually lacks these little everyday tasks and just focuses on earning the company money and being professional. It kills joy and personality.
Place and purpose baby! Working for someone/being exploited sucks shit, sure, but doing stuff is awesome. What else are you gonna do?
This, and working with a team, and working towards the public good. Building successful teams, improving processes, implementing efficient and sustainable systems - all good fun to achieve.
That said these take weeks and months to accomplish where I work. I’d love to be a chef where the results of my labour was more … immediate.
We like to be useful. Pitching in and doing our share and making/doing things for other people who do the same for us feels good. Its a large part of what got us here and not living in caves dying of infection.
Recently its become perverted though. There’s not enough satisfaction from being a useful member of society, and too much of the guys above you shouting “more! Faster! Better! I can replace you so easily!”
Its a fuckin nightmare, but gotta eat
Allow me to come at this from the other side.
I can’t work. My body gave out, and even though the shit show that is disability income keeps me below the poverty line, I’m essentially useless at any job that requires me being upright. So, I’m stuck there.
But if I could go back to work, I would.
I’d want to be picky at this point, but there’s a lot to be said about having structure and an external purpose (as opposed to finding one within yourself, which is still possible while working, just not necessary).
Since my job was at least emotionally and mentally fulfilling, I do miss the actual work ad well. I mean, fuck the industry and the actual available employers, but doing direct patient care was fucking awesome, even when it was stressful or painful (be it physical or mental pain).
The pay sucked. Bad enough that even working full time, I technically have a higher income now than when my hourly rate was at its highest back then. But going in, helping someone, that was the shit right there.
I could have gladly done the hands on work for forty years. Even though most days I was exhausted at the end of the day. If you’re lucky enough to have a job that fulfills you, the only problem is when you can’t take breaks from it, or when the broken system means you can’t make a real living doing it.
I recently had a loved one have a major medical event. During the aftermath, I had plenty of chances to use my old skills, and it was one of the few bright points that got me through the fear and stress of it. There was still that old joy at really, truly helping someone get better, to have a less bad day at the very least.
But, legit, there’s other things I could gladly make a job of if I were both physically capable and could make enough for it the be worthwhile.
What sucks for what you’re asking is having to work just for survival ata job that isn’t fulfilling.
That being said, I’ve known a ton of people that were quite happy being a cog in the machine as long as the pay was enough to let them live how they wanted.
Besides, you don’t have to plug away at the same blah job the entire time. It’s entirely possible to not only switch jobs, but move into different industries. Like, one of my uncles over his almost sixty years of working was a prison guard, a foundry worker, a school custodian, a woodworking instructor at a high school, and a mill worker. When he’d get tired of something, he’d just start looking for something with similar pay (or better) and jump ship. He bitches about being bored now that he’s retired.
Find something you genuinely enjoy doing.
Also, having moneyz is nice.
The question is, what else would you be doing with your time?
if you do something you enjoy for a living, you will end up hating it. trust me on that one.
I can only speak for myself, but I enjoy having a regular supply of interesting problems to solve, and the daily routine keeps me grounded.
This is human nature. The “antiwork” crowd isn’t actually against work, but against the exploitative system of how work is executed under capitalism. We all like solving problems and knowing what tomorrow holds for us. If you woke up tomorrow and had absurd “fuck you” money, you’d retire from your job, but you’d still work on things.
Over the years, I’ve learned the sense of accomplishment and pride that comes from fixing a thing, replacing a broken/old/inferior thing, installing a thing, etc. I was never particularly handy. I don’t much enjoy the process itself, but the visible and quantifiable and tangible product of my labor and time are so much more fulfilling to me than the fraction of a fraction of an impact to a billionaire’s bottom line, given in exchange for being allowed to have shelter and food.
And really, some jobs are fairly enjoyable too. My wife truly enjoys her job most days, and a lot of that enjoyment comes from her job being less serious. She clocks in, performs tasks in a way that meets expectations while joking with co-workers for a few hours, and clocks out. It’s not all soul crushing, but it’s easier to stomach when it’s <30 hours per week.
It’s the money, generally. Life is expensive.
Yep.
I want to provide for my wife and kids. Its my purpose and I find it fulfilling.
Important distinction between “working” and “having a job”. You do a job for someone else. You should always be working for yourself. Labor for ones own ends in enjoyable. Labor for someone else is a means to an end. Recognize it is something to balance and balance it the best you can for the life you want to have.
This should be higher up.
I think a lot of younger people today struggle to figure out what is important for them to balance and this creates a problem where they just jump from one short term gain to another until they die and if they recognize this pattern without knowing what’s happening they just feel hopeless and don’t want to change it or themselves and then struggle to be a functioning adult.
There are two layers in this question.
In the literal sense, they want to work because it does something for them. For some, work is means to an end. They want to do X but they can’t survive on profits from doing X so they spend some time working to do the thing that they feel actually adds meaning to their life. The other layer of this is the fear you are experiencing because you are staring into an abstract void. ‘Work’ can mean many, many different things. Quick peek at your Lemmy history says you have some interest in books. What if it was your ‘work’ to spend hours each day getting paid to read books, as an audio book reader, a literary editor, or something similar? What if it was your ‘work’ to spend hours each day being paid to write books as an author, or a journalist? Work can be hellish if you end up doing something you hate, for and with people you hate, to produce something you feel is making the world a worse place to live. It can also be a process of going somewhere pleasant, to do things you enjoy, with and for people you like, to produce something that you feel makes the world a better place. Work is just the label on the box. It doesn’t tell you much about what’s inside.Most people want to feel productive. Forty hours is too much but almost nobody wants to only sit on the bank that is depressing in the long run.
He who does not work, neither shall he eat
I don’t want to work in order to survive but I want to be productive and keep my mind and body sharp while also contributing to the community. I like my job and while it seems mundane, it keeps me busy, gives me routine, gives my brain problems to solve, and is sometimes the most socializing I get. I just hate that I have to be afraid to lose my job or end up hungry or homeless because of it.
I just hate that I have to be afraid to lose my job or end up hungry or homeless because of it.
it’s not an accident that you’ve come to see it this way; controlled dissent and manufactured fear are effective ways at keeping a population under control.
That’s why I’m a communist, but most people are afraid of that term. I would settle for really good socialism in my lifetime though.
I hate being stuck as a wage slave creating wealth for the people standing on my shoulders, but I like to work and I like my job, it’s a strange place to exist.
same here; except i’m not a marxist (yet) and i’ve traded in my labor aristocracy slave status for a non-profit driven workplace that comes with union protections.
watching my union get their collective ass handed to them by starbucks; and others; makes it’s clear that union protection doesn’t mean much, but it’s the best i think i can get in this country.
