Martini Musing - Misery is A Choice
Regular Friday readers know that I tend to harp repeat that happiness is a choice. The same goes for misery.
Through the years I’ve worked with people who spent pretty much their entire day in brow-wrinkling, deep-sighing misery. Every meeting was a trial. Every boss was an idiot. Nothing worked. Everything would fail. But, they also never did anything to change anything - including looking for another job (”I just couldn’t find one that paid this much.”) Their idea of coping was covering their office walls with Dilbert cartoons; counting the minutes until 5 and “happy hour” in the downstairs bar (more like “whine and moan hour” for them); and practicing the not-so-fine art of passive aggression. (Want to kill a program? Invite a couple of miserable people. No matter what the idea is - they’ll find a way to kill it with their pervasive cloud of toxic negativity.)
I’ve had some terrible jobs. For example, I distinctly remember sitting in my cubicle one day staring at my desk thinking, “I’m never, ever going to get outta here.” Guess what? I got out of there. Yeah, I sometimes did my share of whining, but even in the worst of the companies, I met good people, got to do some fun things, and learned a lot.
All my long-winded way of saying check out www.Ihateyourjob.com. (And, if you wanta get depressed, just think - this is written by a young man who was born in….wait for it…1984. Ah-yahhhh….) Good food for thought and perspective.
P.S. One of the happiest people I ever met was a tow-truck driver. “I LOVE my job!” he enthused. Sooo, how ’bout you?
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
Read More: All my Friday Martini Time posts.
Tags: Tags: Friday martini time, Mary Schmidt, politics, misery
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September 28th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Thanks, Mary. Not only was I born in 1984, I’ve never seen an episode of Dallas…
And what’s a cassette tape? ; )
September 28th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
What’s even worse is you don’t remember when “like a broken record” actually made sense (and Madonna hadn’t gotten all veiny…)
September 28th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
No, I get like a broken record. Man, we’re tired of hearing that in the same way that we are tired of hearing about Barry Bonds breaking Aaron’s record.
October 1st, 2007 at 7:04 am
I always ask when I’m going through the check out line “Are you having a good day?” The answers never cease to surprise. One guy the other day answered with the stock glass half empty, even though the font end manager was standing beside him…”How could it be a good day, I’m here?”
If I was his manager, he’d have been fired on the spot. It’s one thing to have a bad attitude. It’s another to be willing to let the customers know, especially in front of the Boss.
I’ve had those jobs that I didn’t enjoy, and I always worked to get to something else. The funny thing for me was that I guess I just had to wait for my ideal job to be invented…and that came along with the Internet!
Great post…