I Love My Job

[Mrs. Utah]

In contrast to Katy's Workplace Gripes-Vent, here this is a thread to tell the Lounge why or what you love about your job.

I know for many there is more that needs to be vented and I am no exception but I realized last week that I work with some of the most amazing people. I am not always convinced I am at a hospital that compensates as well as others, we often work short staffed and with some of the physicians (a minority thankfully) I would rather not deal with. Everything, classes, mandatory meetings etc are scheduled for the day people and the night shifters just have to put up with it. Irritating yes, but I would would never not work nights because of the people I work with.
Some physicians have pointed out to the powers that be what an amazing staff we have at night. We are all great friends and generally work seamlessly. The more chaotic the better we are. Its not terribly uncommon to have a train wreck roll in (usually one who has not called her doctor, if she has one, and generally does not speak English) That patient may take the efforts of two or three nurses leaving the rest of the floor to whichever nurse (or if we are lucky nurses) left. This just happened. Three nurses had to take on the emergent patient and I took the remaining four actively laboring patients plus another non English speaker that walked in the door. As chaotic as it was it all worked, we worked. Hard to explain but I am so thankful for all of my cohorts. (I also think we are all a little bit nuts, which helps. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

We do have down times and I laughed when I was reading in Katy's thread about the birthday cakes in the workplace. Generally when someone's birthday is celebrated someone usually bakes something homemade. Or they just set up a whole buffet. One night I taught a co worker how to make guacamole because she had never had it before. One of our housekeepers (and sometimes Spanish interpreter) noticed that I will start drinking coffee at 0500 so I can drive home safely and just started making me a fresh pot at 0500. Just because. That is just the norm for me now, working with the most amazing people. Great nurses, great teachers, great friends. And we laugh... a lot. Too much I think sometimes.

So Loungers...what is it that you love about your job? Is it what you do? Who you work with? Your paycheck? Leaving at the end of the day?

[dvh]

What i truly love about my job is the creativity and freedom I am afforded to reach our company goals. It makes me feel as if I am the only person who can do it. FWIW I am a PGA Golf Professional and Facility GM for a hotel/ golf course combo.

[dcasper70]

My boss thinks I'm an indispensable genius
He has no problem if I skip out after lunch for a round of golf, as long as he comes along
I get 38 days off a year
Rarely any overtime
Workload is pretty easy 80% of the time
4 miles from home
Did I mention the 38 days?

When the work does pick up, it's usually pretty challenging and I can dictate how I'm going to do what needs to be done. My users/clients are not very computer saavy, so it really doesn't take much to impress their socks off.

Makes for a nice and cushy existence.

[bogey1]

Meh, it's work. I like it (software programming), but the people running the businesses rarely understand the nature of software. If you're running a construction company, you'd damn well better understand basic facts of construction. Foundations don't set in an hour...

But people running software-centric companies have no flucking clue about anything related to software. That's why you get so many companies that ramp up for 3 years...the crash and burn. They've built up a house of cards with running a company in a way that can't match the way software has to actually be built.

So, it's often a frustrating business, but at it's core, I like making things go and solving puzzles.

[SL__72]

What do you do? Is your company hiring? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[tuq]

dvh, interesting. I thought most people in the golf industry were disgruntled and (in their opinion) underpaid.

I like that I set my own hours, get left alone as long as I'm reaching my goals, and like dcasper if something like a golf tournament presents itself I can generally fit it in.

But also in what I do (recruiting) I like that the whole point is to provide an improvement to someone's career, at no cost to them. Pretty easy sell if you're representing a company at which people like to work. And I like most of the people/candidates I have gotten to know over the years, some of them I now consider friends.

[Bostaevski]

I am an Applications Developer and I work for an Organ Procurement Organization. I came here after 6 years at Microsoft (which I hated).

When I first started it was pretty bizarre. I mean we essentially deal, on a daily basis, in death. But then there is this whole other side where we have people trying like hell to save lives and I get to feel like I'm at least a small part of that. Everybody I work with is passionate about what they do - hey this is a non-profit so I don't think anyone is in it for the money. Contrary to my experience at Microsoft... there are zero slackers here. Also there are no a-holes.

Sometimes we'll have these all-hands meetings. At the end of the meetings, somebody from the Family Services dept will get up to read a letter. These would be letters from, for example, a donor's mother to the recipient of her son's heart. Or maybe from the heart recipient to the family of the donor. As that person is going to the front of the room, out come the tissue boxes. It is hard to not get choked up.

As for my role I usually do alot of data reporting, database design, web applications, etc. I get a great deal of freedom to take on the projects that I want to do, and implement them the way I want as well.

Don't get paid what I would be in the for-profit sector, but we get other sweet benefits:
37-hour work week (off every Friday at 1 pm).
They match my 401k (actually a 403b) dollar-for-dollar up to 7% of my salary.
This year we have 17 paid holidays off.
I am accruing 23 days of PTO right now... on my 2-year anniversary in September that will bump to 30 days (6 weeks vacation!)
They close the office early all the time (i.e. Nice weather, office closes at 2 pm today).

[TheDudeAbides]

Mrs. U et al - I'm jealous and, to be honest, a little bit depressed. I despise my job and quite frankly the only part of it I like it leaving at the end of the day. I don't want to derail this thread by griping (there's another thread for that), but maybe this will be the kick in the ass I need to get motivated and find a job that I love.

[katyseagull]

Wow, Mrs.U...I thought your job sounded great before you ever posted this thread. Now I'm really jealous! You have the coolest job ever, delivering babies.

I wish I could post something good about my job but at the moment I'm sort of in TheDudeAbides situation. I remember at one time thinking my coworkers were really nice [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. Anyway, I will just sit here and enjoy reading what the rest of you guys have to say.

(I'm curious what Mat and Ryan like best about their jobs. hopefully they will pop in and post)

[tuq]

Dude,

It's funny, I deal with that all the time - people whose situations suck but not quite bad enough to make a move. "The devil that they know" keeps them around and miserable way longer than it should.

In these situations the best thing to happen is generally a forced exit - getting laid off or canned. Then you have no choice but to find another job. And I can think of countless times where people have gotten the ax only to go on and get a better/higher paying/shorter commute job somewhere else, but they NEVER would have had the motivation to make that move if their hand wasn't forced.