Having a job can be both a blessing and a curse. A few lucky ones have managed to pave the career path they have always dreamed of, but the rest are just putting on a clean shirt and fake smile combo and barely getting through the eight-hour bender five days a week.
While having a meaningful job ranked 13th out of 29 sources of happiness in a global survey, only 40 percent of American workers say that they work in good jobs, according to this survey. Many reasons can be to blame, from poor pay to unfair treatment, long working hours, and job insecurity.
Luckily, for anyone who feels that way about their job, here is a safe place to talk about it. Welcome to the Free From Work subreddit which, according to the description, “is the right place if you hate working!” Created back in 2021, the community is still pretty young, but it already features impressive content that is “mostly memes and tweets to brighten up your day.”
Below, we wrapped up some of the funniest and most soul-soothing Free From Work posts that work like a band-aid for our overworked souls.
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More people than we think have been in a position where the hatred for their job became overpowering. For some, it happened suddenly, for others it started from the first day at work, while for most employees, the sense of loathing came gradually but became too strong to ignore.
So in order to find out what to do in such a situation, how to navigate a job you don’t like or even hate, and when is it better to part ways with it, We spoke to Christine Mitterbauer, a licensed and ICF-approved career coach based in the UK.
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From her experience as a career coach, people often start hating their job when there’s a clash between their personal values and the values of the company or sector they work in, Mitterbauer argues. “The longer this goes on, the more the dislike, or even hate, can grow.”
“Another common reason people hate their job is that they have a hard time with specific people, a boss or colleagues they work closely with,” she said and added, “Whether it’s better to quit or not is a matter of your life circumstances and whether you can afford to quit, but of course, it’s better to notice your dislike for your job growing before it becomes all-consuming.”
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According to the career coach, there can be good reasons for keeping a job that has neither good pay nor good terms: “jobs in certain sectors, for example, the arts or education, don’t always pay well but they might give you a big sense of meaning and satisfaction.” Mitterbauer argues that “if those are values you treasure, that might be enough reason to keep the job despite the salary being low.”
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When asked what to do when after years a person suddenly develops a sense of not liking their job anymore, Mitterbauer’s advice is to get clear on your values – what is truly important to you in life.
“I often use the Wheel of Work, which shows people several aspects and values of their job, and then we discuss each in turn, how important it is to them, and to what extent it is being met now. Money, creativity, culture, creativity, etc. Through lots of conversation, you lay out on the table what values are truly important and which ones are less important.”Mitterbauer argues that if you hate your job, there’s a good chance this is because there’s a clash here. “It’s never too late to change, and you can start making small changes today,” she concluded.
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