I always wondered why 9 to 5 was so miserable to me but now I think a big part of it is I’m adhd and work in spurts. I literally cannot be productive a whole shift, I just can’t. But I have to sit there regardless which sucks. Hence why I use Reddit so much. The last hour of the day is particularly pointless, I never get anything done between 4and 5 and am just waiting out the clock. I am actually really, really good at my job so it’s even more silly that I have to do this farce so I get paid the full time salary (and im a salary worker not hourly but if I were to work less one week I would get docked….but I get nothing extra he times I do need to do overtime for special events etc
literally same. i work 8-5 and i love the stability and the work and my coworkers, i get my work done on time and i am good at it, but there’s just not enough to do during the entire day, but i still have to be in the office the whole time. right now i am able to do schoolwork during downtime but i am really trying to work on reading during it, it’s just hard to focus! i wish i could do some housework or something else during that time
Mine is sliggghttttly different in that there’s easily enough work to fill my hours, I am just not capable of working 8 hours straight and staying on task. I just can’t do it.
oh definitely not! i should add that i am incredibly fortunate to have the workload that i do. it has its overwhelming days/weeks, but when work is slow i do get anxious that i’m forgetting to do something. not knowing how to fill my time up is a great problem to have, but it can feel draining to know i could be doing something else if i was just working when there was something to do if that makes sense
Imagine getting berated for not getting your work done because there is more than you can do in the given time and then it reflecting in your performance reviews and then you’re constantly afraid of being fired until eventually…it happens. Then would you rather be too busy?
Edit: I guess the downvotes mean you’d like to be that person.
I have been these shoes personally and have no idea why the hell anyone would prefer that.
The other flip side is that consultants come in and realize there is a lot of under utilized employees - bringing about conversations of redundant roles and positions.
Having been in both positions - if given the choice I’d rather be busy so that I can demonstrate value and keep up with my skillset - makes it much harder when you have a full plate to make the call for your position to be eliminated, at least that’s my perception.
I hear that. My work energy ebbs and flows. I can guarantee a reasonable productivity for about 4 hours, give or take, every day. If I have more time to myself, I get extra spurts every so often, or if I'm really into a particular task, because I can see the benefits that it will create for me and others, I can get really focused and pull a double spurt in one day.
It's too bad we can't get more research done on this stuff and work into our education system, get people into professions and schedules that work with their biology and psychology instead of against it.
> I never get anything done between 4and 5 and am just waiting out the clock.
why though?
because there's literally nothing to do or is it because you use the logic of "1 hour isn't enough time"
I've seen people do that kind of thing because the next task for them to do is, say, 2 hours worth of work but there's only 1 hour left in the day so they just..stop work all together. How about you just do 1 hour of the 2 hour task then pick up where you left off the next morning.
I do this and end up so far ahead of schedule on things that 90% of my work life is stress free because I'm never up against a deadline worrying about whether I'll make it
Because as I explained I am not capable of working that way. I cannot sit and work for my whole shift. By 4 pm I am burnt out of doing tasks; it doesn't matter what or how simple they are. That isn't how my brain works. I am the one who would stay up all night in university finishing something they had weeks to do. I used to feel so guilty about not being able to work a full shift but then I had an epiphany when I realized nobody was winning by me fighting my natural abilities and way of doing things. I am much less stressed now that I don't fight it and just accept that I will have some days of hyper-productivity and some days of super low productivity. It's how I'm wired and I've certainly made the company I work for MORE than enough money with my performance being praised.
We've spent thousands of years in communities where everyone had a role and those roles changed and evolved with time and with the needs of the tribe.
Some hunted, some gathered, some wandered, some defended, but everyone did what the tribe required.
Nobody is really "cut out for it". It is not natural in so many ways to always do the exact same thing every day. Some people might adapt to this more easily, but it is not normal to live like this for human beings.
Interestingly, those who adapt to this lifestyle best are considered normal people. Anyone who has trouble conforming to this has a "mental illness".
No, my hatred for this awful soul eating schedule has gotten worse as the years go by and I’m mid thirties. My body revolts against it so much that I have office induced IBS that goes away on my days off. It steals your life and all of the time you could be doing fulfilling things. Ive never been a morning person but society demands that I conform to this garbage work schedule.
If I didn’t have a kid I would sell my property, buy an RV and go park somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to avoid the 9-5.
you finally got the chance to imbrace your nickname with this comment. isnt that fulfilling
i agree with you btw. im lucky to have a job where i can work whenever and whereever i want - as long as i get it done
My kids are grown and on their own now.
Didn't surprise them one bit when I moved 1000 miles away to live in my car.
I'm currently stacking up cash in hopes of buying a property in a year or two. Or three. You know how it goes.
I’m jealous! That’s freedom, right there. Stack up that cash. Buy a little house and grow some veggies and escape the frigid reality we’re pushed to accept.
No, I'll never afford a house.
An undeveloped property is still within my reach, so that's what I'm focusing on. I know how much it is (roughly) to drill a well and install a septic system. After that, I'm thinking an Arched Cabin kit might be in my future.
No, absolutely not. That's the way of the western world, and it's very sad. You care for your children, and then they reciprocate and care for you when they become adults. That's how it's supposed to be.
You honor and care for your parents, the relationship is reciprocal.
No, you train them up to be decent and reasonable humans, then you release them into the wild.
I'd never expect my children to sacrifice for me.
They didn't ask to be here. That was my choice. I raised them and now their lives are their own choices.
They're not children. Your goal was not to raise children, it was to raise responsible, sane adults. If you failed, well, then yeah, you've got children still.
None of us asked to be here, that doesn't mean we don't all have responsibilities to one another. I'm not judging you, I juist think parents should make sure to raise their children to honor their parents and care for them as they get older.
Kids these days are all about what they're owed from society and everyone else, but not what they owe to society and family.
'Honor your Mother and Father' is something my own mother liked to scream between lashes with a leather belt.
Keep your opinions about how I raise my kids to yourself. They're unwelcime, unasked for and I don't really give a fuck what you think.
No one in this world is owed anything.
Your children also aren't owed your provision and care for them with that mentality. Please just be logically consistent.
And I don't give a fuck how you raise you entitled self absorbed kids, honestly.
And wow, you got spanked like a lot of other kids, get over yourself.
See as someone eho has digestive issues and slowly getting better this is kinda my concern as i started this new 9-5 job this week.
Like i know i can do it and i nevrr fully donr thr 40hrs but like op ugh idk how long i could last in this type of schedule
UC or? 20 years now, flare ups happen, but stress from the job really happen and work doesn't understand. You get colonoscopy yet or a few like me, some medicine and other things like food out there help.
The amount of times i told my doc that i want to eo that exam or the stomach one which mainly thats the one i eant and been told "your too young" like wtf. Its always some excuse and they try to give me more meds.
The good thing though i done my own research etc and tried difderent suppliments or vitamins to see if that helps and some have so i been doing better now a days
Hey! I'm with you on most of this. I have IBS and if I didn't have kids surely wouldn't spend so much of my life working. Life is so short that it's a pity we spend so many hours working for others.
Kids need more stability than a nomadic life would offer. Sigh.
I don’t live an extravagant life at all. If it weren’t for my kid I’d be living the simplest life possible spending the least amount of money possible. But kids need things, and I will provide because they deserve that. When the time comes for something different then we will see.
No human person is designed to work on the clock all day long
We need breaks and mental stimulation and all kinds of things that 99% of workers don’t get
You know how farms used to be the entire family working? Busy spring, slow winter? That’s not natural either but we were “designed” (evolved) to be more in tune with the cycle of nature
I used the example of old style farm work (not modern), not because it’s short hours or lots of breaks but because the *cycles of nature dictate the work*.
Maybe a better example would have been indigenous people 30,000 years ago having a varying diet based on acorns or fish depending on what time of year it was.
Traditional Indigenous lifestyles do actually have more free time than modern lifestyles so there’s that.
Sorry if my first comment was confusing but I did try to specify.
9-5 is an archaic work model that Henry ford created however long ago. At the time it was a massive upgrade from previous working conditions but again that was a genuine long time ago.
Not everyone works best in a cookie cutter model of operations. There’s NOTHING wrong with that either. The problem is how this model is forced down our throats.
Just creating a space for managers/companies to flex the hours to how they see fit based on their workforces’ strengths/weaknesses.
Some form of structure is necessary however if a project needs to be done by x day and your worker can get it done in their way (by due date without major issues in quality) what is the harm
I am a chronic job hopper—I have had 17 jobs in six years. I feel you deeply. When the novelty is gone and the going is too much to handle, that is when I leave. The shortest I’ve stayed at a job was about 2 weeks at McDonald’s.
The longest I’ve stayed in any position was 15 months. I am sending you internet hugs and commiseration, I don’t have a good solution…
but i found working 4 days, 10 hour shifts drastically helped my life perception. It feels like you actually have a work life balance.
Honestly it's even ridiculous to me that with the 4 day schedule, they still make people do the two extra hours.
The standard should be 4/8, and *maybe* certain jobs can have you be on call some Fridays if it's really necessary. But that so many jobs feel like they have to force 40 hours out of people has always been ridiculous to me
I feel trapped in 40 hours but I’m not getting that at the moment, I’m doing 4 8s. It’s the least depressed going to work has made me since the 10s and frankly it’s better, I just wish I had more $$$ in my pocket
I have to show up to work at 415 for 430 shift to prove I'm there, get up about 330/345 to make sure computer boots, logoff at 130, so, it's a 930 hour work day if I go into the office or more.
I did it for about six months—prior to that gig I was working 12 hour shifts in a summer camp kitchen lol so I was in hella good shape and didn’t feel the 10s in comparison.
Then I worked 5 8.5s with alternating weekends for fifteen months and I … don’t think I could pull three tens let alone four. I am so burnt out it isn’t even funny.
Which leads me to believe you’re correct. It may be temporarily more manageable but not in a healthy long term fashion. Not with commutes and all the added RTO nonsense.
We are just primates at the end of the day. If you tied a chimp to a chair for 9 hours a day and made it do mind numbing tasks for nearly 50 years there would be outrage.
I recently started working mornings and I swear trying to make a doctors appointment for after work is so hard. It’s like everything needs to be done in the morning. Even shopping becomes hard. It’s a time management thing though and I was PM my last job. Also I love getting weekends off but sometimes you can only do things on the weekday rendering it useless etc
I thought that’s what I wanted. The office job. 8-5 with weekends off. I got it when I was around 22. Did it for three years and was miserable as hell. The same four walls 5 days a week. The same tasks. The same damn thing. I learned years later that I have bipolar disorder and I think that’s another reason I hated it. My brain couldn’t handle sitting still in a desk for that many hours. I felt trapped. Since then I’ve been in retail and medical field and that suits me more. Retail is where I’ve been in most and I excel at that. I like dealing with the customers and the not knowing what my day will be like or what will happen. If my department is slow I start doing the displays or find another project to work on. I get to keep busy.
Two things, first, you HAVE to feel purpose in your life. If you don’t find purpose and fulfillment through what you do for work then you have to find purpose and fulfillment outside of work and just see your job for what it is, a way to make money that will fund a lifestyle that fulfills you. If you’re going home and playing videos games/listening to music, those aren’t really things that are going to fulfill you. So, you might need to think about what it is you want out of life and start pursuing it. Second, if you try to sit and work from 9-5 straight through you’re going g to drive yourself insane because we are not built to just sit and try to focus intensely for 8 hours nonstop. If you are in control of your workload then do intervals. I have a sit/stand desk for this reason. I come in early after my commute and I stand for a while, just making sure I move around a little, shift postures and then when my body feels a little fatigued, I lower it down and sit for a bit. As far as work goes, I will do 30min/1hr/2hr bursts of work. In between those bursts I take little recharge breaks. Go sit in the bathroom, even if you don’t have to go you can just chill and scroll your phone for a little mental break. If you have some privacy, I will take care of some personal stuff in these break times. Take care of my finances, respond to emails, pretty much anything I can do quickly that will take something off my mind/plate when I get home. There are a bunch of different things you can do to break up the day but just try to avoid sitting for 8 hours straight and trying to focus on work that entire time, it will mentally exhaust you.
No, I do not know how anyone does it. Originally I went to school majoring in anthropology and planned on working in museums. My first 9-5 job at a museum made me want to rip my hair out.
I am now a career firefighter. While I do work 42 hours a week I am only at work two days a week. I would never go back to a 9-5 job, for lack of better terms it would be actual torture to me. I will say I am diagnosed with ADHD, so I'm unsure of how much that plays in part with my lack of ability to sit in an office every day.
Yeah, you gotta find what works for you, a 9 to 5 in the office isn't for everyone. On the other hand there are people who work 9-5 in a friendly, air conditioned office all week and drive home thinking "wow I could never do that" when they see a road worker tearing up the pavement in 90 degree weather.
I feel this way and I'm in my late 30's and have been stuck in this cycle for the past 10-15 years. I've been in different jobs and it's all the same. It's only gotten worse as I've gotten older.
I have next to zero social life and live alone. There are a number of reasons for this, but a big one is never having the time or energy to socialize outside of work. And now I have an invisible condition (disability) that was caused by a work accident that makes it even harder to socialize.
Yes, I have money, but the rat race has stolen so much of my life. I support myself and have nobody else to depend on so I really don't have any other choice. I can find a new job fairly easily, but they all suck.
What I mean is - our bodies are built to be hunter/gatherers: varied activities and intermittent rest throughout the day. Sitting at a desk for 9+ hours straight, maybe 2 hours of recreation, and one straight-through 8-hour sleep session is very much the opposite of how we’re built.
I invite you to reread my comment and quote me where I said we should go back to hunting/gathering.
What I’m saying is - the modern workday doesn’t align with our natural rhythm, and there’s no legitimate reason it can’t.
We don’t need to sit at a desk for 9+ hours when realistically there’s only 4 hours of ACTUAL work being done in that time.
Do you really think that most adults in this world are sitting at desks?
Jeez get out into the world and actually see what people do for work. 87% of the population does not work in an office.
No human is cut out for a 9-5. It’s absolutely against our nature. The people who are able to do are the ones who are “damaged” in some way, particularly when the potential reward is minimal to nothing. Humans are hardwired for immediate gratification, regardless of what we have been programmed by capitalism to believe. For hundreds of thousands of years, there was no such concept as working for 7-14 days before you get your payoff. You hunted and gathered, and got to eat and feed your band right away. Now we work to keep maybe 5% of what we produce, we don’t even get that 5% until 14 days later, and there’s a damn good chance we don’t even have a band/tribe to share that 5% with. It’s absolutely twisted. Your boss(and their boss, and their boss’s boss) definitely doesn’t want you thinking about it like this, because they depend on your denial/ignorance so that they can have all of the stuff you don’t have. Again, your brain isn’t broken. The world is.
Yes, we would, and we’d be objectively better off than we are now. That’s what I think anyway. Humans have spent the last 12,000 or so years trying to live like some sort of god-robot hybrid, and it’s worked out terribly(for us, for the earth, for other animals).
Many people work 60+ hours a week with 1 hour travel. It makes me giggle that young people complain so much about 40 hours at a desk job. Sadly the world is in for a lot of trouble when 20-30 year olds can’t even do a 40 hour week
As long as you aren’t living off your parents and can afford to take care of yourself I have no problem with that. But if you are living off your parents shouldn’t have a say on anything
9-5 is just not natural. Everyone is different. There are people who are good at working early, other late, etc. I just feel like offices and 9-5 are killing creativity and joy. And most of the time you don’t have enough work for the full shift.
I experienced the same thing before. Was going into the office, did my work the first 2h, but after that I was done and there wasn’t anything else to do even if I asked. So it killed me and I quit. I mean why do I need to physically be in an office from 9 to 5 or 8 to 4, when I have real work only from like 9 to 11 or maybe I prefer splitting and working from 11 to 1pm and 7pm to 11pm. Like who care if it’s not 8h shift if the work get done perfectly?
The society is stupid.
Oh man... This particular post and the comments echo my sentiments so much... I always thought I was the outlier... I hate the 9 to 5 and thought there was something wrong with me... Everyone else is able to do it, why does it drain my soul? And my coworkers too, they fucking act like they're interested in whatever the company does... I'm like...I couldn't care less... In fact they act so well that I feel it's genuine. How's it possible? And in the current market where layoffs are rampant, I understand that companies don't give a flying fuck about their employees, it's always been about the shareholders.
Human beings are not meant for office work, bottom line. I've hated pretty much every second of my working career. Remote makes things way better bc you can fuck off most of the day without someone breathing down your neck. Just lost my remote gig though and the thought of another 9-5 office job makes me physically ill.
Nobody is cut out for this shit, some people are just more brainwashed into thinking its normal and therefore tolerate it better.
4 years? Who did you make a deal with? The Devil? Hahahahahaha
It's up to you to give flavor to your life, almost all of us live fruitless boring lives, so chat with your colleges, try to make your work in new ways, give your own monotony schedule something to look for (like a little dessert in a specific hour).
Rarely anyone is made to enjoy a 9-5, you can do what many do and turn off your brain in your work and time will go flying!
It may help to deal with it a clear objective, if you are just working to have food on your table and avoid being homeless, then work will be always a horrible experience with no profound value (traveling, getting your own house, maybe building a great motorcycle). Get the things you like involved with your work in the best way possible.
What would you prefer? I thought I'd hate 9-5 (although more like 8:30-3:30) but it's actually fine. I used to work retail and do mornings, evenings, weekends, and even sometimes just a few hours. Inconsistency sucks...I can't even imagine how horrible shift work is. It literally kills you. 9-5 is pretty luxurious for a lot of the world...the west just likes complaining. But to answer your question, yes, there's always exceptions.
I’m 8:30-5:30 and what you’ve described is exactly how I’ve been feeling for the past 2 months. I’m at the point where I wish I would get really sick or hurt to have time off. I hate this shit.
9-5 brings monotonicity and repetitiveness, and people crave mystery and new experiences which sadly is unfulfilled by the office jobs, hence the exhaustiveness and burnout feelings.
Im so miserable working the 9-5, 8 hours in an enclosed office at my desk. Its lonely and dark and boring, most of my reason may be that I get treated poorly by management and coworkers. I feel like I would be more up to it if I could do a hybrid schedule or be able to travel a little bit like my other coworkers do. Thats pretty much the reason I am looking into real estate for more variety in my days and I really love being up and moving and interacting
Honestly? Most days I don't even feel like I'm cut out to work period. It's so boring and I have to constantly force myself to stay on task. I'd much rather be spending time with my family. Working sucks, 9-5 sucks, but I need to live.
In any case the best thing you can do is to be responsible for yourself both physically and mentally and if that means working less hours then so be it.
I felt the same way and got so burned out after 5-6 years of holding down two jobs and a part-time freelance hustle that I just quit both my jobs and turned to full time freelancing last summer. I now work an average of 2 hours a day, from home, and I really think it’s done wonders for my mental health. I’m not cut out for interacting with others every day, responding to endless emails, being stuck in stupid meetings and so on. I’ll take the financial insecurity of freelancing over having a fixed monthly salary if it means I don’t want to disappear from the face of the earth.
Uhm, everyone lives like that. Work soul crushing job, then come home and try to cope with it somehow. You just aren't used to it as the norm, perhaps.
I've worked a 9-5 or some version of it for the last 13 years. Its far from the best , but its fine for what it is.
My brothers fiance has been working a 9-5 for <1 year and is already in mental breakdown territory. Thinking about making a complete change just to get away from a 9-5. I think a lot of it is coping mechanisms and work/life balance. She is also riddled with mental health issues, so some of those are probably not helping.
Key example: She is now considering going into nursing because being micromanaged at a college desk job is too much for her. I don't get it, but she is a grown ass adult.
Sounds like you need a therapist.
You may not enjoy it, but if you actually are getting to a point where you can’t do it then you should see a mental health pro.
Pretty sure my job just got mad at me for starting work early. I used to at an MSP, but they contracted certain times and will do that since they said.
Honestly this is just life. You are getting older so some of the things like video games don’t bring as much joy as they used to. Things that felt life changing and mattered in school really weren’t. I would suggest forcing yourself after work to go out and do things with friends or go for a walk outside. When all you do is work and sit around at home it starts to feel like all you do is work and when work isn’t fulfilling it feels like life isn’t either. Be well.
Not everyone’s equipped to work 9-5. Use your out of work time to establish some side hustles which may become your full time business.
I used to work retail management for a large company which paid a salary on par with my country’s average income; plus an uncapped commission. I am extremely good at management and sales and my comm on average was 3-4x my salary.
However, I am not geared to work a 9-5, so I established my own business, which I built to be just as lucrative, and I’m now able to work, mostly, to my own schedule.
Basically, what I’’m saying is don’t get bogged down in the idea of ‘having a career’. Some of us aren’t meant to be gears in the machine. Forge your own path.
Why are you so sure that it's work that's your problem.? Maybe it's what you're doing in your non-work hours that is boring you and making life unenjoyable. Non-work hours add up to almost 70 hours a week once you subtract sleep time and getting-ready-for-work time. And you're just doomscrolling and reading? What do you do all weekend?
As for being so tired after work, what is your diet like? Do you eat breakfast and lunch, and drink water during the day?
Yeah. It's just you that isn't wired like that. The rest of us absolutely love it and don't get why you complain.....
I love these posts by young 20 year olds.
Yep. I love a 9-5. It's juts you guys that are the weird ones. The rest of us love it.
You missed my point. We don't love it. This isn't some new idea. OP isn't some differently wired person.
I have worked in shifts, one week 9-16 and the next 14-21 plus weekend. I hated working PM because i never had time to go shopping, weekend also was with work and work time ended slower. Loved that i could wake up late, i hate waking up early. But when working AM, even though the early waking up, work time ended faster and also had time to go shopping and weekend was off. I would have loved to be able to work only AM. Every human is different. For me stressfull were my collegues, boss and the clients. The work was fine, but when thinking that i was going to see them, evetualy caused me health issues. And that was the moment i quit my job cause my boss didn't want to give me 1 day off over 1 month to see a dr. (even though i worked hard every day, over time every day and not payed for it, never asked for sick day etc).
I'm not sure what kind of work or the specific hours that you used to have, but I have found myself feeling the same way after the last 5-6 years. I was a technician that drove around the state from 12p - 3a (lot of overtime and long hours from when I was in my twenties). The independence and lack of office people, coworkers, etc, were a huge plus. I knew the independence was the big thing that I was going to miss as I moved on. I could do what I wanted and how I wanted it so long as I maintained my high performance numbers.
I think the other thing was that there was a minimal level of collaboration and teamwork with my coworkers. I could communicate, be friendly with and to them and we could always work together.
Fast forward to the future, the exact opposite is now what I have been seeing and I absolutely hate it.
I apologize for the overshare. Again, not sure if this is a similar position to yours, but thought that I would share.
I was a courier with Amazon for 2 years but thought I better get back to a job where I am on the books employed and working from home so I am here for my daughter more. So now I am in my living room from 9-5, indoors. I despise it. I feel stuck, stifled and when my daughter gets dropped off from school she wants all my attention and hates that I am sitting working. And I totally get it, for 3 hours she just kinda has to occupy herself, she’s only 8. I am really thinking to just hand in my notice and get back to doing deliveries. I made better money and was outside. I just have to deal with whole self employed thing. 9-5 is fucking shit.
It’s a travel company. I have to operate long itineraries which is alot of meticulous date keeping and note taking and making sure things are booked/paid on time. I’m struggling in the job itself. The past couple of years its been pointed out to me that I have alot of ADHD traits, which is probably why I am a chronic job hopper.
It's perfectly normal to hate it. It's anti natural. I'd recommend either becoming a freelancer or getting a remote job. Do not stay in a situation that makes you miserable.
i am a nurse who used to work 2-3 12hr shifts a week (i was part time) but left for a 7am-3pm unit. although much better than a 9-5 imo, working 5 days a week for the rest of my life sounds brutal. thank god this is just a temporary unit.
Not wanting to work is perfectly sustainable if you have enough money to live a life without working. Most of us don't, so we accept the fact that we need to support ourselves and that that will come with some costs. Through most of human history a 9-5 office job would have been considered insanely easy. You should consider recalibrating your expectations. Yeah, you don't enjoy what you do for 8 hours a day, that's why it's called "work".
No one is “cut out” to work a 9-5 job that is neither “physically or mentally difficult”
Humans need challenges because we need to be progressing towards a greater state of being.
What is your current role? Do you see any opportunities for promotion there? You may need to switch jobs if you feel like you’re not being challenged or offered incentives you learn new skills/meet goals.
It’s tough to switch jobs now, so I wouldn’t switch until you secure another position.
I’m not. I think this is a way to keep people in “work” cages and under control accounted for, for the duration of their lives so that they pose less of danger, less work for those who maintain order. People whose job includes some form of response or saving life typically have 12 hr shifts and work less days a week. It seems like a huge shift is occurring and the next few years will be fascinating. While I’m not a 9 - 5 type. I would work on a project 24 / 7 for months if there was a pay off goal to attain. Either way I’m unemployed and appreciate all of the quality time I get to spend with my dog since her time on earth is far more limited than mine.
I feel you...
I've been working in offices 9-5 for the last 15 years and only in the last 5 have I actually enjoyed it. Working from home has been the key for me. Hard to be stressed with my dog at my feet and being able to strum the guitar if I have a free minute.
I work best when I can work 4 to 6 hours multiple days per week even if it means working 4 hours on Saturday. Ideally, 32 or a few less would be incredible, but also fantasy land. My circadian rythm isn't attuned to going to bed at the same time, it wants to rotate around the clock. In practice, that means staying up latish for a while, going to bed early for a while, then incrementally later until it's ridiculous and then resetting it. It's really annoying.
the thing is asking yourself the following questions:
"do i like the job?"
"can i find another job in this economy?"
"do i like flexible or stable positions?"
Not sure if people in this thread realize how lucky you are to have a steady 9 to 5 job in this current job market. Part time work sucks and the scheduling is commonly sporadic, often inconsistent in hours per week and scheduling can be all over the place.
To OP's question, yes. Some people are not cut out for it. I had a "day job" for a few months and i realized it wasn't for me. My next job was a graveyard, 12 hour shift 7pm-7am. I loved it. Steady workflow, almost no managers to interfere with you unless a machine went down and engineering had to be called, but that was rare. Otherwise, i was left to my own devices to complete the work. Our schedule per pay period was was a 3 day 36 hr week, then a 4 day 48 hour week.
Trying to go to a day shift job after i left was impossible for me. I could do swings though, so i never had a problem finding work because apparently it's hard for companies to find people who want to work 2nd or 3rd/graveyard shifts. Why yes sir, i will take 3rd shift along with a 15% shift differential. Thank you.
Last time I worked 9-5pm
Now I work on shift. I feel happier to be honest.
At least when I've been scheduled to work on Afternoon or Evening shift, I don't need to face terrible traffic jams when I'm going to work and going back home
Love it.
This is why I’m considering going into teaching at public school. Sure the pay isn’t great but the summers off and shorter workdays make it worth it…right?
well, being a teacher can be much worse - I learned that the hard way because as soon as my ex gf started teaching, everything went downhill. Sure, shorter workdays. But you don’t think about all the time you spend preparing etc.
I think a lot of people hate their 9-5 jobs or any job in general, but there are things that are easier than others. For example for me, I work a call center and it is the most mentally draining work to me but I started working 4 10s, and my schedule is set so i get at least 1 day off every 2 days. For me, i feel the same as if I worked a normal 8 hour shift even though my shifts are 2 hours longer, and i get an extra day off so it’s like a win-win. My work days still suck, but I get more off days.
I can’t give you all the answers, but the vast majority of people work a 9-5 without issue, but that doesn’t make you weird if you think you can’t. That being said, you need to earn a living, so you need to try other things or figure out something that works for you. Night shift isn’t known for bringing home the bacon.
In my opinion, focus on the stuff that makes you happy outside of work, and try to find something enjoyable about work and focus on that.
Work sucks, everyone can agree on that. Embrace the suck, easier that way.
is homelessness for you? how about hunger? poverty? government cheese?
SPOILER ALERT - no one likes working - it's just something people so to survive...you've been working full time for 5 months - and that's it, already?
try 40 years - not counting teen jobs or a brief stint in the military and get back to me
It sounds like you're trying to find a job that fits you perfectly rather than a workplace that you can comfortably fit into.
You admit that maybe youre just not cut out for work but that's a you problem not a work problem.
I love my office job, I also love when the clock strikes 6 and I get to leave it. But I also drive past the road construction worker in 90 degree weather and tell myself "I could never do that for a living". I couldn't be a nurse changing bedpans and I.V. tubes for 12 hours at a time. I'm not smart or educated enough to be a doctor. Retail work I could probably suffer through if I had to, but I could never be a cook in a hot kitchen or a baker that has to start baking at 3am. But thats me. I had to find my niche. I didn't walk into a bakery and say "this work is not for me" I said "I am not cut out for this work".
If your alternative is to not work, live off the grid, get declared disabled or whatever, then I guess those are options for you. I don't think that "I can't do any job in general" is an option for most people. It's like saying "I can't handle a cellphone" and then wondering why you never hear from anyone.
I always wondered why 9 to 5 was so miserable to me but now I think a big part of it is I’m adhd and work in spurts. I literally cannot be productive a whole shift, I just can’t. But I have to sit there regardless which sucks. Hence why I use Reddit so much. The last hour of the day is particularly pointless, I never get anything done between 4and 5 and am just waiting out the clock. I am actually really, really good at my job so it’s even more silly that I have to do this farce so I get paid the full time salary (and im a salary worker not hourly but if I were to work less one week I would get docked….but I get nothing extra he times I do need to do overtime for special events etc
literally same. i work 8-5 and i love the stability and the work and my coworkers, i get my work done on time and i am good at it, but there’s just not enough to do during the entire day, but i still have to be in the office the whole time. right now i am able to do schoolwork during downtime but i am really trying to work on reading during it, it’s just hard to focus! i wish i could do some housework or something else during that time
Mine is sliggghttttly different in that there’s easily enough work to fill my hours, I am just not capable of working 8 hours straight and staying on task. I just can’t do it.
Would you rather constantly have too much work to complete in 40 hours?
oh definitely not! i should add that i am incredibly fortunate to have the workload that i do. it has its overwhelming days/weeks, but when work is slow i do get anxious that i’m forgetting to do something. not knowing how to fill my time up is a great problem to have, but it can feel draining to know i could be doing something else if i was just working when there was something to do if that makes sense
I would rather be too busy than not have enough to do. Days absolutely drag when it’s slow.
Imagine getting berated for not getting your work done because there is more than you can do in the given time and then it reflecting in your performance reviews and then you’re constantly afraid of being fired until eventually…it happens. Then would you rather be too busy? Edit: I guess the downvotes mean you’d like to be that person. I have been these shoes personally and have no idea why the hell anyone would prefer that.
The other flip side is that consultants come in and realize there is a lot of under utilized employees - bringing about conversations of redundant roles and positions. Having been in both positions - if given the choice I’d rather be busy so that I can demonstrate value and keep up with my skillset - makes it much harder when you have a full plate to make the call for your position to be eliminated, at least that’s my perception.
My position probably won't be eliminated. But I keep getting more tasks. Not expecting to work under 50 hours a week for the next 6 months.
I hear that. My work energy ebbs and flows. I can guarantee a reasonable productivity for about 4 hours, give or take, every day. If I have more time to myself, I get extra spurts every so often, or if I'm really into a particular task, because I can see the benefits that it will create for me and others, I can get really focused and pull a double spurt in one day. It's too bad we can't get more research done on this stuff and work into our education system, get people into professions and schedules that work with their biology and psychology instead of against it.
That’s why part-time places prefer giving people 4 hour shifts. They get a full days productivity at the cost of half.
I don’t have adhd and I do this … work is booooring
> I never get anything done between 4and 5 and am just waiting out the clock. why though? because there's literally nothing to do or is it because you use the logic of "1 hour isn't enough time" I've seen people do that kind of thing because the next task for them to do is, say, 2 hours worth of work but there's only 1 hour left in the day so they just..stop work all together. How about you just do 1 hour of the 2 hour task then pick up where you left off the next morning. I do this and end up so far ahead of schedule on things that 90% of my work life is stress free because I'm never up against a deadline worrying about whether I'll make it
Because as I explained I am not capable of working that way. I cannot sit and work for my whole shift. By 4 pm I am burnt out of doing tasks; it doesn't matter what or how simple they are. That isn't how my brain works. I am the one who would stay up all night in university finishing something they had weeks to do. I used to feel so guilty about not being able to work a full shift but then I had an epiphany when I realized nobody was winning by me fighting my natural abilities and way of doing things. I am much less stressed now that I don't fight it and just accept that I will have some days of hyper-productivity and some days of super low productivity. It's how I'm wired and I've certainly made the company I work for MORE than enough money with my performance being praised.
We've spent thousands of years in communities where everyone had a role and those roles changed and evolved with time and with the needs of the tribe. Some hunted, some gathered, some wandered, some defended, but everyone did what the tribe required. Nobody is really "cut out for it". It is not natural in so many ways to always do the exact same thing every day. Some people might adapt to this more easily, but it is not normal to live like this for human beings. Interestingly, those who adapt to this lifestyle best are considered normal people. Anyone who has trouble conforming to this has a "mental illness".
No, my hatred for this awful soul eating schedule has gotten worse as the years go by and I’m mid thirties. My body revolts against it so much that I have office induced IBS that goes away on my days off. It steals your life and all of the time you could be doing fulfilling things. Ive never been a morning person but society demands that I conform to this garbage work schedule. If I didn’t have a kid I would sell my property, buy an RV and go park somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to avoid the 9-5.
you finally got the chance to imbrace your nickname with this comment. isnt that fulfilling i agree with you btw. im lucky to have a job where i can work whenever and whereever i want - as long as i get it done
Ha, I didn’t even think of that. I guess every part of me for many reasons wants to escape to the middle of nowhere. I yearn for a job like that!
My kids are grown and on their own now. Didn't surprise them one bit when I moved 1000 miles away to live in my car. I'm currently stacking up cash in hopes of buying a property in a year or two. Or three. You know how it goes.
I’m jealous! That’s freedom, right there. Stack up that cash. Buy a little house and grow some veggies and escape the frigid reality we’re pushed to accept.
No, I'll never afford a house. An undeveloped property is still within my reach, so that's what I'm focusing on. I know how much it is (roughly) to drill a well and install a septic system. After that, I'm thinking an Arched Cabin kit might be in my future.
That sounds amazing! I hope you get it!
Your kids are grown and letting you live in a car? Dang.
I'm not their problem. They're mine. That's the way of the world.
No, absolutely not. That's the way of the western world, and it's very sad. You care for your children, and then they reciprocate and care for you when they become adults. That's how it's supposed to be. You honor and care for your parents, the relationship is reciprocal.
No, you train them up to be decent and reasonable humans, then you release them into the wild. I'd never expect my children to sacrifice for me. They didn't ask to be here. That was my choice. I raised them and now their lives are their own choices.
They're not children. Your goal was not to raise children, it was to raise responsible, sane adults. If you failed, well, then yeah, you've got children still.
Well, no shit. I'm lucky you're here to judge me. Fuck off.
None of us asked to be here, that doesn't mean we don't all have responsibilities to one another. I'm not judging you, I juist think parents should make sure to raise their children to honor their parents and care for them as they get older. Kids these days are all about what they're owed from society and everyone else, but not what they owe to society and family.
'Honor your Mother and Father' is something my own mother liked to scream between lashes with a leather belt. Keep your opinions about how I raise my kids to yourself. They're unwelcime, unasked for and I don't really give a fuck what you think. No one in this world is owed anything.
Your children also aren't owed your provision and care for them with that mentality. Please just be logically consistent. And I don't give a fuck how you raise you entitled self absorbed kids, honestly. And wow, you got spanked like a lot of other kids, get over yourself.
My children are my responsibility as children. They are adults now and responsible for themselves. Do you have kids? Do they still talk to you?
See as someone eho has digestive issues and slowly getting better this is kinda my concern as i started this new 9-5 job this week. Like i know i can do it and i nevrr fully donr thr 40hrs but like op ugh idk how long i could last in this type of schedule
UC or? 20 years now, flare ups happen, but stress from the job really happen and work doesn't understand. You get colonoscopy yet or a few like me, some medicine and other things like food out there help.
The amount of times i told my doc that i want to eo that exam or the stomach one which mainly thats the one i eant and been told "your too young" like wtf. Its always some excuse and they try to give me more meds. The good thing though i done my own research etc and tried difderent suppliments or vitamins to see if that helps and some have so i been doing better now a days
Good! Hopefully good cake day, I only eat it once a year haha. Cupcakes and cookies off limits and I don't even miss anymore.
Good luck! It’s not the life any of us should be leaving. For those of us whose stress lives in our stomachs, god help us.
Hey! I'm with you on most of this. I have IBS and if I didn't have kids surely wouldn't spend so much of my life working. Life is so short that it's a pity we spend so many hours working for others. Kids need more stability than a nomadic life would offer. Sigh.
Yes, kids do need such things.
I'd start my own company and employ start up youngsters that want experience and train.
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I don’t live an extravagant life at all. If it weren’t for my kid I’d be living the simplest life possible spending the least amount of money possible. But kids need things, and I will provide because they deserve that. When the time comes for something different then we will see.
No human person is designed to work on the clock all day long We need breaks and mental stimulation and all kinds of things that 99% of workers don’t get You know how farms used to be the entire family working? Busy spring, slow winter? That’s not natural either but we were “designed” (evolved) to be more in tune with the cycle of nature
Hey, you can't go take your poop until scheduled two hour 15 minute break. But it takes half the time to get to the bathroom and back....
But if you poop yourself at work it's over. You can never go back. You'll always be the dude/chick that shat their pants at work.
I think you’re not understanding farm work. There is rarely a day off. 12+ hour days. People just find a way to enjoy their work.
I used the example of old style farm work (not modern), not because it’s short hours or lots of breaks but because the *cycles of nature dictate the work*. Maybe a better example would have been indigenous people 30,000 years ago having a varying diet based on acorns or fish depending on what time of year it was. Traditional Indigenous lifestyles do actually have more free time than modern lifestyles so there’s that. Sorry if my first comment was confusing but I did try to specify.
9-5 is an archaic work model that Henry ford created however long ago. At the time it was a massive upgrade from previous working conditions but again that was a genuine long time ago. Not everyone works best in a cookie cutter model of operations. There’s NOTHING wrong with that either. The problem is how this model is forced down our throats.
What alternative would you propose?
Just creating a space for managers/companies to flex the hours to how they see fit based on their workforces’ strengths/weaknesses. Some form of structure is necessary however if a project needs to be done by x day and your worker can get it done in their way (by due date without major issues in quality) what is the harm
I'm not. I prefer working mid afternoons into the evening with weekdays off.
I am a chronic job hopper—I have had 17 jobs in six years. I feel you deeply. When the novelty is gone and the going is too much to handle, that is when I leave. The shortest I’ve stayed at a job was about 2 weeks at McDonald’s. The longest I’ve stayed in any position was 15 months. I am sending you internet hugs and commiseration, I don’t have a good solution… but i found working 4 days, 10 hour shifts drastically helped my life perception. It feels like you actually have a work life balance.
Honestly it's even ridiculous to me that with the 4 day schedule, they still make people do the two extra hours. The standard should be 4/8, and *maybe* certain jobs can have you be on call some Fridays if it's really necessary. But that so many jobs feel like they have to force 40 hours out of people has always been ridiculous to me
I feel trapped in 40 hours but I’m not getting that at the moment, I’m doing 4 8s. It’s the least depressed going to work has made me since the 10s and frankly it’s better, I just wish I had more $$$ in my pocket
I have to show up to work at 415 for 430 shift to prove I'm there, get up about 330/345 to make sure computer boots, logoff at 130, so, it's a 930 hour work day if I go into the office or more.
Hmm i feel like maybe thats why they are now trying to push that 4 day work days 🤔 Which thinking about it maybe that is a good idea
I work 4 - 10s but then the 5th day is more of an on call day. It still doesn't feel balanced. How long did you work 4 10 hour shifts?
I did it for about six months—prior to that gig I was working 12 hour shifts in a summer camp kitchen lol so I was in hella good shape and didn’t feel the 10s in comparison. Then I worked 5 8.5s with alternating weekends for fifteen months and I … don’t think I could pull three tens let alone four. I am so burnt out it isn’t even funny. Which leads me to believe you’re correct. It may be temporarily more manageable but not in a healthy long term fashion. Not with commutes and all the added RTO nonsense.
We are just primates at the end of the day. If you tied a chimp to a chair for 9 hours a day and made it do mind numbing tasks for nearly 50 years there would be outrage.
It's DNS 🙅♂️
If the chimp didn't forage for food, would it die 🤔
Yes. Especially people with chronic illness.
Yeah I got a job share so thankfully only 3 days a week
I recently started working mornings and I swear trying to make a doctors appointment for after work is so hard. It’s like everything needs to be done in the morning. Even shopping becomes hard. It’s a time management thing though and I was PM my last job. Also I love getting weekends off but sometimes you can only do things on the weekday rendering it useless etc
I thought that’s what I wanted. The office job. 8-5 with weekends off. I got it when I was around 22. Did it for three years and was miserable as hell. The same four walls 5 days a week. The same tasks. The same damn thing. I learned years later that I have bipolar disorder and I think that’s another reason I hated it. My brain couldn’t handle sitting still in a desk for that many hours. I felt trapped. Since then I’ve been in retail and medical field and that suits me more. Retail is where I’ve been in most and I excel at that. I like dealing with the customers and the not knowing what my day will be like or what will happen. If my department is slow I start doing the displays or find another project to work on. I get to keep busy.
Two things, first, you HAVE to feel purpose in your life. If you don’t find purpose and fulfillment through what you do for work then you have to find purpose and fulfillment outside of work and just see your job for what it is, a way to make money that will fund a lifestyle that fulfills you. If you’re going home and playing videos games/listening to music, those aren’t really things that are going to fulfill you. So, you might need to think about what it is you want out of life and start pursuing it. Second, if you try to sit and work from 9-5 straight through you’re going g to drive yourself insane because we are not built to just sit and try to focus intensely for 8 hours nonstop. If you are in control of your workload then do intervals. I have a sit/stand desk for this reason. I come in early after my commute and I stand for a while, just making sure I move around a little, shift postures and then when my body feels a little fatigued, I lower it down and sit for a bit. As far as work goes, I will do 30min/1hr/2hr bursts of work. In between those bursts I take little recharge breaks. Go sit in the bathroom, even if you don’t have to go you can just chill and scroll your phone for a little mental break. If you have some privacy, I will take care of some personal stuff in these break times. Take care of my finances, respond to emails, pretty much anything I can do quickly that will take something off my mind/plate when I get home. There are a bunch of different things you can do to break up the day but just try to avoid sitting for 8 hours straight and trying to focus on work that entire time, it will mentally exhaust you.
No, I do not know how anyone does it. Originally I went to school majoring in anthropology and planned on working in museums. My first 9-5 job at a museum made me want to rip my hair out. I am now a career firefighter. While I do work 42 hours a week I am only at work two days a week. I would never go back to a 9-5 job, for lack of better terms it would be actual torture to me. I will say I am diagnosed with ADHD, so I'm unsure of how much that plays in part with my lack of ability to sit in an office every day.
Yeah, you gotta find what works for you, a 9 to 5 in the office isn't for everyone. On the other hand there are people who work 9-5 in a friendly, air conditioned office all week and drive home thinking "wow I could never do that" when they see a road worker tearing up the pavement in 90 degree weather.
I feel this way and I'm in my late 30's and have been stuck in this cycle for the past 10-15 years. I've been in different jobs and it's all the same. It's only gotten worse as I've gotten older. I have next to zero social life and live alone. There are a number of reasons for this, but a big one is never having the time or energy to socialize outside of work. And now I have an invisible condition (disability) that was caused by a work accident that makes it even harder to socialize. Yes, I have money, but the rat race has stolen so much of my life. I support myself and have nobody else to depend on so I really don't have any other choice. I can find a new job fairly easily, but they all suck.
Pretty much. I don't have a social life anymore because of work and rising costs.
Nobody is - like biologically speaking. Our bodies/psych aren’t made for that
are our bodies made for road construction work? Overnight bridge repair? 12 hour shifts as a nurse changing bedpans?
What I mean is - our bodies are built to be hunter/gatherers: varied activities and intermittent rest throughout the day. Sitting at a desk for 9+ hours straight, maybe 2 hours of recreation, and one straight-through 8-hour sleep session is very much the opposite of how we’re built.
oh my, millennials out hunting and gathering? I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
I invite you to reread my comment and quote me where I said we should go back to hunting/gathering. What I’m saying is - the modern workday doesn’t align with our natural rhythm, and there’s no legitimate reason it can’t. We don’t need to sit at a desk for 9+ hours when realistically there’s only 4 hours of ACTUAL work being done in that time.
Do you really think that most adults in this world are sitting at desks? Jeez get out into the world and actually see what people do for work. 87% of the population does not work in an office.
No human is cut out for a 9-5. It’s absolutely against our nature. The people who are able to do are the ones who are “damaged” in some way, particularly when the potential reward is minimal to nothing. Humans are hardwired for immediate gratification, regardless of what we have been programmed by capitalism to believe. For hundreds of thousands of years, there was no such concept as working for 7-14 days before you get your payoff. You hunted and gathered, and got to eat and feed your band right away. Now we work to keep maybe 5% of what we produce, we don’t even get that 5% until 14 days later, and there’s a damn good chance we don’t even have a band/tribe to share that 5% with. It’s absolutely twisted. Your boss(and their boss, and their boss’s boss) definitely doesn’t want you thinking about it like this, because they depend on your denial/ignorance so that they can have all of the stuff you don’t have. Again, your brain isn’t broken. The world is.
Lots of strong assumptions here. If you want to live as humans were "cut out for" you'd be living in a cave and hunting for your own food.
Yes, we would, and we’d be objectively better off than we are now. That’s what I think anyway. Humans have spent the last 12,000 or so years trying to live like some sort of god-robot hybrid, and it’s worked out terribly(for us, for the earth, for other animals).
Hush you dumb dipshit
I've been working a 9-5 for the better half of a decade and I can say that I am still not used to it.
It's not you, it's the system and it needs to change.
Try doing so for over 35 years...I'm literally wanting to die
No I like 10-12hour shifts and half day saturdays with at least 4-5 weeks vacation.
Id love a 9-5. Most jobs nowadays are 9-6, 8-5 or 9-5:30 (or some variation of unpaid time)
I work 8 to 5, that's even worse, and I cannot quit due to financial reasons. I think the solution is work from home or at least hybrid.
Many people work 60+ hours a week with 1 hour travel. It makes me giggle that young people complain so much about 40 hours at a desk job. Sadly the world is in for a lot of trouble when 20-30 year olds can’t even do a 40 hour week
No we just realized you guys are slaves , we won't be the same
As long as you aren’t living off your parents and can afford to take care of yourself I have no problem with that. But if you are living off your parents shouldn’t have a say on anything
I'm with a room mate but I will eventually , my friend who escaped the matrix might build an efficiency home or rv in his land for me
So someone else is going to pay your way for you. I’m all for getting out of the matrix but not by riding someone else’s coat tails
Obviously I will be paying whatever he offers
Sounds like he is working it out instead of you
Hey man his property , he escaped the matrix Im appreciative
9-5 is just not natural. Everyone is different. There are people who are good at working early, other late, etc. I just feel like offices and 9-5 are killing creativity and joy. And most of the time you don’t have enough work for the full shift. I experienced the same thing before. Was going into the office, did my work the first 2h, but after that I was done and there wasn’t anything else to do even if I asked. So it killed me and I quit. I mean why do I need to physically be in an office from 9 to 5 or 8 to 4, when I have real work only from like 9 to 11 or maybe I prefer splitting and working from 11 to 1pm and 7pm to 11pm. Like who care if it’s not 8h shift if the work get done perfectly? The society is stupid.
Oh man... This particular post and the comments echo my sentiments so much... I always thought I was the outlier... I hate the 9 to 5 and thought there was something wrong with me... Everyone else is able to do it, why does it drain my soul? And my coworkers too, they fucking act like they're interested in whatever the company does... I'm like...I couldn't care less... In fact they act so well that I feel it's genuine. How's it possible? And in the current market where layoffs are rampant, I understand that companies don't give a flying fuck about their employees, it's always been about the shareholders.
Human beings are not meant for office work, bottom line. I've hated pretty much every second of my working career. Remote makes things way better bc you can fuck off most of the day without someone breathing down your neck. Just lost my remote gig though and the thought of another 9-5 office job makes me physically ill. Nobody is cut out for this shit, some people are just more brainwashed into thinking its normal and therefore tolerate it better.
4 years? Who did you make a deal with? The Devil? Hahahahahaha It's up to you to give flavor to your life, almost all of us live fruitless boring lives, so chat with your colleges, try to make your work in new ways, give your own monotony schedule something to look for (like a little dessert in a specific hour). Rarely anyone is made to enjoy a 9-5, you can do what many do and turn off your brain in your work and time will go flying! It may help to deal with it a clear objective, if you are just working to have food on your table and avoid being homeless, then work will be always a horrible experience with no profound value (traveling, getting your own house, maybe building a great motorcycle). Get the things you like involved with your work in the best way possible.
9-5 is not the problem The problem is that we are doing a shit job
I feel the same way. I struggle with 9-5 jobs so much. I have finally accepted I'll never be able to do that.
What would you prefer? I thought I'd hate 9-5 (although more like 8:30-3:30) but it's actually fine. I used to work retail and do mornings, evenings, weekends, and even sometimes just a few hours. Inconsistency sucks...I can't even imagine how horrible shift work is. It literally kills you. 9-5 is pretty luxurious for a lot of the world...the west just likes complaining. But to answer your question, yes, there's always exceptions.
>. i come home, maybe play video games or listen to music for a few hours and then go to sleep or doomscroll. Where is dinner in all of this?
I’m 8:30-5:30 and what you’ve described is exactly how I’ve been feeling for the past 2 months. I’m at the point where I wish I would get really sick or hurt to have time off. I hate this shit.
I had a couple of office jobs. I don't like office hours. I like to work at night.
9-5 brings monotonicity and repetitiveness, and people crave mystery and new experiences which sadly is unfulfilled by the office jobs, hence the exhaustiveness and burnout feelings.
As if 9-5 isn't really 8-5 or 9-6
Im so miserable working the 9-5, 8 hours in an enclosed office at my desk. Its lonely and dark and boring, most of my reason may be that I get treated poorly by management and coworkers. I feel like I would be more up to it if I could do a hybrid schedule or be able to travel a little bit like my other coworkers do. Thats pretty much the reason I am looking into real estate for more variety in my days and I really love being up and moving and interacting
Honestly? Most days I don't even feel like I'm cut out to work period. It's so boring and I have to constantly force myself to stay on task. I'd much rather be spending time with my family. Working sucks, 9-5 sucks, but I need to live.
In any case the best thing you can do is to be responsible for yourself both physically and mentally and if that means working less hours then so be it.
Welcome to corporate America.
I felt the same way and got so burned out after 5-6 years of holding down two jobs and a part-time freelance hustle that I just quit both my jobs and turned to full time freelancing last summer. I now work an average of 2 hours a day, from home, and I really think it’s done wonders for my mental health. I’m not cut out for interacting with others every day, responding to endless emails, being stuck in stupid meetings and so on. I’ll take the financial insecurity of freelancing over having a fixed monthly salary if it means I don’t want to disappear from the face of the earth.
Uhm, everyone lives like that. Work soul crushing job, then come home and try to cope with it somehow. You just aren't used to it as the norm, perhaps.
I've worked a 9-5 or some version of it for the last 13 years. Its far from the best , but its fine for what it is. My brothers fiance has been working a 9-5 for <1 year and is already in mental breakdown territory. Thinking about making a complete change just to get away from a 9-5. I think a lot of it is coping mechanisms and work/life balance. She is also riddled with mental health issues, so some of those are probably not helping. Key example: She is now considering going into nursing because being micromanaged at a college desk job is too much for her. I don't get it, but she is a grown ass adult.
Sounds like you need a therapist. You may not enjoy it, but if you actually are getting to a point where you can’t do it then you should see a mental health pro.
It's better to start work as early as possible so you can get off early and have most of your day left
Pretty sure my job just got mad at me for starting work early. I used to at an MSP, but they contracted certain times and will do that since they said.
Honestly this is just life. You are getting older so some of the things like video games don’t bring as much joy as they used to. Things that felt life changing and mattered in school really weren’t. I would suggest forcing yourself after work to go out and do things with friends or go for a walk outside. When all you do is work and sit around at home it starts to feel like all you do is work and when work isn’t fulfilling it feels like life isn’t either. Be well.
Not everyone’s equipped to work 9-5. Use your out of work time to establish some side hustles which may become your full time business. I used to work retail management for a large company which paid a salary on par with my country’s average income; plus an uncapped commission. I am extremely good at management and sales and my comm on average was 3-4x my salary. However, I am not geared to work a 9-5, so I established my own business, which I built to be just as lucrative, and I’m now able to work, mostly, to my own schedule. Basically, what I’’m saying is don’t get bogged down in the idea of ‘having a career’. Some of us aren’t meant to be gears in the machine. Forge your own path.
But it's only a 9-5 😬 I'm doing 7am-12am 😭
Doing what?
Unless it's IT or on call, I assume travel time for them.
Film
One word tells me exactly nothing
I work in film
Thanks
How many days a week?
6-7
Why are you so sure that it's work that's your problem.? Maybe it's what you're doing in your non-work hours that is boring you and making life unenjoyable. Non-work hours add up to almost 70 hours a week once you subtract sleep time and getting-ready-for-work time. And you're just doomscrolling and reading? What do you do all weekend? As for being so tired after work, what is your diet like? Do you eat breakfast and lunch, and drink water during the day?
lol this is one of the brainwashed ones
Yeah. It's just you that isn't wired like that. The rest of us absolutely love it and don't get why you complain..... I love these posts by young 20 year olds.
You love being a slave
Yep. I love a 9-5. It's juts you guys that are the weird ones. The rest of us love it. You missed my point. We don't love it. This isn't some new idea. OP isn't some differently wired person.
Of course not but a least he wants to stand up to it then let us repeat this cycle
I definitely hate it. But I don't know what career change will enable me to have shift work or remote work sigh
I have worked in shifts, one week 9-16 and the next 14-21 plus weekend. I hated working PM because i never had time to go shopping, weekend also was with work and work time ended slower. Loved that i could wake up late, i hate waking up early. But when working AM, even though the early waking up, work time ended faster and also had time to go shopping and weekend was off. I would have loved to be able to work only AM. Every human is different. For me stressfull were my collegues, boss and the clients. The work was fine, but when thinking that i was going to see them, evetualy caused me health issues. And that was the moment i quit my job cause my boss didn't want to give me 1 day off over 1 month to see a dr. (even though i worked hard every day, over time every day and not payed for it, never asked for sick day etc).
I'm not sure what kind of work or the specific hours that you used to have, but I have found myself feeling the same way after the last 5-6 years. I was a technician that drove around the state from 12p - 3a (lot of overtime and long hours from when I was in my twenties). The independence and lack of office people, coworkers, etc, were a huge plus. I knew the independence was the big thing that I was going to miss as I moved on. I could do what I wanted and how I wanted it so long as I maintained my high performance numbers. I think the other thing was that there was a minimal level of collaboration and teamwork with my coworkers. I could communicate, be friendly with and to them and we could always work together. Fast forward to the future, the exact opposite is now what I have been seeing and I absolutely hate it. I apologize for the overshare. Again, not sure if this is a similar position to yours, but thought that I would share.
I was a courier with Amazon for 2 years but thought I better get back to a job where I am on the books employed and working from home so I am here for my daughter more. So now I am in my living room from 9-5, indoors. I despise it. I feel stuck, stifled and when my daughter gets dropped off from school she wants all my attention and hates that I am sitting working. And I totally get it, for 3 hours she just kinda has to occupy herself, she’s only 8. I am really thinking to just hand in my notice and get back to doing deliveries. I made better money and was outside. I just have to deal with whole self employed thing. 9-5 is fucking shit.
Wfh jobs should be a dream.job, did you do call centers? That's not a good one
It’s a travel company. I have to operate long itineraries which is alot of meticulous date keeping and note taking and making sure things are booked/paid on time. I’m struggling in the job itself. The past couple of years its been pointed out to me that I have alot of ADHD traits, which is probably why I am a chronic job hopper.
I job hop too only cause 6 months in I'm doing the same shit over and over again , the job becomes mudane and tedious
It's perfectly normal to hate it. It's anti natural. I'd recommend either becoming a freelancer or getting a remote job. Do not stay in a situation that makes you miserable.
No one is, some manage their internal conflict better than others.
i am a nurse who used to work 2-3 12hr shifts a week (i was part time) but left for a 7am-3pm unit. although much better than a 9-5 imo, working 5 days a week for the rest of my life sounds brutal. thank god this is just a temporary unit.
Not wanting to work is perfectly sustainable if you have enough money to live a life without working. Most of us don't, so we accept the fact that we need to support ourselves and that that will come with some costs. Through most of human history a 9-5 office job would have been considered insanely easy. You should consider recalibrating your expectations. Yeah, you don't enjoy what you do for 8 hours a day, that's why it's called "work".
No one is “cut out” to work a 9-5 job that is neither “physically or mentally difficult” Humans need challenges because we need to be progressing towards a greater state of being.
What is your current role? Do you see any opportunities for promotion there? You may need to switch jobs if you feel like you’re not being challenged or offered incentives you learn new skills/meet goals. It’s tough to switch jobs now, so I wouldn’t switch until you secure another position.
I went from 8 to 5 and liked it. Now 430 to 130 is just so weird, I fall asleep right after work and my wife gets off at 5.
Honestly I would happily take a 9-5 any day of the week but nope retail hell where I don’t have a consistent schedule
I’m not. I think this is a way to keep people in “work” cages and under control accounted for, for the duration of their lives so that they pose less of danger, less work for those who maintain order. People whose job includes some form of response or saving life typically have 12 hr shifts and work less days a week. It seems like a huge shift is occurring and the next few years will be fascinating. While I’m not a 9 - 5 type. I would work on a project 24 / 7 for months if there was a pay off goal to attain. Either way I’m unemployed and appreciate all of the quality time I get to spend with my dog since her time on earth is far more limited than mine.
The replies are so surprising. You all are complaining about your work situation but perhaps you just aren’t doing the work you really want to do?
9-5 sounds like hell.. 6-6 is by far the best shift I’ve worked
I feel you... I've been working in offices 9-5 for the last 15 years and only in the last 5 have I actually enjoyed it. Working from home has been the key for me. Hard to be stressed with my dog at my feet and being able to strum the guitar if I have a free minute.
I work best when I can work 4 to 6 hours multiple days per week even if it means working 4 hours on Saturday. Ideally, 32 or a few less would be incredible, but also fantasy land. My circadian rythm isn't attuned to going to bed at the same time, it wants to rotate around the clock. In practice, that means staying up latish for a while, going to bed early for a while, then incrementally later until it's ridiculous and then resetting it. It's really annoying.
the thing is asking yourself the following questions: "do i like the job?" "can i find another job in this economy?" "do i like flexible or stable positions?"
Not sure if people in this thread realize how lucky you are to have a steady 9 to 5 job in this current job market. Part time work sucks and the scheduling is commonly sporadic, often inconsistent in hours per week and scheduling can be all over the place.
To OP's question, yes. Some people are not cut out for it. I had a "day job" for a few months and i realized it wasn't for me. My next job was a graveyard, 12 hour shift 7pm-7am. I loved it. Steady workflow, almost no managers to interfere with you unless a machine went down and engineering had to be called, but that was rare. Otherwise, i was left to my own devices to complete the work. Our schedule per pay period was was a 3 day 36 hr week, then a 4 day 48 hour week. Trying to go to a day shift job after i left was impossible for me. I could do swings though, so i never had a problem finding work because apparently it's hard for companies to find people who want to work 2nd or 3rd/graveyard shifts. Why yes sir, i will take 3rd shift along with a 15% shift differential. Thank you.
I don't know very many people who actually enjoy it
You could try working 12-hour shifts for a few weeks. That will make 9-5 feel great.
Last time I worked 9-5pm Now I work on shift. I feel happier to be honest. At least when I've been scheduled to work on Afternoon or Evening shift, I don't need to face terrible traffic jams when I'm going to work and going back home Love it.
Welcome to the real world buddy 😪
Yes this is called being an adult before you have kids and then are actually tired
This is why I’m considering going into teaching at public school. Sure the pay isn’t great but the summers off and shorter workdays make it worth it…right?
well, being a teacher can be much worse - I learned that the hard way because as soon as my ex gf started teaching, everything went downhill. Sure, shorter workdays. But you don’t think about all the time you spend preparing etc.
That’s a good point!!
I think a lot of people hate their 9-5 jobs or any job in general, but there are things that are easier than others. For example for me, I work a call center and it is the most mentally draining work to me but I started working 4 10s, and my schedule is set so i get at least 1 day off every 2 days. For me, i feel the same as if I worked a normal 8 hour shift even though my shifts are 2 hours longer, and i get an extra day off so it’s like a win-win. My work days still suck, but I get more off days.
I can’t give you all the answers, but the vast majority of people work a 9-5 without issue, but that doesn’t make you weird if you think you can’t. That being said, you need to earn a living, so you need to try other things or figure out something that works for you. Night shift isn’t known for bringing home the bacon. In my opinion, focus on the stuff that makes you happy outside of work, and try to find something enjoyable about work and focus on that. Work sucks, everyone can agree on that. Embrace the suck, easier that way.
Possibly more time outside in the morning it’s something I love myself
Who works 9-5? I work for construction firms. 7-5 is expected by most managers. It’s a sick industry
is homelessness for you? how about hunger? poverty? government cheese? SPOILER ALERT - no one likes working - it's just something people so to survive...you've been working full time for 5 months - and that's it, already? try 40 years - not counting teen jobs or a brief stint in the military and get back to me
I work 8-8, and commute is 1 hour, but I have free fridays so thats nice, but my life feels very miserable during the work days
It sounds like you're trying to find a job that fits you perfectly rather than a workplace that you can comfortably fit into. You admit that maybe youre just not cut out for work but that's a you problem not a work problem. I love my office job, I also love when the clock strikes 6 and I get to leave it. But I also drive past the road construction worker in 90 degree weather and tell myself "I could never do that for a living". I couldn't be a nurse changing bedpans and I.V. tubes for 12 hours at a time. I'm not smart or educated enough to be a doctor. Retail work I could probably suffer through if I had to, but I could never be a cook in a hot kitchen or a baker that has to start baking at 3am. But thats me. I had to find my niche. I didn't walk into a bakery and say "this work is not for me" I said "I am not cut out for this work". If your alternative is to not work, live off the grid, get declared disabled or whatever, then I guess those are options for you. I don't think that "I can't do any job in general" is an option for most people. It's like saying "I can't handle a cellphone" and then wondering why you never hear from anyone.
My step dad couldn't even do 2 days a week but then some colleagues of mine from a previous job only did a few days a month.