UNITED STATES—Work, some of us love it, most of us hate it. Why is that? Well, when it comes to work, most of us have yet to obtain that dream job. Where you wake up in the morning and have a gleeful grin on your face about actually going to work. For most of us, it’s a struggle to open those eyes, to get out of bed, to get dressed and to actually have to go to work, and that’s just the beginning of the day.
I tell people time after time, it’s much harder to go to a job that you hate on a consistent basis than it is to go to a job that you enjoy. There could be a factor of reasons why you hate your job. For starters, it could be the people that you work with. Some people you get along with quite well, there always tend to be those bad apples; people that no matter what, you just don’t click with them. So what do you do in that instance, stay as far away from them as possible.
A common issue for most people is the pay that is earned. I’ve been an advocate for raising the minimum wage for years, but in the government-driven arena we live in, the day the minimum wage rises to a level where people can actually support a living, I’ll be the first to streak naked. $7.15 an hour is NOT going to support a person. It’s not going to cover a roof over your head, pay utilities, put food in your mouth and ensure you have transportation to get to and from work each day.
Do I agree with the boycott for $15 per hour for fast-food workers? No. I mean $15 an hour is a serious jump, I mean I know people who have college degrees and don’t even earn that type of income, but a reasonable medium can be reached like $11.50 to $12.00 per hour. You can gross at least $500 a week working 40 hours. After taxes is another story, but with that type of income you could definitely bring home at least $350 to $400 a week.
I think a big problem for most workers is dealing with that boss from hell. The person who just aims to make your life miserable simply because they can, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Well, there is, you can quit, but for most Americans quitting a job, even if it pays somewhat well is not an option. Most of us try to think ahead. The fact that we have bills, we have children, unexpected expenses that we can’t just disregard even if we wanted to.
Those in power will abuse that power, with every given opportunity they have. It’s not just about being an authority figure it’s about wielding that power in a way that makes the person feel good about themselves. I’ve had bosses from hell, where the person would be a complete you know what, and could care less what anyone thought of them. They would even at times talk about it in front of other employees who were apart of their ‘clique.’ Of course, most of you have an idea of what I’m referring to.
I think the one thing that frustrates most people about work, is when they feel unappreciated. Where all the work they do goes unnoticed, even when subtle hints are given to shine a light that I’m not asking for much, but just a little bit of gratitude. Gratitude goes a long way in the workplace, because when an employee feels like what they do is appreciated, it provides that extra incentive to keep that work ethic going. What happens when companies and bosses refuse to acknowledge good work, it depreciates the value of the employee, so much to the point, where they start to consider options.
Trust me I know the feeling because this has been the primary reason on a few occasions where I have left one job to go onto another. I have a philosophy in life: if you leave a job never do it in a manner that reflects badly on you. Be sure to be as professional as possible. I also believe that when you shut a door there is no need in reopening it. When I leave a job, I never look back; it’s like closing a chapter in my life, and its time to move on. You learn from each position that you hold in life.
The one thing that I find funny is my past employers always beg for me to come back, its not me having a chip on my shoulder, its my understanding that I was a damn fine employee, the sad thing was my company or boss didn’t see it till I was no longer there. I recall Oprah Winfrey saying something once on her talk show, “Every day you go to work doing something you don’t like a piece of you dies inside.”
It made sense when I first heard it, but now it truly makes sense, if you’re not fully happy with something you have to change the course. Work can be frustrating, but you have the power to change those frustrations by aiming to nail or get that job that produces absolute glee. You might have a few terrible jobs along the way, but when you have that dream job, the past will be just that, the past.
