No Job Is Better Than Working A Shitty Job

[Kennedy 0]

A bad job is worse for your mental health than unemployment - says Aussie study

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AUSTRALIAN research that reveals being miserable in a job is worse for your mental health than being unemployed is making headlines around the world.

A team from the Centre for Mental Health Research at The Australian National University in Canberra analysed data from more than 7000 people to find that jobs offering little control, poor recognition and low pay were at greater risk to mental health than no job at all.

The ANU findings have hit the headlines in more than 100 media outlets around the world including Forbes, Bloomberg, CNN, Time, the UK Express, Toronto Sun, Los Angeles Times and Irish Times.

The research team claim the findings have huge implications for prevailing government social policies that promote “the notion that any job is better than none as work promotes economic as well as personal wellbeing.”
snip...

I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job. I suppose if you've got a steady source to mooch off of, it might not be all that bad. Personally I went without a job for a short time and I hated every minute of it. Lots of job type stresses were worse with no income, I felt like I had no control, and I was bored out of my skull feeling like I wasn't accomplishing anything. I don't know about people on the bottom of the world where toilets flush backwards, but I don't buy it. This just sounds like more spoiled brat "I'm entitled to a free ride" bullshit. Our grandparents had a word for shitty jobs: opportunity. Think about it.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[quade 4]

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I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job.

Depending on the situation, it can be the most emasculating experience short of actually having your balls chopped off.

Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range, the layoffs happen and the only jobs available anywhere in town are minimum wage temp gigs.

Jobs these days are mostly gotten through contacts, but what if all of those people in your area of expertise are back at the company you got laid off from or are also out of a gig?

This happens ALL the time. Trust me.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[metalslug 36]

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I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job.

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Depending on the situation, it can be the most emasculating experience short of actually having your balls chopped off.
...the only jobs available anywhere in town are minimum wage temp gigs

Dreamdancer expressed a similar opinion in a previous thread and took a lot of flak for it.
I'm just sayin'...

[quade 4]

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Dreamdancer expressed a similar opinion in a previous thread and took a lot of flak for it.
I'm just sayin'...

Perhaps those that gave him flak have been fortunate and are simply unaware such things really do happen.

My point is that from a mental, ego, call it what you will point of view, nobody wants to think they've spent the majority of their life working to a certain point only to have to start again at an entry level. Especially when for an older person, an entry level job may not actually be something they can even land. There is a LOT of subtle but rampant prejudice against hiring middle aged workers because the younger 25-year-old managers in charge don't feel comfortable telling a 50-year-old to fetch a cup of coffee or clean the toilets at the Starbucks. It's very complex. Sure it's against the law to discriminate based on age, but when a man in his 50s shows up for a job interview, it's pretty obvious he's not 21 and there's no law that says the guy doing the hiring just felt somebody else was a "better fit" for the company.

Ok, so let's say the guy DOES get the gig . . . he was making 100k in his last job and now has to, among other things, clean the toilets that some kids just messed up and he's doing it for minimum wage.

Do you really think he's not having stress issues?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Belgian_Draft 0]

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I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job.

Depending on the situation, it can be the most emasculating experience short of actually having your balls chopped off.

Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range, the layoffs happen and the only jobs available anywhere in town are minimum wage temp gigs.

Jobs these days are mostly gotten through contacts, but what if all of those people in your area of expertise are back at the company you got laid off from or are also out of a gig?

This happens ALL the time. Trust me.

Sure that happens. However, the person that it happens to has a choice. They can sit around feeling sorry for themselves...or they can work. When a man has bills to pay he needs an income. If at all possible he works to earn his way, does the best he can at whatever job he has, and holds his head high. It is, after all, what a man does. He doesn't say, "That job is too demeaning. I will stay unemployed".

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[nigel99 482]

I don't know how someone can survive long term unemployment. But I do think there is truth in the article.

Quade has touched on some aspects but even good pay can still have a lousy work environment. We tend to place to much emphasis on material wealth in the west and owning big homes and cars etc. Most of us could survive on a lot less money than we "think" we need.

Personally I have been fighting hard to stay on top of the pile in a competitive industry. I have essentially lost the last 10 years of my life to work, missed a huge portion of my kids lives and lost out on a lot of fun. In the past few months I have decided to stop running a business and get my life back. Income will most certainly go down but so will the stress. This means that I had to face the prospect of potentially being un-employed for a couple of months and believe me it was worth the risk. I was fortunate - I was offered 3 jobs within 24 hours of going on the market so the unemployed didn't come to fruition.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[jgoose71 0]

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I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job.

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Depending on the situation, it can be the most emasculating experience short of actually having your balls chopped off.
...the only jobs available anywhere in town are minimum wage temp gigs

Dreamdancer expressed a similar opinion in a previous thread and took a lot of flak for it.
I'm just sayin'...

Dreamdancer probably put a racist twist on it.

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[jgoose71 0]

I think you summed it up pretty well. What's worse for your mental state all depends on the person. What's important to you? Your feeling of self worth or getting your entitlements?

"There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
Life, the Universe, and Everything

[metalslug 36]

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Do you really think he's not having stress issues?

Sure he's got stress, but the stress is only a problem if it exceeds the stress of no income.
Is that what you feel the poll comes down to (i.e. which option has less stress) ?

Put me in the wilderness with no food and I'm pretty sure I'd be stressed ...and I would start hunting.

[BIGUN 1,317]

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Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range,

I would hope that if one has been in the 100k range for the past three decades that they saved enough money and had enough networking contacts that they (alone or with partners) could open their own company and create more jobs.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Kennedy 0]

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Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range,

I would hope that if one has been in the 100k range for the past three decades that they saved enough money and had enough networking contacts that they (alone or with partners) could open their own company and create more jobs.

Or retire. You'd hope for that many years he's been squirreling it away using 401k or some other savings/investment vehicle.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[wmw999 2,452]

I'll bet that in the short run that's absolutely true. You often read about people saying that the best thing that ever happened to them was losing their job; it got them into a new one that was better (or their own business).

In the long run, having a shitty job is going to be better for your financial health, which will probably help your whole family. The long-term unemployed-and-unsupported are generally either homeless or on welfare. Happiness indicators aren't real good as a rule for them, either.

If we were to do away with unemployment insurance, and re-institute the poorhouse, so that people were really scared of even short-term unemployment, hey -- then people would be properly scared. Public flogging would help, too

But as long as basic safety, life, and shelter are fairly well covered, happiness and satisfaction are going to be important to people.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[chutem 0]

I guess the moral of the story is crappy jobs suck.

The level of preceived suck varies from individual to individual. It's usually not hard to find someone who has it worse no matter how much you think it sucks.

Given two equally qualified applicants I'll hire the one working the crap job with a good attitude over the unemployed one.

James

[Amazon 7]

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Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range,

I would hope that if one has been in the 100k range for the past three decades that they saved enough money and had enough networking contacts that they (alone or with partners) could open their own company and create more jobs.

Or retire. You'd hope for that many years he's been squirreling it away using 401k or some other savings/investment vehicle.

Have you actually checked on the realities of that.

Your fellow Americans on Main Street have lost TRILLIONS on that Wall Street generated rip off. But sure.. go ahead and turn over all the SS to them as well.. There are a few thousand more Wall Street types willing to become billionaires at the expense of millions of Americans.

[marks2065 0]

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Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range,

I would hope that if one has been in the 100k range for the past three decades that they saved enough money and had enough networking contacts that they (alone or with partners) could open their own company and create more jobs.

Or retire. You'd hope for that many years he's been squirreling it away using 401k or some other savings/investment vehicle.

Have you actually checked on the realities of that.

Your fellow Americans on Main Street have lost TRILLIONS on that Wall Street generated rip off. But sure.. go ahead and turn over all the SS to them as well.. There are a few thousand more Wall Street types willing to become billionaires at the expense of millions of Americans.

Only the strong survive. those with weak minds and no willpower will suffer. It is the way it has always been and always will be. so either get off your ass and make a life for yourself or watch your life waste away.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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I don't see how working a shitty job can be worse than not having any job.

As long as you have enough money in the bank:

Having a CEO who does not listen to facts, forbids people with decades of experience from doing their jobs (the experienced who hadn't been forced out or quit ignored him while we could and put up with his tirades, the inexperienced made messes which took months to clean up and got competent people with VP titles but no authority due to dotted line reporting structures blamed for it and demoted), and spends an hour plus of your time each day on meetings which accomplish nothing although he gets to incorrectly tell you "you're wrong" leading to your co-workers comment "I've never seen your ears turn red before" (literally) is worse than having no job.

Management asking you to work on non-revenue generating trivialities for over a year putting a key feature on the back burner until it was realized it was "the most important thing in the company" at which point your Gantt chart showing nine man months of work is irrelevant "we're not going to have the whole company working on it" and it needs to be done as soon as possible at which point you work 105 hours a week for months only taking a break for a few beers Thursday nights and to take your wife out to dinner twice. After that it's determined to be taking too long and work re-starts from a couple of guys' prototype duplicating what you demonstrated to the board over a year ago. Then the company spends over a man year making that work with you cleaning up the messes which had already been addressed. Worse than no job.

The CEO probably having an affair in a different state, opening an office there so he could spend more time with her, and hiring an executive team out there which built their own team out there, forbid the original group's participation in the hiring process after they had the audacity to ask a "senior" candidate technical questions, hired a bunch of incompetent people, and put a guy with no experience beyond his PhD in charge who wrote one white paper in over a year in when everyone else was working 60+ hour weeks. The west coast team had a secret plan to create a new product which bypassed the senior members of the original team and was announced the day after they laid off half the company, cancelled the original product we'd been working on 60-80 hours a week for two years, and gave me another 50,000 stock options to stay. Before that tempers were fairly mercurial and the CEO made my manager (a guy) cry. People got divorced from the stress, lots of people saw shrinks, one guy had night terrors and couldn't work for a year, another guy quit the business and became a real-estate agent, and everyone in my group who wasn't laid off quit. Worse than no job.

I did get the satisfaction of the original CEO telling me I'd been right about the new hires taking over when I visited him in his corner office where he'd assumed window watching responsibilities (mostly playing video games because he'd been replaced but not fired).

This ignores lesser issues, like spending 20 hours a week for two months dealing with an off-shore group "just as smart as you guys are" to get 2 weeks work done and cleaning up their messes in addition to doing your work. Or executives moving from a facility with offices for the employees to one next to a golf course without where it gets so loud you can't hear yourself thing and people scream at their co-workers to shut the fuck up.

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I suppose if you've got a steady source to mooch off of, it might not be all that bad.

Prudent financial planning dictates having at least six months of living expenses in the bank although a year plus is better. Every few decades if the stress gets too much too soon to get a new job whilst still working you quit, keep skydiving and dining out, eat anti-depressants like candy, and find a new job.

[quade 4]

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Only the strong survive. those with weak minds and no willpower will suffer.

I'd agree in times where the actual unemployment rate is hovering around 4-5%. This is not the case today. "Good jobs" are difficult to come by for even the best trained and motivated people.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Andrewwhyte 1]

For those who voted no:
Would you prefer to be a prostitute rather than unemployed? How about your daughter or son?

[marks2065 0]

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Only the strong survive. those with weak minds and no willpower will suffer.

I'd agree in times where the actual unemployment rate is hovering around 4-5%. This is not the case today. "Good jobs" are difficult to come by for even the best trained and motivated people.

Sorry I dissagree with you, long term unemployment is 100% the fault of the person. I am not someone special nor do I have a college degree, but the only time I have been unemployed for more than 2 weeks is from my own doing. I have found jobs in 3 resessions within days of looking. The job may have not been to my liking but I refuse to lower myself to that of a begger or someone that sucks the system on welfare or unemployment.

[masterblaster72 0]

I have a brother-in-law that would vote yes to this question. He's been out of steady work for years now, and he's too proud to take a job driving a truck or mopping floors.

My father worked two menial full-time jobs to make ends meet for our family when I was a kid, before he started his own landscaping business. I've noticed many times that the more generations further someone is from first generation immigrant in this country, the more entitled that person feels to privileges that must be EARNED by hard work.

I was recently unemployed too, only lasted a couple weeks before I found something new, fortunately for me as I'm not that great an interviewer. Those couple of weeks ate me up inside as I have not been out of a job in ten years. I hope never to be unemployed again until I retire or hit the lottery.

Be humble, ask questions, listen, learn, follow the golden rule, talk when necessary, and know when to shut the fuck up.

[Waldschrat 0]

Sadly nothing new + more stress if you can see at the increase of suicide, depression and psychotic sicknesses..

Humans are not mechanics.

[Bolas 5]

Wow, I didn't know we work for the same company.

The only thing saving me is I get OT after 40 but the rest of that is spot on.

My standard response to stupid projects and request is to question them and get enough info out of them to show them why it won't work and offer alternatives. I continue this until they agree or I get a Nike email "Just do it." At that point I save the message, do it how they want it done, and if and when it breaks, use the email as my CYA.
I've always been of the opinion that if companies would just atate to their employees what they were trying to do and why, they'd get much better results.

Of course first, they'd have to be willing to admit if they were basing the orginal request off of a flawed data model, which is often the case.

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[champu 1]

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Imagine working for a company for a couple or three decades at the 100k range,

I would hope that if one has been in the 100k range for the past three decades that they saved enough money and had enough networking contacts that they (alone or with partners) could open their own company and create more jobs.

Or retire. You'd hope for that many years he's been squirreling it away using 401k or some other savings/investment vehicle.

Well, even if he or she hasn't been working for that long or doesn't have a long list of contacts to start something up, going from $100K+ to a starbucks gig takes a lack of imagination.

Hopefully the person would have some sort of secondary skill set (think: computer skills, writing, event organization, management) that they use at their job (and are thus current at it) that can be adapted to an otherwise unrelated field for, say, half what they used to make instead of a quarter or a fifth.