How Many of You Enjoy What You Do for a Living?

I'm an illustrator / graphic designer / animator. I love it. I make a living out of something i already loved doing as a kid.. drawing.
Like any work there are ups and downs but i would love everyone to be in a position where they could do work they really like.
It's such a big part of life (if you choose to participate in working society).

While my current job isn't exactly what I would want to do if given a choice, it is at a University. I love working at universities, because you get to directly see the impact of your work- there are hundreds of students that walk by your door each day. Nothing is more rewarding than that for me.

My job is just that to me, an exchange of my time and services for money in order for me to afford my life. Putting anymore value in it than that is a mistake for me personally and will never allow my "work" to define me. Anything I love that becomes my means of living I will quickly stop loving.

It has its ups and downs, but overall, I love my work.

I'm a policy officer working for the government. I design and evaluate public policy. The job will never make me rich, but it pays well enough to be comfortable, and it allows me to make real, meaningful changes to peoples lives on a systemic level. There's something really special knowing all your time and effort at work is going towards improving the lives of society's most vulnerable.

It's also been a source of comfort in fairly dark political and economic times. The people I work with are incredibly intelligent and driven, and seeing so many talented people forgoing much more profitable careers in the private sector in favour of working towards the public good is really heartening

Im in my last year of dental school. Politics and red tape aside, im enjoying what I do. Hopefully i still have the same attitude once real life work sarts.

Get to work with my hands, wear scrubs all day and use some cool toys during work. People seem happy and when they are, it really makes your day

Its not what I wanted to do, but it gives me the freedom to be on the internet all day so I am ok with it.

Once you realize that your ambitions are unobtainable everything gets less depressing.

I'm an operations manager at a private language school. It's pretty cool. I like the commute, like my co-workers, and like my job. And I still get to teach occasionally, which is nice. Separately, I also make educational YouTube vids, which I love doing and have loved doing since 2009.

But I'm working towards being a writer in the next 10 years or so, so we'll see how that goes.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/do-you-enjoy-your-job.40852/

And you posted in that thread 2 months ago...

Love what I do, always trying to get better.

I work from home writing about movies and video games. The pay isn't great but it is nice having freedom to work when I want, and the tax breaks are nice.

Overall I'm happy with where I am. That doesn't mean everything is roses though. You can enjoy what you do and still be stressed out, get anxiety issues, etc.

Love my job.

Electrical PE specializing in healthcare and some theme park design. It's mainly a ton of renovation work, but each project is something new.

Always learning something new.

I enjoy what I do very much (leading visual design on a UX team), but not the BS and politics that come with it.

I'm a commercial film director and I love it to death. Wouldn't want to do anything else. I a gazillion time more writing the concepts/script, getting it approved and editing the pieces than being on set which I enjoy the most. But it worth it.

I'm a translator. I like the job at my current employer. I don't wake up in the morning and dread going to work (either at the office or at home) so that's great. I'm good at what I do and I get the proper recognition so that helps a lot I feel. Also, I currently make an above average salary for my field and there's plenty of room to make that grow still. I don't see myself going anywhere else unless there's a massive change in my life or in the working condition. Might be locked here for the next 30 years, we'll see.

All in all, a very good situation so far.

I drink because it's so mind numbingly boring.

I like what I'm doing but I'll like it more when I'm senior enough to basically have other people do the hard/stressful parts of my job for me.

It's nice working in an office where I'm the only techie. I feel invaluable. It's a huge difference to all the jobs I used to do where I felt so dispensable it was depressing.

Doesn't mean it doesn't stress me out to hell and back though.

I'm a Software Engineer with a really good salary.

I'm still in training and some people are currently sick while others are on vacation. I just spent 5 hours watching cooking shows on Youtube.

I love it!

I loved video games since I was 4 and am now a gameplay programmer.
It's great, because, as a player, I know of stuff behind the scene, unnannounced projects from friends in the industry and stuff like that and it's very exciting.
Seeing a game made from scratch is also a wonderful experience and everyday I am glad I work where I do.

But because I expect games to be the best, I also tend to stay a bit later to polish my work sometimes more than needed or overthink a design because I needs to be that good for me not to see it in the released game.
That sucks because I am doing overtime mainly because I "don't mind" because of "passion" (which is a joke as the "passion" is often included in recruitment ads). It's not a problem with my SO as she too is a game programmer, but I am pretty sure in the long term, I'll suffer from it so I try to scale back on that overtime.

I'm liking it much more now that I'm out in the field and get to travel. Depending on how many assignments I have I can be done at 5pm or noon on any given day. Plus I have a work vehicle and a company card for gas so no wear and tear on my own car.

Software developer. I enjoy it overall even though I wish I was better at it. So I constantly stress about trying to improve but feel like I'm just spinning my wheels and I should have started as a hobby earlier in life. Some days I'm really exhausted and can't stand my job. But overall, its enjoyable for me.

High school teacher here (mathematics and physics). After nine years as a teacher, I still love my job.

I make art assets for videogames, and yeah I really like it.

I think a lot of people have it backwards, that idea of 'if its something you love it doesn't feel like work' but to me its more like, if you enjoy working hard you'll enjoy what you do. Focusing on doing a cathartic repetitive task for hours, solving a problem, systematically completing a list of tasks, the satisfaction of having something from nothing, and the satisfaction of getting better at whatever you do... Bit like a fun videogame ain't it? My nightmare worst job would be something where I had to spend more time 'looking busy' and convincing people I'm important than actually having tasks to do.

I wash dishes, amd prep food for a living. It sucks but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Hate where I work but love working in software development.

I'm a professor at a research university. I mostly enjoy it. It's not something I'm passionate about it, so I'm not one of those for whom my job is a hobby and something I love or anything. But I mostly enjoy research and teaching, while the administrative work that's ramped up after getting tenure sucks.

What I do love is the freedom and flexibility. Aside from classes (have input on days/times) and meetings set by others I mostly set my own schedule, don't have to ask for time off, have freedom in what I work on (admin work aside), make decent money etc. so I have little to complain about.

Currently work as lab tech at a salt mine. I don't mind the work as it's easy and pretty laid back most of the time. Not really what I want to be doing but at least it's lab experience and will hopefully be a stepping stone for what I actuslly want to do (forensics).

Worst part about it isn't the actual job itself but the location. I've been stuck in a shitty small town in rural Saskatchewan for almost a year and will be here till Christmas. Nothing to do except browse era and play vidya

Software developer, primarily making mobile apps. I'm using Xamarin just now which is kinda a pain in the ass, I'd rather be doing native development but hey it could be worse, I could be using Xamarin Forms.

I've liked the apps I've worked on so far so it is overall pretty great. I enjoy doing it.

If I ever career switched I'd probably want to go into something a bit more creative, I like video production as a hobby and being able to do that as a career would be great but that's even more competitive than that industry and I have formal education in it sooooo fuck that!

I'm in the "work to live" camp. I don't hate my job, company or co-workers but at the end of the day it's nothing more than a means for me to be able to enjoy things in life.

I QA video games. Amongst the dozens of job I've ever had in my life, it's one of the most enjoyable.

TarpitCarnivore said:

I'm in the "work to live" camp. I don't hate my job, company or co-workers but at the end of the day it's nothing more than a means for me to be able to enjoy things in life.

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yeh, I feel the same way, as long as I make enough money to enjoy my life after work to the fullest then I am ok with doing a meaningless job.

The Job not being stressful is a huge plus.

I mean, I'm 31 and I've been working in IT for 16 years. I enjoy it as much as one could expect, but after 16 years of anything, especially when starting at such a young age, it starts to grow stale. I'm bored af half the time tbh.

I do graphic design / marketing / social media, which I really love.

Unfortunately I'm also basically the overall business manager, too. I fucking hate paying bills, doing taxes, payroll, talking with the accountant, anything HR related, etc.

It's okay.

UI/CX Design and Front-End Dev and love it. The people I work with not so much at times but the work itself is massively fulfilling.

I sure don't, yikes

In the "work to live" camp myself, I like what I do and good at it – but given the choice and means when (assuming - if the economy holds) I hit my 30 year mark in 5 years would consider taking retirement and perhaps exploring other opportunities. More than likely just stay here since I know the job and culture but nice to have options.

Corporate Comms/PR and Transformational Programs is my line of work. It's fun and I get to travel and see various parts of the business in motion and work heavily on strategy. Summer is my weird period of sluggishness. Half of the problem with my line of work is yeah I've a fancy title but the work I actually do is hard to explain to most people and even most of my friends don't quite get what I do.

I also work as a screenwriter and producer but it's more of a side gig. I'll probably set up a digital transformation agency on the side when I get bored of it.

I'm a software engineer. Love the work and the people. But I don't love coding enough to do 40hrs/wk and then work on personal projects at home. Not sure how to deal.

Shin Bobo Dakes said:

Why would I remember this?

Also, I literally just made this to procrastinate going to work. If I ever make a thread around this time, it's because I don't want to go to work.

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Oh lemme make a note lmao.

It's awesome but I need to find something that pays more.

I'm a librarian, and I love it. I've worked a lot of shit jobs in the past, which makes me appreciate it even more.

I waste 8 hours of my day sitting in front of a computer helping nobody and improving nothing about the world around me.

I hate my job with a burning passion and I'm leaving to go back to school in a few weeks.

I work at a software company. It's okay, decent job. I don't really care about it but I don't mind doing it.

Problem is I am extremely passionate about art and try to switch my career to that, but it's really difficult to find positions.

Mechanical Engineer, i love my job. Seeing the huge plants being build that I Helped design is an amazing feeling.

Illustrator/ Graphic Artist. Love every minute of my working day, every day.

I'm a computer programmer by trade - studied this in college and spent more than 10 years working in IT for various automotive companies doing all sorts of things. It was interesting but I didn't really love it.

Now, after leaving the States in 2013, I work entirely for Digital Foundry and I love it! It's very satisfying work that is also way more demanding than I would have ever guessed.

Most projects involve scripting, recording, editing in Premiere and AE, filming, playing + capturing, reading lots of white papers and documents etc. It's really quite rewarding to create video content entirely by yourself while trying to entertain and inform people. The only downside is the significant number of hours required by many projects - especially those that I care about the most. Lots of 12+ hour days and often weekends to keep up with the demands of the internet.

Electrical Engineer. I enjoy what I do. It has its frustrating moments, but I get plenty of satisfaction from my work.