How do you do it... I am struggling....

This post does not apply to people who love their job.

How do you do it?

Working a job for 50-60 hours you can barely stand, how do you stay employed? I ask this because I am working in an office of which kills me on the inside a little more each day. All I want to do is climb. All I can think of is being outside. I definitely make my days off count and take quite a few personal days. But how do you deal with the five days of Monotony before you climb again? Sit there and dream? Tease yourself about what you could be doing?

I am not trying to complain. I am working towards a job I will eventually love but for now-is not happenin. I just wanted to know if anyone out there has any ways of dealing with this...

Any help/advice is appreciated! Thanks.

For starters just be thankful you have a job to complain about in this economy .I'm not trying to be a smart ass here. Maybe start to plan a sweet roadtrip to distract yourself as you look ahead to the future .

Have to agree with Kevin on this one. My wife was laid off several months ago and STILL can't find work. She literally applies for several jobs everyday and nothing happens. These are some tough times we are in. Thank god I have a stable job with lots of OT lately. Oh, and I hate my job too.

I like my job, always have and even then when I started I was counting the days until the weekend. Friday seemed like 5 long days away every day. Now I'm wondering where the months go. Working 50-60 doesn't help make the job any easier though.

Well put Kevin & Rob. I've been tasked recently with filling two positions at my firm from a pool of about 60 applicants. It's sad hearing some of these guys have been out of work so long their unemployment is about to run out, then telling them their 10+ years of experience isn't enough, rough!

Although, I do remember reading, or maybe it was a podcast, about people who just up and quit their jobs to follow their dreams... not a single one regretted it.

Do that and post a trip report!

johnL wrote:I find drinking helps. It helps Rob too.

Whats that line from Animal House? "Take my advice and start drinking heavily!"

Quit. Everyone needs to earn a living, but trading your sanity and the gift of life on earth for a paycheck to buy stuff is at least unimaginative. Take that imagination you occupy with daydreams of getting outside and apply it to figuring out a different way to get money. It's incredibly stressful not knowing how you're going to make ends meet, but that stress is the resistance necessary to build strong character. I can assure you at least it won't be boring, and you will probably discover you can handle way more difficulty than you thought possible. You might also realize that our material culture is a self perpetuating lie- it really doesn't take that much income to have a high standard of living in this country. It all depends on what you want. Make adventure a way of life, not just something you stock up for at REI and pencil in on the weekends. Good Luck!

does your job provide you with the means to do the things you love? if so, it has at least that going for it. try to remind yourself of that while also looking for something else.

Don't even think about quitting! I'll do your job with a smile on my face!! I've been unemployed since April '09 and can't even get a return e-mail for a f#$*<ing delivery job. I'm no flunky either. A&P Mechanic and/or Cad Tech for a civil firm with years experience. Don't even think about it, cause you'll be bitching for a much different and more serious problem. Find a new job first; yea that's it!!

If you don't a family to support, then quit. If you have any serious financial obligations or are working specifically towards retirement that's one thing, but if you're under 50 and have nothing to lose but the job, screw it. Planning for the future is not a bad thing in any way, but in 20 years when you look back, would you rather be able to say you followed your heart and dreams and made the life you wanted real? Or that you slaved away at a job you hated out of some misdirected social sense of obligation and "responsibility." Don't do anything rash, but if you have enough saved to live out of a van for a year or two, why not? Jobs are like girlfriends, it's a lot easier to get a new one if you left the last one willingly.

Be thankful you have this issue in Colorado. Try it in Missouri. I can't tell you how great a feeling it is to just point your car west in hopes you will never turn around again, then only to find yourself still in Missouri. I like to mix it up with magazines and adventure books. A mix of death metal, contemporary country, celtic, Tibetan meditation, Native American, classical western, mix in some techno, and argentine tango music. A good mix of beer, wine, and whiskey. Play some beer pong or read a good engineering textbook. Shoot some guns. Lots of bitching and telling everyone how much you hate Missouri (aka. Missery). Throw in some cooking and baking every now and then with long walks or cardio workouts in the gym to see how much suffering you can take. Once or twice a year pack your truck up with every intention of never returning home and taking one big lifelong adventure, then just unpack when you realize you don't have enough gas money to get past Kansas. Spin in circles on your head. Pretend to be gay at gay bars, you'll get free drinks. Organize your clothes alphabetically by the country they were made in then look up the cool places to visit in each country. Read scientific journals. Practice communicating with nothing but a series of different tone grunts and squeaks and sighs. Start drawing climbing routes on the road-cuts as you drive by.

Basically just go flat out insane, and learn what you need to really feel alive. Treasure every minute you can be out doing something you truly love.

My advice anyways.

If your job is really that bad and you have the cash, you can quit and find something else. Probably not easy to find one at a good salary. It's a "hirer's market" out there right now.
So if you don;t have the cash, find a different job that you think you would like, THEN quit the one you have.

If you just don't like working... well, what can I say? That is why they pay you. The post does sound a little melodramatic. Ever see the movie 'Office Space?' Maybe it would cheer you up and help you find humor in the workplace for comic relief in the future. Clerks and Clerks II are also good ones.

I work for the pay, not becuase I'd rather work than climb. That said, my employing company treats me pretty well. The key to getting that benefit is finding someone who really values what you offer who will treat you like you can not be replaced. This is of course presuming you are offering something quality/unique in skills or labor...

Achievement is a product of aptitude and interest. When eitehr approaches zero, so does the product. If you are not interested, you will not achieve. If you do not achieve, you will not be appreciated or valued, and therefore not advanced. Not to mention that some pride in work can come out of a feeling of achievement and so a lack of interest robs you of that otherwise potential benefit.

Again, if you just don't like working... well, neither does anyone else. The question is if we can find something we like better than the really bad jobs. And what is a bad job for you may not be for someone else. Some people would rather use a shovel than a keyboard.

To be fair to the original poster he never mention quitting, he was simply asking how to cope.

Here's my experience. I've worked in restaurants on and off for fifteen years now. I hate it, waiting tables is literally soul sucking work. I am in school now, working toward a profession and only work part time; my job makes me study harder. I am thankful for my job in this economy and my bosses are great people who treat me really well, I am happy I am working toward a better future, I try to put on a smile and go to work hoping for the best, but to some degree I know where you're coming from; I still just simply hate waiting tables. There is nothing redeeming about it. You just have to put your head down and push on through knowing things will get better, it builds character (maybe?).

-Pat

Anthony I know how you feel. last year I would go out and climb non stop all weekend, then struggle with all this unused climbing energy all week. I felt like I was going to explode around wednesday or thursday. I ended up leaving work early on quite a few days to go bouldering. Now I don't do that, cause I'm a student again.

If it is an option, grad school. Can be pretty damn busy at times, but ultimately you get a flexible enough schedule to climb or ski pow when needed and get your work done afterwards. If you work it right, you can even get paid enough to buy some beer and eat some decent food. Eventually you will have to find an actual job, but it's at least a nice short-term hiatus from the 9-5 gig.

Tony B wrote: Again, if you just don't like working... well, neither does anyone else. The question is if we can find something we like better than the really bad jobs. And what is a bad job for you may not be for someone else. Some people would rather use a shovel than a keyboard.

This is the advice I grew up with; my dad never really liked the job he had when I was a kid but he valued the fact that he could support his family, earn enough/manage $$$ to look forward to an early retirement, and take time off every year at the holidays and over the summer for vacations and doing things he found meaningful.

The only reliable solution is, I think, to do your best and find fulfillment outside your job; undoubtedly there are things in your life that are meaningful to you for some reason. If not, well, my job is inherently repetitive; I'll literally re-do things, or do the exact opposite task, day-to-day; if I focus on that I'm a dead man; instead, I focus on the fact that at the end of each day I've done something, produced some tangible change.

I did grad school. I didn't get out any more or less than I did when I worked 50+ hours a week last fall - at least with a job you don't have work to do outside of your obligatory "show up" time.

Hop on a long trail and hike an end to end

essentially you need to be working towards something you enjoy in your career. Even if that means sacrificing some time outside. with hope comes stress relief. If you just hate your job, but spend 100% of your time just climbing (and you aren't going pro anytime soon) then you are never going to change the job situation. if you want a job you enjoy then you'll have to sacrifice for it.

or you need to have a 40 hour a week job (no overtime) which you don't care about, pays the bills, and allows you to climb on the weekends and vacations.

what are you doing still working there? be a monk for a while - save up some money and get your ass working towards what you want to do. Do it before you are married and have kids, because it is soooo much harder to do then. But don't quit your job first. Much easier to look when you have a job already. Suck it up until you find something you like. Seriously. Bills will always be there, jobs won't. This economy is really bad. get a job with less hours, cut your expenses, make it happen. or if you have a career you really want to explore then you are going to have to make sacrifices.

I've been looking for jobs for 6 months in architecture...nothing. I've been looking for 3 months in anything other...nothing.

It is really hard to have trained since 1993 in something I love and not be able to pursue it. It is even harder to be spending massive amounts of time applying for jobs that aren't in my field because I need a paycheck coming in.

besides, if you climbed every day it would lose most of its luster IMO

you work to live. you do not live to work.

do not quit in this economy.

Thanks for all of your help... To be fair-Its half office and half big-box retail and there are days where I have to do laps around the outside of the store to keep from punching random demanding customers... I know this will happen everywhere. I am really not trying to complain but simply searching for a way to cope before something horrible happens with all of this negative energy. Any help is welcome.

Also... I have taken comic relief in The Office... watched it everyday to calm down after working late nights... It was a great way to cope... until I had seen every single episode.... Searching for a new crutch.

You guys rock-keep the ideas/comments coming...