We do exactly the same job.
To me the idea of enjoying a job is an odd one: I don’t want to work, I only work because I need the money. If I had money I wouldn’t work.
I don’t know if this makes me the oddest person on earth, but where I am my coworkers sometimes make me feel so.
She asked me if I enjoy my job. I looked at her surprised while thinking to answer her with a regular blanket manager answer like ‘it is such a honor to work here, fuck yeah, I’d love to work here for free!’ or being completely sincere.
I was in a good mood, so I chose being sincere: ‘I don’t enjoy working, I work because I need to pay for the rest of my life, I enjoy cooking, writing poetry and walking through a forest.’
She looked at me a bit surprised and replied: ‘but you have to like your job.’ My answer? ‘As long as I earn money all’s good.’
This happened in a big room with like 9 coworkers hearing the convo.
Now I don’t know if I just committed job suicide where I work at, but it was liberating saying out loud at the workplace what I think a job is.
And why the fixation that you must like a job? It’s a job for fucks sake. Why do you have to like it?
To me this only confirms my current job is a cult. Am I exaggerating?
If every workplace is like this I should stick with the devil I know…
Sometimes I like teaching, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s usually a net positive, but since ChatGPT became a thing it’s becoming a bit of a burden. Either I’m worried about them cheating or I’m noticing each semester the students get worse at thinking for themselves, or both.
It’s a fairly open enrollment university so there’s a pretty low bar for base knowledge and scholarly ability but like… this is something else. I have successfully taught statistics to a 6th grade drop out single mom from Mexico through motivation and patience, but now a 19 year old fresh out of American high school fails the basic logic required of the course and argues when I give them an F over it. Something is very wrong lately and I’m hating it lately.
So I guess the answer is I used to love it and now loathe it? We’ll see next month…