About twenty-five years ago, I read or heard something about being in a "better-than-nothing" relationship. Pretty self-explanatory. Being in a relationship just to avoid being alone. I'd rather be alone than in that type of relationship. Being in a better-than-nothing job is an entirely different matter.
There is the matter of supporting oneself. Unless you're financially independent, you need a job. Even if you're financially independent, you'd probably want some type of employment. It helps in many ways to be gainfully employed. I tend to believe that most people have a better-than-nothing job. I know I do.
The thing is, how do you find work that helps you in the ways you would be helped if you didn't need a job? I guess that the answer for me is to pretend that I am financially independent, that I don't need the money, but that I want a full-time job that will benefit me in other ways. It would probably be a good idea to figure out what those other ways are.
I've often heard of wealthy people being bored, depressed, and feeling useless. So a job that is better than better-than-nothing would help a person feel engaged, happy, and, for lack of a better word, useful. But there is a lot more to it than that. In my current job, I do feel useful. In fact, I used to feel overused and overwhelmed. I inherited a mess, a much bigger and nastier mess than I was led to believe in my interviews. I stuck with it, though, and never really thought about quitting. It was scary, at times, to look at the amount of work I had in front of me. But I did it. So now that I have pretty much cleared things up and settled down, why do I feel dissatisfied with my job?
There are many more factors to a job than just the duties and responsibilities that go along with it. There is the environment, for one thing. The environment at my current job is incredibly negative. On the surface, people get along with each other. But there is an undercurrent of negativity that is pervasive. As usual, it starts at the top. I have written here about the abusive boss. I've heard of abusive relationships and how the abuser is able to switch moods with frightening speed. If you read my post about the boss yelling at people, you know how such a person is able to do such a thing as yelling at his employees, and then within a few minutes, be laughing and joking with someone. I can't turn on and off like that. I don't understand people who can.
To sum up my current job, I'd say that overall it's a good job, but the better-than-nothing aspect of it comes from the negative environment. Employees are constantly walking on eggshells, hoping not to upset the easily upsettable boss. He manages by intimidation, which is not a good way to keep loyal employees. Or to keep employees loyal. I recently read one of those things that people spread around on the Internet, that said something like "Never push a loyal person to the point that they no longer care". Wow. Well, it's too late here. More people don't care here than do, I think. The employees here care enough about their jobs to do whatever they need to do to keep those jobs, but that's about it. There is no real joy here. As far as I can see, no one really enjoys their job. That's sad.
Before I found out about this job sixteen months ago, I was in a situation that I liked but was not paying enough and provided no real benefits other than job satisfaction. I thought about what kind of job I wanted. I came up with the idea that I wanted to work at a place that had nice things, pretty things, things that are pleasing to the eye and pleasant to be around. Not long after, this job came along. I got what I wanted, as far as the pretty things. But there was a cost involved that I didn't factor in, and that is the cost of being in a negative atmosphere all day long. The assignment I hereby give myself is to spend some time imagining an ideal job. I didn't do that last year. I need to do it now.
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