Going around in circles

I worked four days in my last job, and it was nice to have a 3-day weekend every week.  But although I'm working five days now, the working days are each half-an-hour shorter, so I'm only working five more hours.  Plus, I save about an hour a day because I no longer have to commute, which I found stressful as the traffic could be so variable.  So... they're shorter days.  But I still find it hard adjusting back up to five.

It does sound like you've found a good job that you enjoy :) 

I would love to work 4 days a week rather than 5. By Thursday my brain isn't working :p I also really don't like full day meetings, which I have a lot of at the moment. And then my colleagues always want to get lunch together, but I need to take lunch as a break away from them. I need time to think!

There must be definite advantages with having that kind of technical skillset.  I used to work from home as an IT recruiter for Microsoft Dynamics products, and there was a lot of short-term contract stuff available for project managers, business analysts, solutions consultants, developers, etc.  Some of the more high-end contractors would often only work for part of the year and make enough to take long periods off.  That would suit me - if I had any of those skillsets!  I don't suppose I'm ever likely to be hard up for a job in care, though.  If only the pay was better.

I've just gone back up to full-time.  Although I enjoy the work, it's exhausting in the sense that I can't get time alone during the day at all - unless I go to the loo.  It just isn't possible with the service users.  So evenings and weekends are my time alone.  I've been so tired this week that last night I went to bed at 8.30.  I read for a while, though.

Same struggle I have.  That's why my job is good, because once the service users arrive I'm in their world first and foremost and stay there all day. Today, I spent the morning playing skittles with one SU and making him laugh with fooling around, and this afternoon I sat with another SU making paper aeroplanes and watching Mr Tumble videos!  It's the bits at the beginning and the end of the day, with the staff, where I shut off.  They've all got their things to talk about and their phones to look at.  I just usually go to the loo, or sit on the periphery listening in.

It's different employers each time. Public sector / private sector, as client, contractor and designer within engineering, but also across all sorts of disciplines. I was contemplating a total change of career so this was my last ditch attempt to stay in engineering. 

'New job' or 'new employer'? i.e. are you doing something different each time or just the same thing for a different employer/industry/product?

I'm a Business Analyst and went contract (instead of being permanent) in 2013, since then I've worked at 4 different companies (3 private sector & 1 public) in 3 different industries and across 6 different products... but always using the same skillset/mindset.

I get bored and/or 'bogged-down, frustrated & tired' easily so being able to move around is a benefit as it keeps thongs 'fresh'.

So I guess I'm saying maybe you can make this work in your favour?

Alternatively, if you actively want to stay in one job over a long period take a look at what it is that makes you feel "bogged down, frustrated, tired, distraught" and see if there's a way to change that and/or expand your role to take on new, short-term things to help keep your mood/enthusiasm up.

I do struggle with this. I'm usually good at seeing where all the problems are and trying to fix them all at once. I can be very focused and get a lot of work done, much more than most people. But then that level is expected all the time, and you end up doing everyone else's work on top of your own, which adds to stress. I think I'll take your advice and try to pace a bit more. 

I've had a lot of time to think the last few months and my ideal job would be working as a gardener. I'm going to work towards this, first by finishing my own garden. I love the outdoors, which I why I work in engineering. But most of my time is spend doing paperwork or managing people. I suppose gardening would be my long term goal. 

Thank you for your help Martian Tom. I think youre right - it's the people side of things I struggle with. I cope with it for so long and then give up. I suppose it's not going to change no matter where I work, as you meet the same characters everywhere. 

I work full time and find that it can be quite exhausting. I need to make sure that I have time on my own at work sometimes, plus plenty of rest time in the evenings and weekends. My advice would be to pace yourself a bit and try not to achieve everything on day one - take it one step at a time and try not to get too overwhelmed. Good luck. 

Good luck.  You're going in with a positive attitude... and it's all experience.  Employment for me has been a long learning curve which still hasn't reached the point of tailing off!

Workplace bullying is the worst thing of all, I think.  It's why I left my last job - though it wasn't a manager.  Anyone who 'manages' by bullying isn't a manager at all.  Just a bully.

The deputy manager who interviewed me for my last job commented 'You've had more jobs than years I've been alive!'  It didn't stop them taking me on.

I couldn't imagine ever staying in one place for too long - until I became part of the woodwork.  But I suppose it depends on if you're happy.  I've generally had a low boredom threshold.  I've done farm work, shop work, office work, driving, petrol station attending, cider making, selling (agh!), recruiting, shelf-filling... and now care work.  Of all the jobs, I enjoy working with learning disabilities and generally disabled people the best.  A lot of fun, very rewarding... and a kind of natural identification with the vulnerable and marginalised.  The longest I was ever in a job was almost seven years, which was when I worked in a wholefood shop.  Again, it was congenial because everyone there was a 'square peg' of one sort or another: uni drop-outs, anarchists, hunt sabs, radicals, ravers, starving artists, street musicians, subversives.  It was a den of creativity!

Hi, Technically I'm on my 6th job in 33 years of working, but if you include when I was a student it's my 9th. I've found the human or colleague part of all my jobs incredibly difficult all my life but I find if I've really enjoyed the job I have found ways around this. For example my first and second jobs were with horses and I cared so much about what I was doing I didn't let anything or anybody get in the way of my passion. Its a bit more difficult now as my job has a much more human influence and I am now finding this difficult, but I still believe if you like a job enough you will find a way to succeed.

Thank you for your reply, Martian Tom. I think in the past I've got bored and frustrated about my job and my only solution is to find something new. "This isn't working, let's try something different" when perhaps if I'd spoken about my problems a bit maybe I could have worked through them. Certainly some of my employers would have been understanding. My current job (which I'm leaving) it's different though in that I can't stand my manager. He is such a bully. Not just to me but to lots of people in the team. I've seen men in tears leaving his office. It's a horrible environment to work in. My new job, hopefully, is going to be more professional. I really want to start out well and do all the "good mornings" and eye contact and getting teas and coffees like I've learned how to do, but at the same time I'm worried I might end up somewhere awful again. It took me 6 months to find this job, probably partly due to my car crash CV, so I'm really hoping I can make it work. 

I wish I could help.  In 40 working years, I've had 27 jobs - and I've just started my 7th job in 6 years.  Actually, it's a return to a job I had 3 years back, but left to care for my mother in her final illness.  One of those jobs lasted two weeks.  Another one just a couple of days.  The longest was for just over a year.  I was off caring for mum and recovering after her death for one of those years.  If you exclude that, that's 7 jobs in 5 years.  Same as you.  In some ways, it's reassuring that I can still slip from one job to another at my age - though in care work, there's generally plenty of positions available for experienced people.

I'm like you.  It's fine for a while.  But then stuff starts to bug me.  In one job, it was all the corners it was necessary to cut in order to meet deadlines.  That frustrated me because I either do a job properly or I don't do it at all.  I don't cut corners.  In another job, I got tired of the sloppiness and apathy of some other staff members, and the constant failure of them to complete important tasks because they were too busy playing with their phones - which meant others of us had to take up the slack.  Also, the staff were quite cliquey, which I can't stand.  All of these, really, are problems that I think people like ourselves face in the workplace. I've found that the older I get, too, the less tolerant I am of these kinds of things, and the less willing I am to stick around and see if they can improve.  Experience has taught me, maybe, that they rarely do improve.

So... no real suggestions for you, sorry.  But I do identify.

Hi NAS51133,

Unfortunatley this situation is more common than you might think, my dad was an engineer and got made redundant 3x and now he's a postman.

The government is in a really bad state and so is the country and I am afraid that with Brexit it will only get worse. I am feeling your low vibes at the moment about this situation and others I can often spot negative energy, this chatroom is great because it has made me feel that I am not in the wrong. Its not your fault if you lose a job you are passionate about. I support you entirely in this situation.