Did I have job satifaction?

[dunwerkin]

If you are retired, can you say that you enjoyed your working life? Did you have job satisfaction? Was it your choice? Would you have preferred to have done something completely different, and if so, why didn't you?

[crete]

no regrets in my career choice until a few years ago, when i became a client rather than a service provider.

[Lonnie]

The only reason I stick my job, is to earn the money to pay the bills amd support my family, and yes, there are a couple of things i'd have preferred, even branched out on my own once, but in the end, when your married with a family, they come first.

[Theland]

In my experience in recent years, the whole culture of work has changed for the worse.
Teamwork, method statements, appraisals, risk assessments, and sickening "management speak" to name just a few.
Last but not least, the expectation that I am content to go to work, not for money, but for "job satisfaction."
Do modern managers really really believe this nonsense?

[shaneystar2]

I am retired and so is Mr S .
Mr.S retired aged 56 after forty years of work firstly as a bankers merchant in Germany for which he served what they call an apprenticeship and then many years working for Haliburton ..he was sick of the rat race ..their company policy and corporate waffle and got out while his pension prospects were still good ! He has often said to me that he would love to have studied law and become a barrister ..unfortunately his parents didn't have the means for him to be able to go to University.But he has no regrets and enjoys his retirement .
Myself ..am retired due to ill health ..osteoarthritis ..but I have had a variety of jobs over the years in between bringing up my children ..I have enjoyed them all ....not earth shattering or important jobs but I have had a great time and met some lovely people . ..and I have worked both here and abroad .
Same thing ..would loved to have been able to go to Uni ..but in my day ..out and earn a living was more important.
But I have still managed to get an OU degree and with what I have learned along lifes highway ..I am quite happy and have no regrets .

[dunwerkin]

Thank you Shaneystar for taking the time to read the question and answering in detail. I suspect that your training with reading TMA questions allowed you to stick to the point of the questions and answer only that without deviation!! Well done. In case you are interested, this is the topic of a future U3A lunch discussion which I have rashly volunteered to introduce. BTW, I too am studying with OU. Thank you again for your trouble.

[shaneystar2]

U3A is a brilliant organisation ..I don't belong to it but do belong to the Experience Corps .
Might seem piddling ....but I help youngsters to learn to knit ! Also I seem to have a parcel of young people who are in my great nephews class at school who want help with their German language lessons!.
A lot of people go through life doing a mundane job and then find that they are at a loose end .
For me retirement opened up a whole new world . I was frightened at first ..no longer able to go to work ..kids more or less off my hands ..but apart from all the things that you have to do which you had to do whilst working anyway ..its good ..time to do all the things you wanted to do ..but never got round to doing ..all those books to read..time to get the garden looking nice....indulge in hobbies and hopefully help others with whatever knowledge one has gleaned over the years .

[dunwerkin]

Dear Shaneystar. We must be twins!

Now that I am retired from full-time employment (the latter 25 years as a Conference Manager) I too enjoy working with children. I applied to a child care agency to fill occasional positions, so I get to baby-sit and work in local nurseries to fill in for holidaying staff.
Imagine, getting paid to cuddle babies and children - no p.c. here, if a child wants a cuddle, it gets one and we both feel better for it. Like you, I show children how to knit, make pom-poms , and make paper flowers from scrunched up tissue paper.

My dormant interest in sewing and art has been exhumed, thanks to our brilliant local Council who put on a vast range of day-time classes for as much as �1.00 per lesson! These classes are held in the botanical gardens, so my bus pass takes me to this fab. location where I enjoy the company of others who also like to relax with their chosen hobbies. What with my garden (mainly admiring it from the comfort of a sun lounger)and the above distractions I don�t know how I find time to be a lady-who-lunches and to play golf!

Back to the plot: I e.mailed a good friend working in the Far East about job satisfaction and he replied � How did you get (i.e measure) your job satisfaction? How does anyone? Now the topic ... it's tricky and clearly shows the out of touch nature of your crumblies ... who, in this day and age ... takes a job and expects it to last more than 5 years? So the "when you were working" covers what? One job, all the jobs you've done? And anyway, if the job doesn't give you satisfaction - then you quit and go try another. For me it was the appreciation of my colleagues / peers for my work product - if I could show them I was doing a good job and they reflected this by comments / appreciation etc. then I just lap up the plaudits.�

So, I think that the introduction to my Lunch Discussion topic will be to invite those present

[WendyS]

I have mixed feelings about my working life. I enjoyed the human interface with others and some of the projects I worked on. But I think when you have worked for the same company, or in the same role for a long time, history repeats itself. newcomers arrive thinking they are God's gift to the organisation with their new ideas which are only the old ideas dressed up in new clothing. And if you work in a large organisation, political correctness, politics and unnecessary bureauracy are never far away. In retospect I wish I'd had the courage to try a different career pension prospects and fear of failure were probably the main reasons. I also belong to U3A which is a wonderful organisation for meeting like-minded individuals who share similar interests. Sadly our local council have stopped virtually all the Adult Education classes in our area because of cost saving measures but I did manage to attend a couple before the axe fell.

[dunwerkin]

Dear Wendy

Thank you for your reminiscences. I think, from the responses, that people tend to be thankful to be employed and to be able to either support the family by their endeavours, or at least make a valued contribution to the family pot. From my own recollections I don't think that there was much job evaluation done - if I was offered a job, I was flattered to have been chosen. MY last job where I stayed for 25 years, I started as a temp and was fortunate that the job grew to fit me very nicely thank you!!

I also think that people today have far more confidence than we ever did and are prepared to stand up for what they want. I don't think that I ever knew what I wanted - only what I didn't want.