I think the point has almost come where I have had enough with the office jobs. I cannot stand sitting in cubicles pretending to be busy all day. I hate the fact I get paid for the time I spend here, rather than the amount of productivity I provide.
I swear, some weeks I do 40 hours of work and others I do 5. Either way I have to sit here for a minimum of 40 hours just to get a full paycheck. Not exactly the ideal work situation.
Now I know a lot of people may say I wish I had a job like this, which is fine. But honestly, I feel like I am wasting my life away by sitting here bored all day thinking of things I would rather be doing and places I would rather be. Everyone says you only get one shot at life, so why should I spend mine this way.
Sure It Pays Well
I know the job may pay more than other jobs, but I am not a money driven person my any means. Matter of fact, I am sick of the whole rat race. It seems like people here in America keep trying harder and harder to make more money so they can accumulate more stuff they don’t even need.
I barely own anything since I move so often, but I still feel like I own a lot of stuff I don’t need. Things like televisions and cable boxes are something I never need. I barely watch TV, so why have one. I am perfectly happy with the two suitcases I moved out to Hawaii with. A few sets of clothes, my MacBook, and a few other essentials. So in the next few months, I plan to sell more of my stuff. The only tough thing is going to be the car, which I only bought so I could commute to work with.
Time To Say Goodbye
So at some point in the very near future, I am going to kiss this “perfect” job away as some would say. I would rather work a job I enjoy and just be happy with what I have. The only stress in my life is caused by the combination of getting up early, commuting to work, sitting at work, and commuting home from work. Other than that, I am a very outgoing and happy person.
Back in college, I was broke almost the entire time. But you know what, I was never stressed out about anything, not even money. I used to give plasma just to have some beer money to go party with my friends. I lived off of oatmeal and rice and am willing to do it again if necessary. So obviously money is not the problem, but the fact I spend so much of my waking hours at a job that I have no motivation to perform well at.
I Don’t Even Want To Be Promoted
What is even worse about this job is when I look at the people of above me and realize I wouldn’t even want their position. So if you do not even want to move up to your supervisors position, why stick around? I never want to get a promotion or I’ll probably go even more crazy.
I am not real sure exactly what type of job I am looking for just yet. I would like to work outside that is for sure. Maybe a surf stand or cleaning boats or windows, who knows, just anything outside of an office. I used to do freelance work and loved it since I could set my own hours and wages. I also enjoy writing and hope to make some income off of this blog at some point.
Update – 12/7/2012
It’s been more than 4 years since I wrote this post, thought now would be a good time to post a quick update. First off, I am still amazed by how many people have commented on this post!
Over the past 4 years I’ve been self-employed as a web developer. It’s been fun and I have learned a ton about myself as well as business. Believe it or not I sometimes miss working in the office and having co-workers to mingle with.
I’ve realized that I really disliked technical support as a career, which is why I hated my job so much. However, I do enjoy computer programming because it allows you to be more creative when finding solutions to difficult problems.
I guess you just need to keep trying different things until you find something you enjoy.
Photo Credit: darkpatator
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I’ve been reading these posts and feel like the old lady of the bunch. I am 47 and never in million years ever thought I would have had so many jobs with little success. I have a college degree but I hate office work and all the silly politics that are involved. I sometimes watch the people I work with and feel like it’s a mini high school setting with all the back stabbing, tattle-telling and just general nonsense that goes on. I know this goes on pretty much everywhere in the office world but I absolutely have no patience or hope for this line of work anymore. So, I am trying this time around to be thoughtful in my next pursuit. That means not to worry so much about what I get paid but believe enough in what path I take will not only take care of me financially someday but most importantly allow me to feel I’m making a difference while making me feel satified and happy. I keep telling my son to make sure to do in his life what makes him happy and not what family, friends and the rest of the world makes him feel he should do. I encourage all of you youngsters to do the same.
I myself am taking my own advice even though it is scary at this point in my life. You all take care and live your dreams! 
@Rachel: I should’ve taken your advice years ago. I am doing this now.
I can completely relate to everyone. I’ve done this crap for 12 years now and enough is enough. I have GOT to get out of here. I don’t know how people even pretend to be busy in an office all day long. I finish my work in just a few minutes everyday, then sit around and pretend to look busy as I sneak a book at my desk or surf the web. Sometimes I am so bored and antsy that I feel like I might jump out of my skin. I have some ideas that might get me out of the office and I’m working on them, but it doesn’t seem like they can come fast enough.
I have come back from holiday and I am drading being stuck again in the office tomorrow
I feel such a sense of relief to find this, here is my story:
I have a BA in English Literature, the best three years of mind opening education i could hope for, it broadened my mind and i never thought getting on a corporate ladder was the thing for me but i applied for internships to start straight after my degree finished. I got a three month placement at a successful but small and friendly PR company. This lead to a 6 month contract.
I thought GREAT! A job, how lucky am I in this current climate to find something.
Its been 2 months and i have never felt more depressed and creatively unfulfilled in my life. The commute into work on a train full of silent strangers who all look washed up and old (which is how i feel having put on half a stone and getting big dark circles under my eyes), the 9 hour day for a pretty below average starter wage, the banality of my job, IM SO BORED!!!!!! I HATE IT, i actually hate it.
I used to exercise, go to spin classes, go running- now i get home eat and sleep, i have no TIME to look after myself and my body let alone my mind.
My only saviour is my friend at work who is also 22 (everyone else is older) we email each other about how much we hate it and run to make tea so we can complain about everything!
BUT this isnt how my life should be, i have always been such a happy person, so cheery and seeing the best in life, i have always had a curious mind, now i literally repulse what i have become and what i am doing.
I urge everyone to not fret, make a plan and think that YOU CAN DO WHAT EVER YOU WANT! Be positive, make a plan and you have something to look forward to, you are NEVER stuck although you may feel like you are! I have a plan, i am going to stay here to save the (little) money that i am earning, meanwhile i am going to plan my travels as something to pep me up and keep me going, then i am going to QUIT and its going to be the best feeling and the months and months of sitting at a desk will be over and i can start LIVING.
I wish everyone the best of love and i DO NOT wish you success, what is success? a highly paid job?? a promotion?? a position of authority and power??? No way, i wouldn’t wish that for any of you- instead i wish you appetite, appetite for life and living and doing.
Peace
I really like the last part that you wrote – ” DO NOT wish you success, what is success?”
I SO relate to your post. I am an office manager and I rue the day I became one. I’ve been in this position for 5 years (I CAN’T believe it), supporting 7 program managers who can come and go from the workplace at their leisure, while I get chastised for being 10 minutes late and not being tied to the office (I usually come in 5 minutes late, as a form of protest). I took on more responsibility with the same pay, do the same BORING tasks each day, and so often I want to say “Do it yourself” and “Go away, I can’t help you.” I am not exercising my creative talents at all, and I think I’m a pretty intelligent person. The work I do is way below what I can accomplish. Many people have told me that. I often surf the web, as I finish my work very quickly (it’s not brain surgery), and there’s only so much of that one can do in a day. I’ve cut back my time to 80% and I think even though it’s very tough on the pocket book, I don’t ever want to go back to 100% time. I am in graduate school, online, so I often do school work at work. I long for the day (1 year from now) that I can leave this place. It is a challenge for me every day not to feel some sense of anger. I have a nice office, that is my only consolation. And I’m Buddhist, so I chant to find a sense of peace/calm when all I want to do is scream “Get me outta here!” Screw having to find coverage for the front when I’m calling in sick for the day (need to do that once a month, or I’ll go crazy), and screw having to get here at 8am on the dot, and 1pm on the dot (always watch the clock during my lunch hour, F__K that!). Thanks for letting me rant, this helps!
hey guys, just finished reading this article
check it out….
top 10 careers for people who hate to sit still
hope it helps… (p.s. im an office worker an f’n hate it) cant wait to escape the prison cell..
http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-careers-people-who-cant-sit-still.htm#page=11
sorry guys , try this link
http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-careers-people-who-cant-sit-still.htm#page=1
I get it… I hate it too… So I walked out on Wednesday, 11-7-2012… I told my boss “If you think this little HR job with this shit company is what I have in mind for the rest of my life, if you think I have no dreams and desires of my own then you are seriously mistaken…” You may think I am lying when I say I said that, but I did. I had been there almost two years, built that entire HR department… how does he repay me, no benefits and cuts my weekends off because some woman has three kids by three different guys and she needs to be with them… So because she is irresponsible and not using protection I have to work on weekends when I have been there longer and her department wasn’t even my department… lame… I never wanted to be an office worker, perhaps why I wasn’t thrilled when my father wanted me to sit in an office and be an Engineer… Sorry Dad, can’t do it… So I walked out, took my part time to full time and am looking at getting into farming (organic)… Hey, sometimes we have to tell The Man to suck it… espeically when we become The Man and we hate it…
Hi everyone! I have read all comments and just want to say how refreshing it is to hear people who do not want to settle in life and want to get out of it as much as they can. You are all inspiring and I am so happy to hear of people like you. I myself have found my first office job which I have been in for 9 months. I am 24 years old, graduated from university 3 years ago and am still trying to find myself and what occupation I want to choose. I have no idea what I want to do, but know I do not want a job where I sit in the office all day! I have no time for the office politics you have all touched on too. I am a very positive person and seek an environment like that. I know in life we can’t run away from negativity, I just seek something where I am helping others and making a difference. I’m torn between going back to education or just staying in work. Rachel you are very inspiring and I wish you all the luck!! Keep pushing everyone! You have already won so far because of your mentality to strive for more. Hopefully we can all return back to this site in 4 years also and have come that bit closer to working out life
! Good luck to everyone, you can do it and more!!
my job sucks. I work at an insurance company and deal with the public all day long. So I not only sit in the same place all day and do the same things all day I also have 2 basically profile and judge people all daymany of which are all trying to pull a fast 1 on me. Maybe it’s just me but dealing with the public is stressful in itself. in the end though the main problem is just like everyone else says sitting in the same place all day everyday just to sit there my whole body feels like it starts to turn stagnant, it doesn’t get energized it just turns into an apathetic lump. I don’t know how I got into this mess it just happened it was meant to be short term and next thing I know I’m at the head of the department. The pay is good what what does it matter when you’re miserable all the time I would rather be just getting by and not have to go to the dreadful job everyday. I am planning my escape route and have been planning it for a while now. It involves getting my house fixed up so I can sell it and make the most profit off of it and then getting out of this hometown I grew up in and going out west to find a job that is outdoors. I just don’t see how some people can do the office Gig their whole lives but if they can all the power to them. I think some people are geared towards that well others need to move around. I find it personally very unhealthy to lay down all day get up sit in a car to get to work where I sit down all day and then drive home and do more sitting. I exercise I do things outside of work but when I look at it the majority of my life is sitting in specific places.I can honestly say that I would rather risk being homeless what a penny to my name then continue doing this for years.I wish everyone out there that has a office job in wants out all the best. I know what it’s like it’s squashes the spirit it disconnects you from your soul and leave you feeling completely lost helpless hopeless and without motivation to change it. well I now have my motivation. They are intending to add a huge extra workload on to me with no extra pay and for me that is impossible so I have no choice I have to leave. they will find someone else to put in that seat and take years of their life and then that person will leave too. we can’t have everything we want in life but a human being isn’t meant to sit doing menial tasks all day for years on end.
Wow, great to hear you are working for yourself now. Can you share how you did it? I am stuck in a cubicle all day.
Sorry to be a prat, but you should really check out Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Workweek.
I have an office job making phone calls all day in a nightmarishly micromanaged environment full of idiots and fat people. It is a job I would not wish on my worst enemy. There is little to nothing about it that I can think of that is remotely redeeming.
Sorry to hear that. I used to get bored at my job too. After 4 years I felt burnt out and kept asking myself I went to college for this. I left that job to try something different with more pay. Not good. The person I was suppose to supervise was not very helpful moody and jealous and I did not get any training but she did and refused to help me. I came from a collabortive team environment before. Thank goodness they laid me off. Make an action plan to get out of there. I know we need a paycheck to survive but life is too short to waste time. Write a list of what you enjoy doing. Try networking with people in that field. Try temping so you are not stuck there forever or take a class on designing apps, starting an organic cookie business whatever shoot for the stars. A Buddhist student once asked his master What will be ten years from now? And he calmly said Exactly what you are today. Today is where you can start.
Hi, all. Lisa is here from Shanghai, China. I left the comfortable office job for 2 years. Now I have been living and working in Singapore for nearly 2 year. My job is to manage a small scale supermarket. This job is total different from my previous office job. As a girl, I need to carry heavy goods and handle all kinds of customers from the local and the other countries. Lisa is still enjoying this job and has learned lots of experience. Now my contract is to be finished soon. I may expend he contract, but prefer to work in the Western countries in the same industry. I have got some savings and ready to move the other cities. If any of you likes to share the stories with me, I am always here listening.
Oh how i agree….im stuck here in southern england near the sea (quaint i can here you say). I qualified in financial services but have never been interested in a career as such but its the devil money again. Seriously ive worked for such dicks and banks are the worst. Most of my employers i hope burn in hell and they are so thick and “british”…im outta here in the next 12 months i swear…away from the thick money obessessed people and boring dreary day to day slave labour.
I have to tell you that I enjoyed reading all the comments. I thought I was alone in my dislike for office jobs. I am 44 years old and I have been a web designer for years. I am originally from Long Island, NY but live in a small town in South Carolina with my teenage daughter. 7 months ago, I started working for a seed company that has 3 different web sites. I was hired to help edit/update the sites when needed. Things were good at first but lately they has slowly declined. I have been moved 5 times to different offices, away from the internet team and have been just resizing images for the past 5 months. It’s getting to the point where I just open Photoshop, look at a list of 5000 images, search for them in a folder, resize them, save them and move on to the next. That is not web design! It’s boring as hell!! I have asked the managers for project to do for the sites but they refuse to give me anything. I am so unhappy here!!
Another poster mentioned about making a plan, which is what I’m going to do. My daughter graduates in a few months and will be attending college herself. I plan to go back to school and study something I enjoy. I am tired of web design. I might still design a few sites on the side but I have trouble sitting at a desk all day, in front of a computer. I used to be a carpenter back in NY and liked doing that. I have a few ideas I plan to try. I have some debt to pay first but after that, I’m hoping to save some money so I can move out of South Carolina. Not the best economy here. I am not a money hungry person so I’m looking for a career that makes me feel good and a happier person. Good luck to everyone on their quest for happiness!!
I haven’t written here for nearly a year. I still hate my job but now it’s a different one. I’m 56 years old and because I was so miserable at my previous job I took a leap of faith and moved across country to work for a fabulous company that is all about its employees. I felt so fortunate to be offered the job! I love my new city, Seattle. The hiking is fabulous, there’s so much to do, but I’m so wrung out at the end of the day I never do anything. You see, I had a nice house, pool, doggie door, boring job in Phoenix, and life was easy. Now I’m in an apt on the 4th floor, taking my dog down the elevator and out for walks early morning in the dark and rain, and at night when I’m just exhausted and want to go to bed. Everyday life is just so much more difficult here with schlepping on all the clothes, lugging groceries from underground parking, no parking at the office, shuttling in from an off-site lot, and then there’re my co-workers who work non-stop all day…they gobble their lunch at their desks while still working. The one behind me can’t read silently so chatters away like a monkey all day. It drives me crazy. I used to go home at lunch and play with my dog. My apt lease is nearly up and I’m paying a fortune and don’t know where to move next. I hate the job. It’s all hurry up, then wait. We are stressed one week, waiting the next. I don’t think I have the skills required but can’t quit or I owe them a big $ relocation repayment. So I struggle on a daily basis to keep up and give myself more goals as every good employee should and put on that happy face. My team lead loves working. She is 36. I can tell I frustrate her when I say I don’t know something. She thinks I know but just say I don’t. Really? Why would I do that? I burst into tears 4 times today while trying to figure out an SQL that is two pages long that I’m supposed to modify. Seriously? The genius that wrote it moved to another dept. I’d like to slap him. I’m a systems analyst, not a programmer any more, but apparently the lines are transparent in this job. We do everything! And we do pager duty too! I’m really happy I get to experience life in the Pacific Northwest and I really love the climate and how green and beautiful it is here, but I just wish I could go home to my boring job and my house that my tenant is now enjoying.
I am so happy I found this post and saw that there’s alot of people out there that share my pain. I majored in fashion marketing in college with the hopes of having a fun, non boring job that changes every day. That was soo not the case. I am stuck in an office from 9 to 6 bored out of my mind and having to follow a million rules and procedures. I now realize that I should have studied something more creative in school like graphic design or even fashion design. I have always been a creative person but decided to go for the business side of fashion which was “safer”. I should have followed my heart in what I wanted to do. I currently write a blog to at least feel more inspired but I really am looking into going into graphic design or something to do with art. Def something that I can have my own schedule possibly work from home and feel inspired every day.
I hope everyone who has posted on this can get out of their horrible office job and follow what they REALLY want to do.
Good luck!!
I relate to what everyone is saying here. I got laid off in September 2012 and have enjoyed it a lot. I miss my coworkers but I am not feeling the office thing. I worked with families and children before and I liked that but couldn’t stand the paperwork. They talk about paperless offices but why do we need so much paper anyways. I think it is funny that some companies are asking for health screenings for employees in order for them to keep their health insurance but actually sitting for 8 hours a day is bad for your health. Hello. I’m not looking forward to returning to the dramarama. I like the comment about organic farming or may consider temping. Or I will return to work with children and families but less paper. I think the industrial revolution started the whole keep up with the Joneses thing. Who are the Joneses anyway and who cares. Less is more. Simplicity is better. Be happy don’t worry and life is too short to be unhappy. You only need love and the simple things in life to make you happy. Heck I have less money now but I’m learning to play the guitar.