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These "self-righteous" snobs drive me crazy! This isn't the 1950s folks!
If you have a family--especially if you're a married woman--you just can't pull up stakes and leave the situation you're in. Any external responsibilities to which a person is committed has to be factored into the equation.
So...your career is on the rise and your personal life is humming along nicely. You're married with kids in tow, and have settled into a nice neighborhood with a decent school system. THEN...that once promising job turns into a nightmare when management changes and makes your life a living hell. Then what do you do? Your response will depend on whether you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s or beyond. It will also depend on how vested you are geographically.
Sometimes you just have to ride out the "unsavory" until circumstances change. Timing is everything!
...daisy, you don't have to call me names...
...if that career that's 'humming along nicely' and 'that once promising job turns into a nightmare' you can 'ride out the 'unsavory' or you can make a change, that's YOUR choice...
...don't tell me i'm a self righteous' snob because i think leaving a job i obviously hate and being happier is a better choice...stay, even if it 'makes your life a living hell', your choice...
My former FIL was one of those people. He was an account manager for a printing company well into his 70s. He was canned because his company lost a major account that he worked on through a bidding process. He was crestfallen. After he lost his job, he would periodically visit his workplace just "to smell the ink." Once at a family gathering, and during a course of conversation around work, he broke down in tears because he missed it so.
He's in his 80s now and works part time at the deli counter for a regional supermarket. Physically speaking, he's working harder now than he did when he was in printing management. He's a very social guy and really needs human interaction, otherwise he'd go stir-crazy at home.
There are choices other than working or staying at home. You don't need a job to have human interaction.
I read recently that over 50% of a man's happiness during work years is based upon how he is doing at work and whether he feels his work is productive. There are people who are "married" to a company (or government job or military) because of a retirement plan/pension/specialized skills/contract. To say that everyone has a choice of getting up and moving simply doesn't hold any more water than a sieve.
Some of the years I was working for others I had enough time to eat and sleep and do basic shopping and little else. However, I had chosen what I wanted to do, so it was not as big a hardship for me as it might be for others. I do understand that not everyone has the luxury of free time or changing jobs midstream.
Retirement years often coincide with a stage of life where there is reflection and what is known in psych jargon as "working on the inferior functions." Loosely, that often equates to filling in gaps of experience or knowledge, taking on tasks that might have been difficult in earlier life, and becoming a more rounded individual (cupcakes not included). That work can bring great satisfaction and a feeling of fulfillment that might not have been possible during work years. However, that shoe may not fit for some people, and they often decide to return to the jobplace or continue on in some other capacity in their area of comfort or expertise.
Let’s suppose that you’re a professional violinist. You started playing violin at age 5, were recognized as a prodigy in high-school, attended a conservatory on scholarship, and had the rare surfeit of talent to become a professional. For the past 20 years you’ve been employed at the Chicago Philharmonic. Your playing can be heard on several CDs, under celebrated conductors. However, you’re getting tired of the orchestra management, of backbiting colleagues, of the grueling schedule and comparatively low pay. Though a pro, you’re not a superstar soloist, or a household name. You’re just one of a dozen of first violins. And you don’t particularly care for living in Chicago.
This is a dichotomy faced by many professionals who still nominally do what they love, be they physicists at a famous lab, university professors, or even pro athletes.
It’s ill-advised and inadequate to cease playing violin. And why? You love the violin, and are fantastically skilled, having devoted a lifetime to it. And yet, and yet, the drudgery, the stress, the indignities of competitive workaday life… add up. Eventually you start yearning for retirement.
...if that career that's 'humming along nicely' and 'that once promising job turns into a nightmare' you can 'ride out the 'unsavory' or you can make a change, that's YOUR choice...
...don't tell me i'm a self righteous' snob because i think leaving a job i obviously hate and being happier is a better choice...stay, even if it 'makes your life a living hell', your choice...
Wow! You're really a rude conversationalist.
I'm guessing you're a youngish guy with daddy issues showing up to tell the old people how to do it.
Or I suppose you could be an old fart with dementia.
Why not make an effort at disagreeing without condescension? Maybe you'll get the polite responses you want.
I never called you out by name--you revealed yourself
Quote:
...if that career that's 'humming along nicely' and 'that once promising job turns into a nightmare' you can 'ride out the 'unsavory' or you can make a change, that's YOUR choice...
...don't tell me i'm a self righteous' snob because i think leaving a job i obviously hate and being happier is a better choice...stay, even if it 'makes your life a living hell', your choice...
I don't think you are a "self-righteous" snob for taking control of your own life--but I think it's pretty presumptuous to judge someone else by YOUR standards. That's a lot of gall, and it says more about you than the person you're judging.
Everyone is obliged to spend part of their life generating wealth, to live in economic society. When you are retired, you are no longer bound to that trade-off of hours and days of your life.
If you were lucky enough to be who you are and get paid for it, that doesn't give you the right to look down your nose at people who had to sell their soul. And, if you were a huckster and loved it, it's your call whether to be proud of yourself.
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