Does anyone else get sick at the thought of working for the next 40 years?

WhiteMemento9

Pkiernan wrote: »

Best part is paying 54% tax to pay for the long term layabouts!

I answered you and you didn't answer me? Why no bite back? The bully gets engaged by someone who they don't feel comfortable engaging with and they retreat. Come on, give it to me, I want this conversation.

Pac1Man

Out of the house at least 12 hours a day including a three and a half hour commute on a good day doing something I have no passion for and yet have no fuel left (drive) to do anything about it!

The thoughts of plodding along for the next 30+ years is horrifying! We are strange creatures.

Conservatory

Pac1Man wrote: »

Out of the house at least 12 hours a day including a three and a half hour commute on a good day doing something I have no passion for and yet have no fuel left (drive) to do anything about it!

The thoughts of plodding along for the next 30+ years is horrifying! We are strange creatures.

Surely they will create jobs eventually in the commuter towns. Maybe if commuter town folk stopped spending money in Dublin industry would start happening in their area.

endacl

dense wrote: »

We can't all be supervisors.

Yeah we can.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/

:pac:

wakka12

To the people saying you just don't like your job if you feel that way . I like my job, but I hate that my life feels like my job. I work pretty normal hours, 9-5.30, but along with commute, generally being tired and hungry and making food after work and needing a good sit down and rest,shower and getting to bed early enough at 11 to be well rested, it feels as though I nearly have no free time basically, even the free hours just feel like preparation for the next day of work. And of course trying to fit in a gym session when possible despite being exhausted but then if I don't I just get fat quickly due to my sedentary office job

I can't even imagine how people balance this along with having children??
I find it miserable, I am only just starting out in my career and funnily enough Ive been thinking like the OP a lot the last while, how can I possibly stick this for the rest of my ENTIRE life. But then I think, my father and every one else I know put up with it for their entire life and they seem pretty happy and I must just be a self centre ungrateful twat

I just think overall society has such a poor division of work and play. I know it sounds so first world problem , I have a nice home, nice things, and a nice job that so many would kill for, but whats the point of it all if you so rarely get to enjoy any of the nice things life has to offer? Its just all a bit depressing

I also make decent wage, enough for plenty of disposable income, yet Im still not happy, I don't know how Id possibly stick the job if I was just scraping by just about affording rent, only enough left over for eating beans on toast for dinner, nothing left to buy anything nice on weekend. But thats the reality for plenty, I feel nearly sickened by how ungtrateful I am after writing this post!Maybe Ill mature and my mindset will change, I hope..

wakka12

Id love if work was 4 days a week. And we started a bit earlier, like 8.30, with just a 15 min lunch. Then worked 6 solid hard hours,no social media,chatting, fooling around, finish at around 2.30. How ****ing nice would that be? Though I wonder if that situation ever occurred we would just want more and more time off..People way back when worked all hours didnt they, i honestly know nothing about this topic but just remember from history class in school people just got like religious days off as holidays and only had one day on sunday as weekend, worked pretty much their whole life with absolutely no quality of life, and our current lifestyle was just fairytale fantasy

shakeitoff

wakka12 wrote: »

Id love if work was 4 days a week. And we started a bit earlier, like 8.30, with just a 15 min lunch. Then worked 6 solid hard hours,no social media,chatting, fooling around, finish at around 2.30. How ****ing nice would that be? Though I wonder if that situation ever occurred we would just want more and more time off..People way back when worked all hours didnt they, i honestly know nothing about this topic but just remember from history class in school people just got like religious days off as holidays and only had one day on sunday as weekend, worked pretty much their whole life with absolutely no quality of life, and our current lifestyle was just fairytale fantasy

Someone should get the poster Wibbs in on this but afaik that's just from the Industrial Revolution, before that, most free people had a lot of their own time, the alienation of self began with onset of IR.

WhiteMemento9

dense wrote: »

Automation is apparently coming down the tracks which would leave one wondering how exactly we are to survive without the jobs we sometimes hate.

We can't all be supervisors.

Those problems are complex, with a number of things we need to think about as a society. My fears around them are the people making the decisions don't have peoples best interest at heart.

WhiteMemento9

wakka12 wrote: »

To the people saying you just don't like your job if you feel that way . I like my job, but I hate that my life feels like my job. I work pretty normal hours, 9-5.30, but along with commute, generally being tired and hungry and making food after work and needing a good sit down and rest,shower and getting to bed early enough at 11 to be well rested, it feels as though I nearly have no free time basically, even the free hours just feel like preparation for the next day of work. And of course trying to fit in a gym session when possible despite being exhausted but then if I don't I just get fat quickly due to my sedentary office job

I can't even imagine how people balance this along with having children??
I find it miserable, I am only just starting out in my career and funnily enough Ive been thinking like the OP a lot the last while, how can I possibly stick this for the rest of my ENTIRE life. But then I think, my father and every one else I know put up with it for their entire life and they seem pretty happy and I must just be a self centre ungrateful twat

I just think overall society has such a poor division of work and play. I know it sounds so first world problem , I have a nice home, nice things, and a nice job that so many would kill for, but whats the point of it all if you so rarely get to enjoy any of the nice things life has to offer? Its just all a bit depressing

I also make decent wage, enough for plenty of disposable income, yet Im still not happy, I don't know how Id possibly stick the job if I was just scraping by just about affording rent, only enough left over for eating beans on toast for dinner, nothing left to buy anything nice on weekend. But that's the reality for plenty, I feel nearly sickened by how ungrateful I am after writing this post! Maybe Ill mature and my mindset will change, I hope..

You are right. It feels like first world problem but it all feeds back into the same problem of letting too many ***** make the decisions. We all love to be logical as people because we value that in society. We rarely seem to be able to apply that in a meaningful way to the world around us. Let me give you a logical equation. We have one of the biggest groups of people in modern history in America.

We have this guy Trump. I think most logical people would agree he is one of the most repulsive human beings you could have in your sphere as a person. Somehow we have a large group of people that are so disenfranchised, downtrodden, conditioned, lacking empathy etc that they think this is the leader to change things. How sick is the society we have created that this is even possible? I pick out this example because it resonances with people but the whole of the world is messed up. We let bad people run the show.

mvl

Nope, no discomfort at all at the thought that I may need to work until I afford to retire. Comparing work life balance with other countries/continents, I've chosen to live in an European country: the hours are not mad, and actually I could reduce them if I wanted to. - I work in private sector myself.

Can have the odd thought that my current job type won't be needed in ** years (cause of how do they call that, technological disruption that would threat the jobs of more of us). But I guess I'll figure something out before that happens.

I think sometimes people need to (re)find their purpose in life.

Rikand

Pussyhands wrote: »

I was thinking of this but for some reason I feel like I'd need an awful amount of money.

I'm currently saving about 15k a year but i live very frugally. 60k in bank.

I was thinking of buying an apartment in the city and making some money with the price increases but feels risky when I don't plan on living there all my life.

Though I would like to go travelling for a year and having the apartment would allow the mortgage to be paid off at the same time.

The dream is having something to bring in 20k a year passively.

How much would one need to retire around 40? New cars don't matter. Haha

Easy enough to work out I suppose.

Pick a figure that you think you'd be able to live on for a year comfortably. Say 25k.

Multiply that by your expected life expectency minus your current age. Life= 80? So 80-40 = 40.

Multiply them together

40*25k = what you need to have

And that 25k can of course include pre built incomes like private pension and of course state pension when it becomes active but at least now you have a figure in your head

paw patrol

while I can never say I'm wrecked at the weekends I understand the rest of how you feel.

I'm 20years in prob 25 years to go OP and tbh it doesn't get any better.

WhiteMemento9

paw patrol wrote: »

while I can never say I'm wrecked at the weekends I understand the rest of how you feel.

I'm 20years in prob 25 years to go OP and tbh it doesn't get any better.

Why are you still doing it then? I understand the need to survive and to do that you need to work. I just don't think we have found a good balance for people. Why are more people not questioning it all though? Why are we not out on the street saying, **** this crap, things need to be different?

WhiteMemento9

looksee wrote: »

You are assuming that life is going to go on the way it is at the moment. It is very unlikely to do that, you never know what is round the corner, good or bad.

Live for the moment (with reasonable consideration for ambition, retirement, things to look forward to etc) - by that I mean work at making life as enjoyable as you can, with outside interests and doing your best with the job you have, while keeping an eye out to change if you need to. Be willing to grab any opportunity, or make serious change, that comes up. Don't try and anticipate what 10 years ahead will be like.

Its absolutely natural, and too easy, to see life as a great shapeless blob of boring existence in front of you, rather than being depressed by it do your best to live with and also improve your situation. Take a chance, follow opportunity. If nothing else, go out on these long evenings and enjoy the sunshine, go for a walk, head for the countryside or the beach from work.

I was thinking about this post a little bit so wanted to reply. I think you have a good attitude. If you are reasonably smart, apply yourself, engage in life and block out much of the noise with an understanding towards the things that actually fulfil you then you can put up with the crap as the other side of life is great. The difficulty is that it breaks me inside to see people struggle with this world. They are getting all the wrong messages from who we hold up as the right people. You can say people make their own choices and they need to lie in that bed but that is just not true. Anyone with intelligence and empathy understands that. As a wiser man than me once said, all it takes for bad people to do bad things is for good people to stand by and say nothing.

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Wanderer78

WhiteMemento9 wrote:

Why are you still doing it then? I understand the need to survive and to do that you need to work. I just don't think we have found a good balance for people. Why are more people not questioning it all though? Why are we not out on the street saying, **** this crap, things need to be different?

Something is wrong alright, I do suspect there's many workers deeply unhappy with life, it's partly themselves though, and partly our societal make up, the wage slave approach isn't working very well for many, we must change this. The debates of things such as ubi etc are interesting to see pop up, it ll be interesting to see if anything comes of such ideas

witchgirl26

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I'm in internal audit. It's a good variety of work. That said I have friends who would hate what I do. I was lucky in discovering what I like early enough in my career. I'm not all about career but it's enabled me to travel with work (not always as fun as it seems) and have money to do the things I want.

WhiteMemento9

witchgirl26 wrote: »

I'm in internal audit. It's a good variety of work. That said I have friends who would hate what I do. I was lucky in discovering what I like early enough in my career. I'm not all about career but it's enabled me to travel with work (not always as fun as it seems) and have money to do the things I want.

Do you have a passion for the work, or are you just satisfied at being good at something? People who hate what they do, generally I find can't separate that while it may not be a real passion, you can find enjoyment at completing something, being good at it and the satisfaction that comes from that place. I will say that while I think you can make work bearable by telling yourself these half truths, it eventually takes it toll. Hence why we have so many people hopping from job to job to job. Maybe though internal auditing is a real passion for you though. People are weird and wonderful and I hope that is truly the case.

randomrb

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I work as a trainee solicitor and most of my day is reading through files, many people would find that intolerably dull but I enjoy it and it is never the same each day. The point of all this is not finding a job that other people think is interesting but that you enjoy doing

WhiteMemento9

randomrb wrote: »

I work as a trainee solicitor and most of my day is reading through files, many people would find that intolerably dull but I enjoy it and it is never the same each day. The point of all this is not finding a job that other people think is interesting but that you enjoy doing

For many people though that isn't easy. You are lucky to be born with drive, intelligence and all that good stuff. Well done you on finding something that makes you happy and you find interesting. Do you ever consider the people doing awful stuff that they hate, killing themselves doing things they hate just to keep the head above water or do you look around the world and think things are exactly as they should be? I ask not from a place of judgement but just interested in what other people think about these things. Like in that job you will see incredibly immoral people, would you question those things or just go along cause . . .

C3PO

Pussyhands wrote: »

Doing the same thing. I mean, getting up early in the morning, doing a full days work, giving away the best hours of the day. Coming back, not really being able to do anything major.

Weekends spent trying to rest as you're bollixed from the week.

20 days off a year.

Stuck at a desk all day, probably leading to health problems later on.

The hope of not doing it keeps me going but deep down the likliehood is I'll have to keep working.

Given that your only in your 20's, now is the time to make a change! Once you get a mortgage, married, kids etc it becomes much more difficult to make radical moves. Realistically you could be 70 before you qualify for a state pension the way things are going and doing something you hate for nearly another 50 years is a terrible prospect!
But it won't just appear - you will need to go and get it! What qualifications do you have, do you need to retrain? You need to make it happen!

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WhiteMemento9

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Work is not you. It just isn't the case that everyone is going to end up doing something which they truly passionate about. If you are not lucky enough to find something which you can work at and which fulfils part of you then you have to find something which works for you. Something which can facilitate you engaging with all the things that you are passionate about away from work. Maybe one of them turns into your work if you are extremely lucky. That should only be part of your life though, even if it is a real passion.

This thread though is about how we have created a system which isn't allowing any of that. People work far too much to be able to enjoy the other side of life. The things that people do all this work for aren't what actually makes you happy. It leads to a cycle of working more, thinking more money will lead to things getting better. Work becomes all consuming and you get lost in the humdrum of the world and life becomes hard, really hard. People need more freedom.

ongarboy

I think a poor assumption is also being made that what you are doing right now at work is exactly what you'll be doing for the next 40 years.  This is a way off base assumption to make. Ideally, people should be able to progress in a job and therefore allow new and better and different opportunities to happen for them (promotion, expanded role and more interesting challenges and varieties) or using those skills and experiences to move to a different more desirable job elsewhere.  If you are in a job that doesn't offer that and you are unhappy about it, then you need to rethink what your priorities are for the future and retrain/reskill/upskill for a role that will appeal more to you. 

Whinging about it yet doing nothing to change it is a self defeating prophecy.  In an era where we are blessed to be approaching full employment (latest CSO figures have the official unemployment rate down to 5.3% - the lowest since the Celtic Tiger), there are tonnes of opportunities and vacancies out there to do something different and make such a big leap.
Also, this notion that you should be able to retire at 50, well and good if you can afford to do so from your own funds but if you are expecting the tax payer to fund it, dream on.  How can the state and tax payer afford to subsidize 40+ year pensions as people live longer if they stop working at 50?  We would be left with a situation with more people retired than at work. How would that be funded from such diminishing tax returns?
If OP is someone who doesn't like work period and would rather sit around watching day time TV every day then I expect, should that happen, we'll see a new thread from them titled "Does anyone else get sick of the thought of watching Judge Judy, Ireland AM and Home and Away for the next 40 years?"

shesty

To the OP - you are in prime "Quarter life crisis" territory, I'd say. Sounds mad, but I went through it myself, and have heard more and more people going through it in recent years. You've been told your whole life what happens next - the next year's class, secondary school, Junior Cert, Leaving cert, then college (for most people), final year, graduation....and then it stops. And you come out and after a couple of years of work you're asking yourself...."is this it?is this all there is?" .It's a big huge adjustment, and probably a function of how our education system and society operates, but that's another conversation.

At your age I was asking myself the same questions...practically had a slight breakdown as a result. And then I got over it, got back to work and decided ...this wouldn't be it. And then the recession happened, and we all know how that went. I lost my job, for a year. Puts a bit of perspective on things alright.Spent a year thinking about what the hell else I wanted to do, and didn't really have any solutions - but I knew what I definitely did NOT want to do, which was sitting in an office cubicle all day long.Admittedly I made a choice of career that facilitated that to a certain degree, because I knew that back in college. (civil engineering)....but there were no jobs.

Anyway, the point is, if you aren't happy in what you are doing, you start thinking about what happens next. I have another good 30 years work ahead of me and there's no way I'm going to be in the same job for 30 years. Possibly not even the same career. I quite like my current job and would happily stay there for maybe - 10 years. And I'm not sure what happens then. But life has thrown a lot at me in the last 5/6 years, and I've grabbed a couple of opportunities that led me into all sorts of places (not all good) workwise, and it's taught me that you actually never really know what happens next. But you have to go out and grab it, and not wait for it to come to you.

You ask how people balance this and kids. Well, it's very hard (I'm doing it) but there's one thing I will say - kids make you re-evaluate everything. I mean everything. It's hard to make change, but having kids can force you into it - be it forcing you to improve your fitness so that you are around for them, and give them good example, forcing you to move job so you see more of them, forcing you to change career so you can suit you and your partner's hours to fit family life. Some of it is bad, some of it is good, but change happens. You quickly realise, if you haven't already, that money is not everything - to me, time is everything. I can't buy time back, but I can always find ways to earn more money (in theory).

You need to change your focus. Stop focusing on work and focus on outside work .Can you change your hours to fit an early/evening exercise class? Can you join a team sport to drag you out once a week? Can you pre-cook meals so you don't have to cook every evening? Can you finish early on a Friday and go somewhere - surfing, hiking, football, a trip, whatever. You need to make things more interesting, so you have things to look forward to, and there's no harm thinking about what you might do in work in the longer term. But sometimes you don't see that until you've done the crap bit for the short term first.

theyoungchap

I have no intention of working for 40 years. We are deliberately saving like crazy, live a very modest life, in the HOPE that we will be retired by 60 at the absolute latest.
F this working till your 70 just to live a flashy lifestyle.

Tom Dunne

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

People need more freedom.

But do you think people also need to take personal responsibility for their own fate?

There is not a day I don't wake up thinking that I am a very privileged, middle-aged man, who is exceptionally lucky to be where I am today, in a job that I genuinely love (most days!) and where I get to make a measurable difference in people's lives.

But then I also think, f**k it, I've worked really hard, I really have busted by behind to get where I am today. I was dreaming of this job since I was in my 20's, and while luck played a part in it, a lot of it was down to my own drive and determination. And I am extremely lucky to have achieved it, I never lose sight of that.

Maybe I am the eternal optimist, but I firmly believe there is something out there for everyone, there is something that you can spend your days doing that doesn't suck the life out of you. The trick is in finding it.

Wanderer78

Tom Dunne wrote: »

But do you think people also need to take personal responsibility for their own fate?

There is not a day I don't wake up thinking that I am a very privileged, middle-aged man, who is exceptionally lucky to be where I am today, in a job that I genuinely love (most days!) and where I get to make a measurable difference in people's lives.

But then I also think, f**k it, I've worked really hard, I really have busted by behind to get where I am today. I was dreaming of this job since I was in my 20's, and while luck played a part in it, a lot of it was down to my own drive and determination. And I am extremely lucky to have achieved it, I never lose sight of that.

Maybe I am the eternal optimist, but I firmly believe there is something out there for everyone, there is something that you can spend your days doing that doesn't suck the life out of you. The trick is in finding it.

unfortunately theres forces continuously at work slowly reducing peoples options in life, we have very little control of these forces

WhiteMemento9

ongarboy wrote: »

I think a poor assumption is also being made that what you are doing right now at work is exactly what you'll be doing for the next 40 years.  This is a way off base assumption to make. Ideally, people should be able to progress in a job and therefore allow new and better and different opportunities to happen for them (promotion, expanded role and more interesting challenges and varieties) or using those skills and experiences to move to a different more desirable job elsewhere.  If you are in a job that doesn't offer that and you are unhappy about it, then you need to rethink what your priorities are for the future and retrain/reskill/upskill for a role that will appeal more to you. 

Whinging about it yet doing nothing to change it is a self defeating prophecy.  In an era where we are blessed to be approaching full employment (latest CSO figures have the official unemployment rate down to 5.3% - the lowest since the Celtic Tiger), there are tonnes of opportunities and vacancies out there to do something different and make such a big leap.
Also, this notion that you should be able to retire at 50, well and good if you can afford to do so from your own funds but if you are expecting the tax payer to fund it, dream on.  How can the state and tax payer afford to subsidize 40+ year pensions as people live longer if they stop working at 50?  We would be left with a situation with more people retired than at work. How would that be funded from such diminishing tax returns?
If OP is someone who doesn't like work period and would rather sit around watching day time TV every day then I expect, should that happen, we'll see a new thread from them titled "Does anyone else get sick of the thought of watching Judge Judy, Ireland AM and Home and Away for the next 40 years?"

The whole thing isn't good though. You are looking at it all with such narrow eyes. Full employment = Successful society. Let's not give a crap that the majority of people are struggling doing horrible jobs to get by. We have the same cycle repeating from the last implosion, rent prices in Dublin, homeless crisis, etc. I could tell tales out of school about the absolute moral bankruptcy of some of these companies that have moved into Ireland. They don't care about us. The care about the money and what they can take from people, not all but many. You can't just look at the individual, you need to think bigger.

WhiteMemento9

shesty wrote: »

To the OP - you are in prime "Quarter life crisis" territory, I'd say. Sounds mad, but I went through it myself, and have heard more and more people going through it in recent years. You've been told your whole life what happens next - the next year's class, secondary school, Junior Cert, Leaving cert, then college (for most people), final year, graduation....and then it stops. And you come out and after a couple of years of work you're asking yourself...."is this it?is this all there is?" .It's a big huge adjustment, and probably a function of how our education system and society operates, but that's another conversation.

At your age I was asking myself the same questions...practically had a slight breakdown as a result. And then I got over it, got back to work and decided ...this wouldn't be it. And then the recession happened, and we all know how that went. I lost my job, for a year. Puts a bit of perspective on things alright.Spent a year thinking about what the hell else I wanted to do, and didn't really have any solutions - but I knew what I definitely did NOT want to do, which was sitting in an office cubicle all day long.Admittedly I made a choice of career that facilitated that to a certain degree, because I knew that back in college. (civil engineering)....but there were no jobs.

Anyway, the point is, if you aren't happy in what you are doing, you start thinking about what happens next. I have another good 30 years work ahead of me and there's no way I'm going to be in the same job for 30 years. Possibly not even the same career. I quite like my current job and would happily stay there for maybe - 10 years. And I'm not sure what happens then. But life has thrown a lot at me in the last 5/6 years, and I've grabbed a couple of opportunities that led me into all sorts of places (not all good) workwise, and it's taught me that you actually never really know what happens next. But you have to go out and grab it, and not wait for it to come to you.

You ask how people balance this and kids. Well, it's very hard (I'm doing it) but there's one thing I will say - kids make you re-evaluate everything. I mean everything. It's hard to make change, but having kids can force you into it - be it forcing you to improve your fitness so that you are around for them, and give them good example, forcing you to move job so you see more of them, forcing you to change career so you can suit you and your partner's hours to fit family life. Some of it is bad, some of it is good, but change happens. You quickly realise, if you haven't already, that money is not everything - to me, time is everything. I can't buy time back, but I can always find ways to earn more money (in theory).

You need to change your focus. Stop focusing on work and focus on outside work .Can you change your hours to fit an early/evening exercise class? Can you join a team sport to drag you out once a week? Can you pre-cook meals so you don't have to cook every evening? Can you finish early on a Friday and go somewhere - surfing, hiking, football, a trip, whatever. You need to make things more interesting, so you have things to look forward to, and there's no harm thinking about what you might do in work in the longer term. But sometimes you don't see that until you've done the crap bit for the short term first.

Fair play. That is inspiring stuff with honesty that most people don't seem capable of to themselves let alone people around them.