In my experience managers lie to applicants massively in job interviews: about job conditions, training conditions, available free days, how taxing the job is, how supportive your coworkers are…
Younger me believed managers and coworkers when they said they would support me to be more knowledgeable, wouldn’t mind I use my downtime to learn. In reality they ignored me during training and criticized me savagely for reading manuals while my coworkers were talking about football fields, which to me is a waste of time. I always did my job when clients came, learning exclusively during downtime but manager chose to ignore that. Being accused of not doing your job like this while wanting to be better sends a clear message that your development is not important. I stopped trusting people after that.
I’ve reached a point where I don’t give much fucks about it anymore: In the past I used to be more engaged than now, I genuinely enjoyed learning but now… my new motto is I go to work for a paycheck and I go home asap to enjoy my life as much as I can. It’s a complete disconnect from my job.
Do I stay with the crap I know or do I keep looking for something better? I’m in a union and hurdles to fire me according to several people are high, I take it easy at work, I go to the toilet as much as I possibly can (and learn or read), I don’t have to deal with people I dislike for long, I don’t do any overtime and have no qualms about calling in sick. It took me a health scare to understand this job is not more important than me.
But I also don’t want to do this for the rest of my life, because it’s physically demanding and I won’t be young forever, I could earn more if I keep learning and update my certifications, I could get a desk job before I break my back doing my current job…
But is it worth it to try to find a better job? Because people are gonna people and wherever I go I’ll have to deal with people that sabotage me like I described before.
Or maybe I’m wrong?
Oh man, having a union job is awesome. It really is.
Think very hard about your definition of better is.
This feels like someone who is having a crisis as the job they thought they would be doing isn’t the job they are actually doing. There is an internal assumed competence and reality doesn’t match that at all.
Yeah it really does.
Work in a capitalist society is unilaterally a partial theft of your labor. Your boss(es) owe you far more than you owe them. Don’t work any harder than you have to.
It’s like a koan. I keep expecting “and then he was enlightened” at the end.
You’ve figured it out. Take as much advantage of your employer as you can. Try not to make life harder on your coworkers. People matter. Heartless corporations don’t. Eek out as much fulfillment as you can within that context. There’s nothing better. At least not within capitalism.
I don’t know, in part because I don’t know what your job is. You seem to be processing a lot of emotions based on not being a good personality fit with the coworkers of your job, but I don’t know what your actually doing outside of some form of skilled labor.
The people you work with and the management of the site/company/team/etc. are oft the most important factor in your experience while working there. I have worked for a company/management that literally was known for firing people without cause just to put a sense of fear into employees and a company/management that sent employees for paid educational courses without being legally obligated to do so. Same industry. Same city. Just different people. The attitudes of management tend to impart a flavor to the workspace that is nigh impossible to ignore. So, if you have the ability to get away from the workplace that mistreats you, do it. It’s really not all people. It’s those people, in that workplace, with that management. Chances are, if you chat with a few people in other places, you can find an in somewhere the people are not so awful, and the best time to look for a new job is always while you have one.
You arent wrong. The grass looks greener on the other side, always. I’ve been in a similar boat on the other side of the fence. Sitting a desk job, not a bad job, but it wasnt rewarding or fulfilling in a long time.
I am finding the issue isnt the job, or where you work, since there are goijg to be bad coworkers and managers everywhere you go. Working hard just isnt rewarding anymore. Doing just as much or more work for less food on the table, less housing to grown into, and entertainment and hibbies filled with scalpers or overpriced equipment. Life just doesn’t hit like it did neforbefore, compared to a few years ago. Everything feels like a struggle, something is broken.