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10 things that annoy you about work

>> 10 June 2008




Thanks to Ten on Tuesday for prompting this list.


Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun - Colleen C. Barrett

10 things that annoy you about work
  1. Having to drive there: I'd love to be able to work from home. Maybe not every day (I like to see my colleagues from time to time), but most days. I'd be more productive, more flexible, happier.
  2. Responsibility: Either you have it (a little, a lot) or you don't. But when your job description says you have it and your actual job speaks a different reality it's a bit frustrating to say the least.
  3. The creating part: I am in a job where I don't create anything. I don't participate in the betterment, beatifying, beautification or well-being of the world. I sell. And when I close a deal I feel proud I did it, but it's just business. I didn't create, I didn't make the world a better place.
  4. The fun part: I guess this goes with number 3. Since I'm not creating anything, most of the time work is just that: work. It can be challenging, exciting, difficult. But fun is something else.
  5. Team-work: Companies are so big on hashing out every aspect of team-work and we all know by now that Together Everyone Achieves More. Yeah right. The reality looks different. The reality in corporate life is often more like 'an eye for an eye...' and 'everyone fights for themselves'. Silo's are created and team work becomes Time, Energy And Money that noone is willing to spend.
  6. The flexibility part: To keep work interesting I believe that everyone should change jobs every 5 years. This can of course be within the same company. It seems however, that once they got you into a position where you do what they want, they like to keep you there. If you mention that you'd like to do something else, it is immediately considered that you don't like your job, the company and/or your boss.
    And I'm not even going to tell you what happens if you ask for a more flexible work schedule...
  7. Us versus Them: There seems to be a continous war between us (the employees) and them (the bosses/employers). We seem to forget that we're all in the same boat. Your boss has a boss who has a boss who has a boss, who has a CEO who has a shareholder... So instead of separating into groups, working together to Achieve More... would make sense no?
  8. Money: Today's corporate world is not about people anymore. It is all about money. How can we make more money, cut costs, increase our EBITDA? The answer is usually: shift the problem. Create little companies, create different budget, find reasons to cut personnel costs. As long as the stock goes up and the shareholder is happy. What happened to the good old family feeling companies where people were treated as human beings?
  9. The time we spend there: 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. With a break of short weekends and a few weeks of holidays per year. Work and sleep is where we spent most of our time.
  10. Work to live: We all have to work to have a decent life, to pay our mortgage, to be able to buy food, to pay for things we need or like. Without work, no money, without money no life. It is the dependency of this circle that annoys me the most.

4 comments:

Dawn 10 June 2008 at 19:35  

I so agree with you on #7 & 8. Why does there have to be an us and a them??? Why can't everyone work as a team? And why don't we care about people anymore?? Money isn't everything! This is why I stay home. ;-)

Teena in Toronto 11 June 2008 at 03:00  

You are sooo right!

I played too!

Michael L. Gooch, SPHR 11 June 2008 at 06:17  

“A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.”
Ecclesiastes 3:4 NLT

I can tell you straight away that if I work for an organization that doesn’t value having a little fun and fails to see that fun contributes to the bottom line, I will be leaving for somewhere that does. Life is far too short to spend your time—your most valuable resource—whiling away the hours at a depressing, humorless worksite. When I speak of fun, I am not talking about foolishness. I don’t mean walking around in clown suits or shooting each other with water pistols. I also don’t think fun entails mocking or belittling someone. I am talking about two types of fun only. One is engaging in interesting, absorbing, challenging work. The other is simple, pointless fun.
We cannot invent or force fun. It has to be a natural environment. The top managers at the location create this environment. I have had the great pleasure of working with many top managers who had a lot of fun while they worked. When I reflect on the health of the organizations where fun was a natural part of the business, in all cases, the bottom line was solid, business was growing, and retention was high. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs: Cowboy Wisdom for Today’s Business Leaders http://www.michaellgooch.com

Mindful Mimi 11 June 2008 at 09:59  

Dawn,
Good for you that you can stay at home. Not all women can. SAHM have other problems though - like carpet stains I see :-)

Teena,
Saw yours and I so agree with long boring meetings and filing. I hate both. I don't dislike meetings as long as they are productive and not filled with people who like to hear themselves talk.

Michael,
Of course there is a line between fun and foolishness. Where I work there is fun but it seems forced - like they have to have fun or say funny things cause some training guru told them. Our business is growing, retention is quite high but the fun is not a basic part of the company. People often stay because there is nothing else around in this line of business.

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