Take this Job and Shove It?

Welcome to Corporate America. I see you're enjoying your gift basket of bullshit office politics and underappreciation. I hope you enjoy your stay. 90% of people work just hard enough to not get fired for just enough money not to quit. /Carlin

It's a job. They pay you to show up and do various tasks. If the money is not worth it, quit and get a new job but don't magically expect your new job to not require you to do largely exactly the same thing. Or in other words: no one cares. Especially if you're a low skill worker and easily replaced, which you are if you're still in school. This is why most people have a life outside of work. Also why a lot of people your age frequent bars. Yes you can get a job that fulfills you and is Doing Good Things. I have one. But you know what? I worked my ASS off for many years to get here and I continue to work my ass off every day. I see setbacks, hostile responses to my much loved initatives and deal with unrealistic expectations and inter personal issues every day. That's life, learn to be good at it. There are no short cuts. Accept that and you'll be eons ahead of most of your peers.

On behalf of MetaFilter, I give you permission to put in applications for temp agencies and for every job that even vaguely interests you (especially jobs you can walk or take a bus to), to use up your sick leave attending interviews, and to print out your resume a few dozen times on the work printer. glad to be doing a job where I could finally help people in a more significant way than just helping them buy new clothes. Outside of some very narrow areas of office work, most people will be made much happier by a set of new clothes than by anything an office admin worker will ever do for them.

I'll bite, even though I flagged you. One of the strangest things to first learn is that jobs change. The people, the culture, the work itself. Nothing stays as it was. It sounds like you're having a hard time reconciling what was once a great job with what you are currently facing. You can leave whenever you want. 15 months is enough time, particularly if you are still in grad school. Other than that, you sound whiny and naive. I mean, nothing you wrote is really out of the ordinary. I commute 35 minutes to work, have worked with jerks, have worked with jerky bosses, haven't had enough money for stuff, have gotten yelled at, have been asked to create miracles, haven't had access to the technology I needed, etc. I mean, these things are not unique to you, even though it feels that way. And your friend was right to stay out of it. The office is not a playground where your friend stands up to the bully for you. You fight your own battles and your friend is there to support you. And my once stellar pay is dwarfed in the face of the rising costs of living. Between gas, car insurance, and car maintenance, the monetary cost of driving my car to this job is higher than it is to keep the job. Not to mention the cost of lunch (30 minutes is no time to eat lunch y'all), plus workclothes and shoes...Ugghh. Hi. Welcome to the real world. Unfortunately you are not any different from the billions of other working folks. And FWIW, 30 minutes is enough, especially if you are bringing (thus also reducing lunch costs). Is it possible that you are not a people person? I mean, for someone in a career path such as yours, I would sort of expect that you'd be able to use your education to help you navigate the interpersonal challenges in the workplace. You seem to strongly dislike dealing with people (hated retail [customer-facing], hate the interpersonal crap in your current job, alienated yourself from your peers, got mad at your friend for not doing what you expected, etc) and things are not always hunky-dory when it comes to that. You don't seem to react well when things aren't going your way people-wise. In your line of work (or any for that matter), people will not act as you want them or tell them to act. Just something to think about.

Hey thanks to everyone who has responded to my post. I think you're right that it isn't exactly clear and concise. In some ways, I think I left it intentionally vague. Mostly though I was just needing to rant anonymously about my job dissatisfaction to a group of anonymous peers. I wasn't sure if I should take it to MetaTalk, so I figured I would put it up here and see what happened. Alot of what I wrote was an attempt to capture some intangible aspects of my job, like the dying optimism that used to excite me so much at first. We talk a good game about teamwork, but I detect very little team spirit in my office. People are tired, stressed, chronically fatigued, unappreciated, with inadequate tools to do the job in a timely manner, yet are still expected to crank out projects like a donut factory. When I was explaining the individual goals issue, the point I was trying to convey is that I had barely warmed my seat and already they are on my case about something that they couldn't possibly have updated information about. In the work I do we have to call various people and organizations for specific information not available online. As it is summer, and since people are people, we often are not able to speak with someone on first attempt at contact. The more time we spend trying to get ahold of people, the longer it takes for our work to be complete. As one of the posters said, I might have sounded whiny and naive. I am okay with that. I have slowly become more and more unhappy at work and needed a channel to release the immense stress that I feel every time I think about how my job (which as you can tell is often). And I am thankful for the feedback from those people in the Real World who tell me not what I want to hear, but what I need to hear. I appreciate your input and am talking things over with my fiance to sort out how our budget would change if I left.

Thirty minutes for lunch? I like lunch, its my favourite meal of the day. Lately I've been averaging 30 mins but I would chafe at being limited to 30 mins. Don't people need time to think or do errands? Find a new job where you can take a decent lunch. Since leaving teaching about six years ago and taking up a career that involves a lot of "relationship management" (and a lot of expectations about productivity), I haven't had a job where they tell you how long you can take lunch. And the thing is, I have so much stuff to do, I don't really LIKE taking lunch. I keep working. If I do take lunch, I make the most use of that time possible. I try to have lunch with old connections, new connections or people I work with (spending time with, and getting to know people, are crucial for success in any field). But on the odd time I've spent lunch hour in the bookstore or even taking a walk, I've always felt lousy about not making better use of the time. I suppose what I'm trying to say is job survival and ultimately job satisfaction is a lot like planting and tending to a garden. The more time, work and energy you invest into it each and every day for the eight or so hours you are there, the more satisfaction you will get.

Thanks for posting this update--it really puts things in perspective. I am from a similar background and sometimes have difficulty with the same things. I was trying to make a point above but perhaps made it too harshly. You were trying to say "please listen to me, I need a friend to talk to" but she (and I) heard you say "I want to get you actively involved in a conflict by gaining your sympathy". But she didn't want to get involved in that kind of conflict--especially not with the kind of person who would scream at you! If you acted coldly to her after that incident, it confirmed her belief that you tend to be dramatic and aren't interested in keeping things cordial in the office. Rather, you have a list of people who are for you or against you, and act accordingly. This doesn't have to be the truth for people to see you that way. What you might consider normal within a friendship is not necessarily what others consider normal. As I learned the hard way in college, people often have people who they consider friends, but they don't have real loyalty to them. Friendship means something lighter and more fluid, and they generally have a lot of "friends" who they don't really feel loyalty for. They're just people whose company they enjoy, and would help if they were in trouble. But they don't have the same bond with them. It's confusing. This brings me back office politics in general. Your friend might have had experience with a super-negative office clique. These cliques are usually made up of people who spend a good deal of time whining about work, whining about the boss and coworkers, gossiping in a mean way, snubbing people who they don't like, forcing people to choose sides in petty personal vendettas, and generally poisoning the professional atmosphere. She has probably learned the hard way to avoid these kind of people like the plague. You spooked her, and she wanted to let you know that she would not participate in the kind poisonous bullshit I described above. She didn't mean to alienate you completely, she just wanted to set the boundaries of the relationship because complaining about people in the office makes her really uncomfortable. That doesn't mean you're a psycho office gossip. However, perhaps you can see this from her perspective and forgive her a little bit for what was probably a miscommunication. You might want to think about not complaining about the office while you're at the office, just to be safe and keep your coworkers from seeing you as a source of drama and difficulty. Yeah, I know, no one outside of work knows how frustrating it is when the office manager gives you the silent treatment. Hope this made sense. You'll learn and do better as you get acculturated. Class and background matter so, so much, Don't beat yourself up if you take a while to learn. Good luck!

Okay one last thing, then I'll never do a post like this ever again: I am really thankful to Everyone who responded to me. Even though you might think I just wanted sympathy, I am also a big fan of the reality check. My parents both grew up really poor in a rust belt town. Not just poor--lard-sandwiches-for-lunch and stealing-milk poor. My dad worked in a factory for 35 years and my mom worked odd jobs. Now they both work for a bus company. Coming from a family with a poverty legacy, I am not personally acquainted with anyone of the managerial class. I have made every professional connection and acquaintance myself. With that information, an admission: there are a lot of things about working in an office environment that I do not understand--no one in my family has worked in an office. The rules of the labor class are different than the rule of the educated and managing class. I find myself stretched tenuously between these two worlds. On the one hand, I am an educated person with a high IQ who knows that I can do whatever I want to. On the other hand, I carry around with me the pride and history of a family with different social norms and ways of conducting oneself. I have found adapting to the world of the managing class extremely difficult. I feel like I'm in a foreign country where everyone expects me to behave a certain why but nobody explains why. I don't speak the language and I can't talk openly at work about what's really going on. It's like everyone wants to pretend class differences don't exist and don't matter, but they do. And it's really hard trying to adapt to someone else's culture with no guidance or support. So it is refreshing to get input from the other side. I am always open to seeing things from another perspective.

Mostly though I was just needing to rant anonymously about my job dissatisfaction to a group of anonymous peers ah but I don't think we are your peers, I think the folks on metafilter are more the peers of your boss, or maybe her boss. That combined with the fact it's intern season and I, for one, am wondering how many whiny-ass students I can stuff into the supply closet and still lock the door probably explains the lack of sympathy. Number one rule of complaining about your boss: pick your audience wisely.