Pay vs. Happiness 766
itri writes "A co-worker recently sent me and article about job burnout. Although it's a year old, the points seemed to resonate well with me. The nutshell of the article is that job burnout is caused by lack of the sense of accomplishment, working for a narcissistic boss, and a conflict between the employers and employee's values. Is it really better working for a company that cares about your satisfaction? Are there any companies like that and (more importantly) are they hiring?"
Fucking copy/paster (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Nice Try... (Score:1, Informative)
After a long career, I now find myself... Happy! (Score:5, Informative)
Started mid-'80s with minor tech jobs and tech/sales jobs for crappy, now out-of-business retailers (Egghead, ComputerTown, etc.). Got hired by a customer to be their admin, spent 6 utterly frantic, insane years there. I worked at all hours of the day and night, dealt with issues constantly, but I was well-paid, respected, and treated well. I loved it. Went to another job as IT manager for an insurance company, paid a lot more money. Loved it and the people, until we were sucked in by a much bigger insurance company. Their strategic plan for us involved firing half the employees and turning it into a branch office. Lost my job there as one of the first overboard (I was management, after all) in mid-'03 after 5+ years - the first 3 solving problems and running operations, the last two having conference calls with my new boss in Minnesota.
After that thoroughly disheartening experience with The System, I decided to give being my own boss a shot. I hung out my shingle in the spring of '04, and managed to eke out a living for the first year. Now, I wouldn't say my success is assured and I'm not making the kind of bank I used to, but I'm really busy, making a good living, and I love my job. My customers are actually grateful for my work, and they trust me to help steer them in the right directions. The experience I had is a real asset for them. And even if this doesn't work out in the long term, I've learned a lot about myself, learned a lot about business, and gotten the chance to actually use all the tech skills I've piled up over the years instead of rotting from the neck up as a PHB.
The downside? Some weeks I can't find enough hours in the week to do everything, some weeks I hear crickets chirping when I sit in my office. And today was supposed to be a family day to go to a museum with my wife and son, but instead I had to finish a proposal in the morning, and then get called in to a customer about a half-hour from here to fix a server whose power supply had failed (installed before my time and soon to be replaced). But you know - it wasn't too bad. Because the proposal is for a nice bit of business, and that didn't take too long. And the other customer knew that I was giving up my personal time to help and they genuinely appreciated it. And appreciation is something that is often sorely lacking in the salaried, 9-5 world. Crises like that don't happen often, and it just happened to be today.
So basically I'm saying that if you want to be happy, consider working for yourself. It's a much better life (at least for me), and it's nice to at least have some measure of control again. The worst case is you'll learn something in failing. The best case is you get to really be in charge of your career.
Re:WAAAAAAAH! I'M SAD! (Score:2, Informative)
southern france is hot, too. the netherlands famously have very liberal drug laws, and you could expect pretty much everybody to speak excellent english.
eurostat [eu.int] has statistics galore that will give you some hints, but keep in mind to weight the living expenditures against the income.
what you should do, imho, is take a couple of weeks off and travel around a bit. we have cheap airlines [ryanair.com] that will let you get around on a low budget. we also have an excellent railway system [eurail.com], you'd see more that way.
it's not just the working hours (and cheap bandwidth, although it's important, of course) that make for quality of living, but also the food and the people. those are highly individual factors, so going there first before you decide to begin a new life would be a smart investment of the little time and money it would cost you, imho.
Re:Its a matter of perspective (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're mixing your references.
A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. - Hannibal Lecter
Re:Its a matter of perspective (Score:5, Informative)
He's got a point there. I too worked in a factory, and it sucked. I understand that it's hard work and lame pay, but I worked my butt off, moved up the ladder, and now I'm the production manager. I have an office, and it's a decent-paying white collar job.
An acquantiance of mine asked me for a job. I offered him one in the factory. He was instanly dismissive, despite the fact he has NO education, and no work record to incdicate that he would last more than the first paycheck. He complained that he just "needs someone to give him a sweet job". He was less than pleased when I told him that you have to earn those.
I'm not implying anthing negative about the gp, but people don't do things for you. That's the "harsh realistic" truth.
Re:I think its the opposite. High pay = house slav (Score:3, Informative)
The only way to not be a slave is to buy your way out, that is save up enough money that you can live off the interest. How much you need to save depends on what lifestyle you want to have. But there are a number of people that have decided to cash everything in, turn to a minimalist life, and survive off the land & interest from sold assets.
Re:Burnout. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Nope- no companies hiring that can afford to ca (Score:3, Informative)
That's a bit of a simplistic analysis of any massively complex stastistic. All the countries have their own methods of reporting, classification, etc...
For instance, I can see three countries (using 1994 data) on page 6 of this document: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/8/51/2080270.pdf [oecd.org] which exceeded the USA in the category of percentage of workers working more than 45 hours per week; Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom. This is of OECD countries - I'd like to see figures for non-OECD too; I had a discussion about this with a Chinese guy at Uni and he said 7 day work weeks were not uncommon over there. If it comes to that, I've worked a 7 day week two or three times, too.
Re:Why should you.. or anyone care?: Slave Mentali (Score:5, Informative)
37-hour week, though many people put quite a bit more than that in their jobs.
5 weeks of paid holiday. (And a few "extras")
Free schooling through masters level (M.Sc.). You have to get good grades to get into popular studies like humanities, medicine etc. though. Students receive a government grant (not to be repaid) of about $600/mo.
Guaranteed old age pension. I'd recommend topping it off with your own savings though.
OTOH, there's a 180% (one hundred and eighty!) tax on cars, VAT is 25% and if you hit upper middle class income you'll pay about two thirds of your last earned krone in income tax..
Not to mention that even with a well-paying job, the guy flipping burgers isn't that far behind you on the scale. This is of course reflected in the price of your fries.
Thats Germany! (Score:2, Informative)
- 30 paid days on vacation i.e. 6 Weeks
- "free" healthcare 50/50 you, your employer. Thats about 7% of gross income.
- free schooling, free university
- old-age pension, about 10% of gross income (50/50 you, your employer)
- 12-month unemployment insurance (you pay about 5% of your gr. income)
Re:Its a matter of perspective (Score:4, Informative)