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Phobus

Employee Engagement

Are you engaged with your job?  

31 members have voted

  1. 1. Are you engaged with your job?

    • Yes
      16
    • No
      10
    • I'd love a job to be dis/engaged with...
      5


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Recent Gallup Polls make for grim reading if you're an employer or a prospective employee. Just 13% of respondents around the world claim that they feel engaged with their job, whilst the most recent US survey says that about 70% of Americans either hate their jobs or are disengaged.

As somebody who has hated every job I've held for more than 3 days, I know the feeling, but can't quite understand why this is so endemic. Just why is work so shit? Post your theories, experiences and maybe even exceptions!

And yes, this is posted whilst bored at work.

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I'm married to my job. I love it. Even when I worked at a factory for 5 weeks, I became in love with it no matter how shitty it was and no matter how much it physically injured me.

Work is a good place to pour my focus, to get goals and climb that ladder. To be the best and compete against everyone, to make others look like shit. It gets me high. I am an awful person :-) Its a buzz to my ego and my pride, even with the lowliest and thankless jobs. I'm in the US.

I remember a guy at the factory saying he loves work, not just loves it, he fuckings loves work. He says its because he hates his life. He has 5 kids and a wife. If he's not at work, he'd be stuck in hell with 5 kids and his wife. He said he'd work even if he wasn't being paid to get out of life. To avoid people bothering them with issues and live in general.

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Because doing things for your own benefit at the time and place of your choosing is a lot better than being told to come in and do something for someone else until you're permitted to leave.

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My work is awesome. Sometimes when I'm on vacation, I'll find myself looking forwards to travelling back home and getting stuck into the next task. Of course, I always take some work with me when I'm away from home, but that's not quite the same.

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I like my work because I know I'd probably spiral back into a deep funk without it. It gets repetitive at times and the hours are weird but it's good. I work in the home of a couple men who live with mental handicaps. They're solely dependent on me for a fair chunk of every day that I'm on rotation, so I never really have those moments like "Ugh I do not want to work today." Or rather, I have those moments, and then I snap out of immediately and get to work because I kind of have to. And then I feel better.

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Because work tends to be monotonous and monotony is universally bad.

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I'm quite happy in my job. Provided it continues to be secure I wouldn't b disappointed to stay there until retirement. However, I would probably leave for a promotion and wouldn't work at all if I didn't have to.

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I loved my previous job at a small ~50 employee company.

I hate my current job in a corporation despite making twice as much money for doing basically the same programming work as previously.

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Yeah! I like being a cog in the machinery for the simple reason that it keeps my mood at the bottom.

But seriously, i had a few jobs in my life i really enjoyed and i can fully comprehend to feel kinda engaged with ones own work but at my current job it drifts to the opposite.

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I fucking hate my job. It is shit. Would quite cheerfully shoot my own foot off and go on the disability if the fucking Tories hadn't instigated a Hop Your Way to Work initiative.

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I enjoy my job well enough. I really do. I mean, sure I'd rather sleep in and/or go home early, but I have enough autonomy on the job to more or less do what when I want so long as I get what needs doing done.

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I like my work. I've been liking helping building stuff for clients lately because stuff like this...



Winds up being sold to HBO and actors go nanners over it.



Meanwhile during the summer I build sets for actors etc to play on and I get 5-6 free shows to watch as a result. Good fun.

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BlackFish is making promotional sets for Game of Thrones? Fuck me, times change.

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I did a variety of labour and hated it enough to enter university. You need the right attitude for certain jobs, the people who I saw successfully make a living out of factory work were the ones who created a happy environment for themselves and their co-workers.

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A workplace with a good toilet is a good motivation, IMHO. You go to work with an entirely different attitude when you know you have a confy, clean place to do your business, if need be.

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Danarchy said:

BlackFish is making promotional sets for Game of Thrones? Fuck me, times change.

It's a long way from Netscape shields to protect DW from mad hax by Comrade Ralphis, I'll admit.

As far as work goes, my pet theory for this is similar to every other discussion like this about other facets of modern life - my point is that we are not really that long removed from primeval man - and anything that goes counter to what we did in those days is also going to fail - our jobs have to offer us something in tune with our hunter and other instincts, or be good substitutes - not easy in the modern world.

One of our strongest impulses is to continuously improve and apply our higher reasoning - it's because so many of our jobs unfortunately don't challenge us enough in this area that we have hobbies.

And why I am currently bashing my head against a Linux distro trying to get the WiFi to work :P

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I might be able to swing an entry-level software development job in the next day or so. Fingers crossed the interview goes well. :E

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I love my job its my calling: Every day is different in a good way, I get paid well, Its respected career and I dont have to be ashamed when I say what I do for living

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I've been unable to work for some years. Now I'm going through something that's meant to help me get a job. I felt the first two days kind of disconnected. Today someone talked with me during a coffee break, and a little bit during the classes there. Felt a bit better then.

The thing itself is a bit meh, but maybe it gets more fun when/if I get to know the other people.

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Maes said:

A workplace with a good toilet is a good motivation, IMHO. You go to work with an entirely different attitude when you know you have a confy, clean place to do your business, if need be.


Oh god yes. I remember working at a sheet metal place in between carpentry gigs and their restroom (without a door mind you) was one of the many horrid things about it. Good TP is a must for standing jobs because fireass is horrible.

Also, one of the things that make me like my work espicially is the concept of working for the arts. I'm making stuff that gets remembered one way or other in the long run, and it'll influence someone to find some dream of theirs too. The theatre and to some extent television remind people of the many dream jobs that are out there.

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I'm a teacher, and I really enjoy my work. Though it is exhausting and I have 40+ children in my care, there's never a dull moment.

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I really like my job, but my company doesn't know what the hell they're doing, so I'll probably be getting another one soon.

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The company (a very big company with a just as big ranking pyramid) I work for tries to get the workers involved with was is happening and what new projects are coming up. I just can't care, even though I've tried in the past. It's just not what I'm interested in. I care a lot about simple logistic things surrounding my work. Like.. A new construction project is starting: How far do I have to travel everyday to get there? How much do I get compensated for it? Who do I get to work with? Basic stuff that means alot you know.

Questions about the wealth of the company, how expensive certain fuck-ups been and such concerns is something I don't care about at all. That's not what they pay me for keeping track of. It's not like they reward me or anything for caring either. When me and my fellow construction workers are sitting at a meeting at the office it gets pretty obvious that the agenda is to make us care more about the company, staying loyal and seeing all other construction companies as competitor's. These are not the simple workers interests and that's why there's disengagement.

Being part of the workers union interets me though. The stuff going on in the union affects our interests and really changes our situation at work. The company's wealth and organisation is just distracting since there's no way for us to change it.

In short: I like most of my colleauges and it's thanks to them that I sometimes enjoy my job. The disengagement is because you don't get anything at all in return for working harder or caring about the company's wealth.

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I do enjoy my job, though the field I am in can be pretty frustrating at times. Ah chemistry, you can be such a bitch sometimes.

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cannonball said:

I do enjoy my job, though the field I am in can be pretty frustrating at times. Ah chemistry, you can be such a bitch sometimes.


Indeed Cannonball, I enjoy my job immensely (I'm a lab technician in a TATA Steel mill in South Wales.) About 6 months ago I had to change to another department, mostly for more money (Shift work) but the main reason I changes was a continuing "forced demotion" of my role, unrealistic deadlines for work and a complete lack of understanding for the issues I had in my personal life at the time. While I know they don't have to, other people who had issues had more understanding.

Indeed, chemistry can be such a bitch sometimes.

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If the HR scare stories are to be believed, big companies have teams of people monitoring and snitching their employees on fora and social networks , writing you up as you make potentially damaging comments....

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Maes said:

If the HR scare stories are to be believed

Speaking of scary stories, I work across the room from our HR department. They have to deal with a horde of angry retards every day. I feel like half their job is playing the parent of tens of thousands of children, having to tell them "no" to their insanely stupid requests.

On our side of the call center (IT) we get all sorts of weird stuff too, but not as many angry people. We have fun swapping stories about all the people we've talked to. Even sitting in a cubicle, every day is different.

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