thebardyspoon posted:

I sort of thought this thing would be my dream job but it's just...... not.

thebardyspoon posted:

thebardyspoon posted:

Sorry in advance for the vent/whine. I'm really struggling with my now not new job, been there for 4 months now. I sort of thought this thing would be my dream job but it's just...... not. I feel stressed out and drained all the time even over the weekends, a bunch of aspects of the job are super outside my comfort zone and in such a way that isn't going to get easier as I know myself reasonably well at this stage of my life. It's at the point where I'd be relieved if they fired me but I don't think they are going to do that, they seem to think I'm doing fine (also being fired would probably make getting another job much harder so probably best not to wish for that). Part of the issue is I'm supposed to be recruiting people for my team right now and I'm finding it pretty hard to try and sell the position because if I'm not happy, how the hell can I try and entice someone else into it?

What's really pushed this into the forefront of my mind is this Friday just gone me and a bunch of friends took the day off, met up (I think we were pretty safe so I don't feel guilty about that) for the first time since Feb 2020, met someone who was a friend of a friend who joined our gaming group on discord for the first time, had some beers in a park and then went for a burger and some more drinks and it was just.... fantastic but what I noticed is they're all really happy and satisfied with their jobs. Like for them, the day off was just another day that was obviously more fun, but it wasn't an oasis in a desert of misery.

As a result I've basically just spent the entirety of yesterday and most of this morning so far trying to find something much chiller and then going back and forth over whether it's loving stupid to be thinking about leaving this job so soon. The thing is I've felt this way about the last few jobs I've had, I thought they were a great opportunity and then they've turned out to not be what I want at all, beginning to think it's the type of job in general and I'd feel more happy doing something else but taking the time to work out what I actually want to do is a bit of a risk. A part of me honestly wouldn't mind just battening down the hatches, using my savings from this job so far for a few months and just going for walks/exploring a bit most days. Felt so cooped up the last year and a half.

Somewhat relevant to this current discussion and probably also contributing to my negative feelings, in a few weeks they're going to start asking people to come into the office 3 days a week, which is in my contract but in the interviews they were pretty clear about it being "when people feel comfortable" but now it seems like it's "when the bosses are bored enough of working from home" situation. I sort of felt up for it back then, mostly because I was desperate for a job I suppose but now that I've worked from home for a few months I don't really feel I'm going to get much benefit out of spending an extra couple hundred a month, that's with the new flexible season tickets even and a few hours of my day, 3 days a week just to be in the office and get some of this fabled "collaboration and that cool spark you get from all being in the same room", maybe I just don't have much faith that it'll do much good for me.

Not sure what I'm expecting in response to this, just needed to put it down somewhere and this thread has good eggs who hand out decent advice I find. Most of my friends have said "life's too short to be unhappy but it's easier to find a job while you have a job" which is generally true but does feel like I'm locking myself in for the long haul since people would probably ask why I'm looking elsewhere so soon.

Jakabite posted:

I’ve got to admit I’m curious as to what pig snacks are. Possibly pork scratchings but if not I’m going to need to try them

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

I once had a job that I hated in electronic sales. I ended up drawing a grid of squares every morning with the number of hours left til the end of one year (which I told myself I had to stick it out for - every morning, a brand new grid, colour in a square an hour). The job was absolutely NOT what I was told it would be. Then I got to the point of having to argue with myself every morning not to throw a sicky. I would wake up at night crying with distress. I quit long before the end of the year and with nothing to go to.
That said, back then, temping jobs were quite easy to get so I got a 'wolves from the door' job within a couple of days and ended up there 10 years (being made permanent, getting training & qualifying as a surveyor along the way - NOT a building surveyor one of the other sorts).

Write down all the things that are distressing you about the job, and anything you can think of that you enjoy about the job.
Things to consider: (not to answer here!)

Do you have enough money to last 6 months without a job (albeit living on lentils for 6 months)?

Do you have dependents?

Are you looking to do something in the near future that requires you to be in employment (eg rent a flat? remortgage?) - if so, don't quit til you've sorted those out.

You say that the firm thinks you're doing ok. So in all likelihood you are probably satisfying the technical aspects of the role more than adequately.

Do you need more training on something that your not getting (and maybe need to ask for - employers are often oblivious to the needs of staff who may be struggling and 'getting by' because they're working fk knows how many hours of unpaid overtime finding stuff out)?

Does your employer know how much extra time you're putting in?

If you really don't know what you might want to do instead, I highly recommend "What color is your parachute' books - they're released new every year but if you can get one that's a bit out of date cheap, it'll do just as well with all the various exercises in it.

(NB I just saw a review of that book that comments on 'christian rhetoric' - I have to say I never noticed it. But you can ignore that if it really is there - maybe it's in a newer edition than the last one I used - and do the exercises.)

OwlFancier posted:

The secret to good scratchings IMO is how much MSG they put in

EvilHawk posted:

Just to be clear: Women's football exists, and there is a GB team in the Tokyo Olympics.

quote:

John Lewis is considering plans to build 10,000 homes over the next decade as the high street store group looks to revive its flagging fortunes by becoming a landlord.

jaete posted:

Out of interest, is this GB team UK-wide or does it mean "literally GB" as in not including NI?

If it does include NI, would "UK team" be a better name for it than "GB team"?

(I grew up in a nation-state ama)

happyhippy posted:

NI is included, the full team title is 'Great Britain and Northern Ireland', but just shortened to GB.
And people from NI can join either GB or Ireland.
I worked with a long distance runner who got into two Commonwealth games for GB.
He couldn't be any more non-British, total irish republican, but selected GB as there was more funding and chances to do more running.
He swapped to Ireland a few times though.

jiggerypokery posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/04/john-lewis-plans-to-build-10000-rental-homes-on-its-land-waitrose

Modern Britain.txt

forkboy84 posted:

I doubt that, there is no GB team for the Commonwealths.

forkboy84 posted:

I doubt that, there is no GB team for the Commonwealths.

At this point I don't even have the energy to be mad coz gently caress, at least they are talking about building houses when nae other oval office is.

I should be mad, this is not the solution but who the gently caress else is proposing building the quantities of housing necessary? Nobody because that would destroy the housing bubble that gives people of a certain vintage the illusion of wealth.

jiggerypokery posted:

I'm sceptical of the housing crisis narrative. Is there really a significant lack of housing in this country or is it just that housing prices and thus rental costs the sacred cow that must never be slaughtered?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

who the heck aged 30+ wants to be arguing about who left hair in the bath, who doesn't scrub the bog after a dump, whose turn to clean the bath, who failed to wash their dishes for a month

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Single-person households constitute quite a big chunk in the UK (approx 8 million households 2020 figs )
source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/961002/households-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-type/

and none of the political parties aims any part of their agenda at single-person households, it's all 'families families families'.

Guavanaut posted:

They're building loads of new houses around here and they're all detached and designed for couples/families (and priced against 'those' couples/families), essentially ringing the village with identikit suburb.

jiggerypokery posted:

I'm sceptical of the housing crisis narrative. Is there really a significant lack of housing in this country or is it just that housing prices and thus rental costs the sacred cow that must never be slaughtered?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

serious gaylord posted:

Anecdote time.

2 years ago we bought our house, it needed significant renovation and was probably at the lower end of the valuation scale and in a fairly 'rough' area. Now I'm in Poole on the south coast so property prices are insane here all the time but we got this place for 240k. No issues getting a mortgate for 220k with a 20k deposit.

We're looking at getting an extension done so we were going to remortgage to finance this. We had the house valued last week and please remember that this is 2 years on from when we bought it at 240k, and while we've done quite a lot of work its mostly things like windows/boiler and every room in the house still needs finishing and redecorating.

Its been valued at 330k. If we had nice carpets and everything was lovely it could go for 360k. Its gone up 90k in 2 years through basically doing nothing.

Our mortgage adviser said not a single bank would lend us 300k for the usual 10% deposit mortgages based on our income (Which has improved considerably in those 2 years since my wife is now a fully trained accountant). We're now in a position that we could not afford the house we could get 2 years ago if we had to buy it again today.

This is insane. If 2 'professionals' can't afford houses now on joint incomes how is anyone even slightly worse off going to get anything?

Guavanaut posted:

There's a boomer marriage joke in there somewhere.

They're building loads of new houses around here and they're all detached and designed for couples/families (and priced against 'those' couples/families), essentially ringing the village with identikit suburb.

I've said a number of times that what they need is medium density tenements near public transport, but nobody wants to build that because it's not where the money is.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Do you have enough money to last 6 months without a job (albeit living on lentils for 6 months)?

Danger - Octopus! posted:

Inside cities, you're also up against people trying to turn every property possible into an airbnb, so half the places up for sale that might be suitable for a single professional (or even couples some of the time) are aimed directly at that market. All that seems to get built are student accomodation because that is where the investment opportunities apparently are.

Marmaduke! posted:

My in laws are thinking of buying a second home near us so they can
a) visit whenever they like
b) rent it out as an airbnb when they're not there

Boomers eh? Oh well it'll be a nice inheritance for when I retire at 75 with a negligible pension

feedmegin posted:

See, I've heard this one before, though mostly from Boomers - but who, in this world, not a Boomer or homeowner, has this ability while still having to pay 2021 levels of rent?

jiggerypokery posted:

The fact that this is a sane financial decision is the exact problem

Danger - Octopus! posted:

Inside cities, you're also up against people trying to turn every property possible into an airbnb, so half the places up for sale that might be suitable for a single professional (or even couples some of the time) are aimed directly at that market. All that seems to get built are student accomodation because that is where the investment opportunities apparently are.

feedmegin posted:

but who, in this world, not a Boomer or homeowner

jiggerypokery posted:

I'm sceptical of the housing crisis narrative. Is there really a significant lack of housing in this country or is it just that housing prices and thus rental costs the sacred cow that must never be slaughtered?

forkboy84 posted:

There is an element of that, sure. You can look up on Rightmove & see that you can get a 3 bedroom house in Bishop Auckland for £40k. So maybe there is enough housing for everyone in theory, but a lot of that housing that's actually affordable is in places that haven't had jobs since Thatcher killed industry in the UK. Building more houses (to be accurate, Building more affordable houses, because most of the new builds around here are 4 bedroom suburban and exurban monsters which cost a lot for an area that's not overflowing with high paid work the last I checked) in areas where people want to live for work purposes is not the only way to pop the property bubble but it is the most politically viable option, even accounting for NIMBYs.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Student accommodation offers theoretically the best possible ROI if you're building dense. You can, with only minimal care, cram 2 or more units into the space of a single studio apartment, you don't need to provide a kitchen for each unit which saves you a shitload on plumbing, utilities, and fire protection, sound insulation standards are (even) lower then housing, and can charge a rent that's often not too far away from a single-bed. Also if it all goes tits up the cost to convert to a hotel or office space is absolutely minimal.

Note that the actual population of students willing and able to pay these rents is actually pretty small and often these places go at best half-occupied, and yet they still keep going up because the spreadsheets say they're profitable and so the developers can still throw them up and sell them on as investment opportunities. It also goes without saying that these places are also by far the most expensive to maintain both because of the density and also because of course they've been put up as cheaply as possible, but of course maintenance budget is set by the ROI of the owners and the population of them often have no idea of even the rather lower level of rights they have as tenants.

stev posted:

This is why I desperately hope the working from home culture lasts after the pandemic's over. If we can get people living in places because they actually want to live there rather than because it's close to the hellcube they work in it would potentially solve so many problems.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Lol if you don't think the hellcubes won't be converted into housing even shittier than what we already have.

feedmegin posted:

See, I've heard this one before, though mostly from Boomers - but who, in this world, not a Boomer or homeowner, has this ability while still having to pay 2021 levels of rent?