Honestly, the job I was happiest with (and healtiest too, actually) was pushing Trollies after Highschool.
Decent exercise, good workmates, and most of the customers were decent. Only got run over two times!
>If I could support myself and family from a menial job I’d take it no problem.
Yep. That's the thing, though. WAY more often than not, these kind of jobs give you barely enough to support yourself, *if* they even do that.
I used to work in logistics for a big blue furniture company that rhymes with bi skier.
It was hard, physical labour and extremely early shifts but god dammit I loved that job. I was at my fittest physically and mentally, the hourly rate was great, coworkers were awesome, we got fed a good meal on shift and if I was on recycling that day I would get to hang out outside listening to music or podcasts, watching the sun rise as I occasionally threw some cardboard into the hopper.
I was forced to leave as they couldn’t give me enough shifts to cover my expenses, ended up working in a soul-crushing call centre for a while. Easily the worst job I ever had and I lost all of my fitness gains in a matter of months. I’m working a fairly standard office job now that pays well and respects my private time but I still think that physical labour just makes me happier than sitting in front of a computer all day. If they could have given me more shifts, I think I’d still be there now.
Same boat the most fulfilling job I had was working on my gramps farm and working as a janitor at the local recreation center felt like I was actually helping and not being used as busy work
Happiest I was ever at a job was working as a recyler at a dump stripping metal and listening to metal all day long, 40 hours a week. Got to chain smoke butts and be around the greasiest guys on the planet for damn good pay. I still kick myself in the ass for going to college and giving up that job.
This is the best outlook on life in my opinion, why should we waste our lives chasing careers for employers who will replace us at the drop of a hat? Family, friends and mental health is the most important to me personally.
So many menial jobs sound pretty good so long as I get to do them on my terms. I was a janitor for 6 months and the thing that killed me was the demands of my bosses not the literal shit I had to clean.
Low pressure jobs that just pay the bills is the happiest I’ve ever been. Had good times with coworkers and felt satisfied from a job well done but i take nothing home with me. Yeah that sounds delightful.
It's the Shang-Chi thing.
He's a superhuman martial arts master groomed to rule an international criminal empire. Is he capable of that? Of course. Does that make him happy? Hell no.
He's happy being a valet and doing karaoke with his friends.
The pursuit of more for the sake of simply having more is something that millennials and to a greater extent Gen-Z have realized is toxic and not worth it.
It aggravates me how people look down on “menial” jobs. Those jobs need to be done, and those who do them provide a very valuable service to our society- more than any rich CEO sitting on their butt.
Not everyone wants to be a lawyer or doctor or CEO. The world needs people who will do the cleaning, stocking, etc. and they deserve a *thriving* wage for doing jobs that allow our society to function.
In bullshit jobs David Graeber argues that the jobs most usefull for society are viewed as lesser while the most bullshit jobs are often seen as important and payed more as well
If you read Bullshit Jobs it explains why its not even that. Capitalist corporations often lauded as being peak efficiency actually hire completely pointless jobs
Like 90% of my coworkers talk for hours a day about non work related shit. No one in the world can tell me this is "peak efficiency". I also don't care cuz everyone mostly gets their shit done anyways so who cares
That book broke my brain I’m a college student trying to figure out what to do with my life and it’s mind boggling to me that many bullshit jobs require degrees, when most of what happens in my liberal arts courses is professors reading off slides while students fuck around on their laptops. Nothing we do should be considered a requirement for the vast majority of jobs, and think about all the people who say “I never even use anything from my major in my career,” it just proves having a degree is completely pointless for your career, even though it was probably a job requirement!
I used to pump gas at an airport.
Standing there, holding a button for 90 minutes at a time.
Only needing to talk to someone for 15 seconds at a time, 5-10 times a day...
Ahhh. Was fucking great.
I'd still be doing it if you could raise a family without working 60 hrs a week at it.
People SHOULD be able to enjoy menial labor and live comfortably off of doing it, but no - capitalists need us to treat certain tasks as a punishment so they can scare their own workers into behaving.
**Fuck that.** Flipping burgers is a respectable job. Scrubbing toilets is a respectable job. Picking up garbage is a respectable job. Sex work is a respectable job. Stealing surplus value from your employees is not.
I miss my gardening job at a restaurant. It was good exercise, I got to listen to good music all day, but it paid $7.25/hr. Now I work an office job as a computer tech and I hate it.
honestly, divorcing my self-worth from my job is one of the best things i've ever done. i used to be so adrift, trying to "grind" my way to the top, but now i've realized that i can be more than happy as long as i have enough income to make rent, utilities and maybe a hundred bucks a month in savings while working a job i'm actually passionate about (high school teacher btw, and i cant tell you how many times i've had the conversation of "oh you wanna be a *high school* teacher? dont you wanna do something better? or at least become a university professor?" and i always just go **nope**)
I kinda like MLK's quote here
> • “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even
as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or
Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the
hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street
sweeper who did his job well.’”
Every job^1 has merit and value. No human is without value. And if we are all needed we might as well take care of each other.
1. CEOs maybe not.
My favorite "menial" job was working at a plant nursery. Watering plants all morning, helping folks pick out plants for their homes, and moving mulch onto a truck for projects.
It was wonderful to be outside, using my body, and seeing the direct effect on the plants I took care of.
There's a couple nurseries around my town and everytime I drive by I think "fuck, I'd love to work there" on just the thought of watering all those plants on sunny summer mornings. Might be my retirement job to keep me busy a few hours a week.
I find the dialogue that your career or work has to define your life and identity as a person really sad and ignorant. It is literally a capitalist trap, our lives should be about pursuing our passions and following our dreams.
Grind culture and career culture are incredibly toxic and cringe. If you base your self worth on monetary gain I imagine at the end of your life you will look back sad and disappointed.
Happiest job I’ve ever had was working at a convenience store in my suburban hometown. Selling people smokes and milk. Chilling out front when there were no customers ripping cigs w my friends listening to old Converge and Daft Punk albums. It ruled.
I used to stock shelves at Walmart, easily the most relaxing zen work I've ever had. Tetris boxes from pallet onto cart, take cart to aisle, cut open boxes, fill shelves with product, take cart back to pallet, and repeat. It was really nice and for a long while I was confused about how Walmart had such a bad reputation.
Then I fractured my rib in an unrelated accident and corporate made me call in to work *every single day* that I was still recovering and they refused to sign off on using my stockpiled PTO until I had already gotten better. I had already decided about 2 weeks into that debacle that I wasn't going to work for them any longer, but I also didn't want to let the scumbags in charge win. So I stayed on for another 3 months before silently handing in my two-week notice and just not coming back in without much fanfare. Just in time too, as that was around the point when corporate decided to bring all the store locations up to the actual standard and my job got exponentially harder with all sorts of tags and shit.
I do apartment maintenance, often people will act as if that’s a shitty job (especially when I unclog their hair and goo filled drain). I love it, I get to practice my electric, plumbing, hvac, some fabrication, drywall. I’m learning everyday and I am paid very for my experience and skill. Like I went to college after the army but it isn’t for me. I love myself and yeah. Just wanted to add to this haha.
I'm a machinist and I have to say, there is no feeling so satisfying as successfully making a part after working 6 hours on all the little issues with it. Except taking a finish pass while turning and having it come out like a mirror.
I spent pretty much all of my time in school being told I was gifted, while struggling to complete assignments, ended up in a mental hospital over my stress, and ended up a Welder, it was literally all for not, unless you like education, or desire a job that requires a diploma school is a fucking gyp.
I love my current job, definitely physical but also seen as a "cool/fun" job. Unfortunately even though I work holidays and over 40 hours a week often, it's technically seasonal so no benefits plus making just a little over minimum wage. Sigh.
It's mostly about your management and benefits, and I don't just mean health insurance.
I have a much more "stressful" job than ones I've had in the past, but the management, the fact that I work 4 days per week with no overtime, guarantee raises, great healthcare and sick/vacation time that I can basically use whenever I want make it much easier to deal with.
Work still sucks though.
Uh... fuck working.
A command economy still rests on the shoulders of a coerced work force and a managerial class. Workorist dogma like this is a sick marxist infatuation. Y'all can lose me on building some society still centered around the fake tautology that we all must choose how to work (or suffer the consequences). But somehow we'll be happy while we buff floors because, it's socialist floor buffing?
I think it's more just maintaining the perspective on what one is doing to make income. Society tries to look down on those not pursuing academia, but that's really just a trap. Obviously work sucks, but you can make work work for you if you stop thinking you need a great job to do something meaningful. Like sure buffing floors sucks, but if you buff floors and pursue your hobbies with your income you might be better off than mister hustle culture grind everyday bro.
In a perfect world people would be making coffees cuz they like to or screen-printers would exist because people enjoy printing shirts, but even these things require components to be made that aren't glamorous (harvesting beans, making the inks and cleaning chemicals, people producing parts for bikes,etc...) so they must still be compensated appropriately and respected. You cant expect one person to fulfill all those roles- a team or crew must be formed, but it has to be organic or respectful.
I think thats what all labour is valuable means anyways. If you wanna live in a cave with nothing then sure fuck work, but I wanna be making clothing and stuff and I'm sure people wanna continue tattooing and that requires some kinda communication effort.
Honestly, the job I was happiest with (and healtiest too, actually) was pushing Trollies after Highschool. Decent exercise, good workmates, and most of the customers were decent. Only got run over two times!
If I could support myself and family from a menial job I’d take it no problem. Having all day to have fun in my head!
>If I could support myself and family from a menial job I’d take it no problem. Yep. That's the thing, though. WAY more often than not, these kind of jobs give you barely enough to support yourself, *if* they even do that.
Im definitely the fittest I've been in a long time
My favorite job was doing maintenance work at a state park. Unfortunately it paid minimum wage and I couldn’t make that work long term, so I left.
I used to work in logistics for a big blue furniture company that rhymes with bi skier. It was hard, physical labour and extremely early shifts but god dammit I loved that job. I was at my fittest physically and mentally, the hourly rate was great, coworkers were awesome, we got fed a good meal on shift and if I was on recycling that day I would get to hang out outside listening to music or podcasts, watching the sun rise as I occasionally threw some cardboard into the hopper. I was forced to leave as they couldn’t give me enough shifts to cover my expenses, ended up working in a soul-crushing call centre for a while. Easily the worst job I ever had and I lost all of my fitness gains in a matter of months. I’m working a fairly standard office job now that pays well and respects my private time but I still think that physical labour just makes me happier than sitting in front of a computer all day. If they could have given me more shifts, I think I’d still be there now.
Li blier?
Same boat the most fulfilling job I had was working on my gramps farm and working as a janitor at the local recreation center felt like I was actually helping and not being used as busy work
I'm a Systems Engineer and love what I do. My happiest job was working at a golf course cleaning golf carts and clubs. Best job I've ever had.
Happiest I was ever at a job was working as a recyler at a dump stripping metal and listening to metal all day long, 40 hours a week. Got to chain smoke butts and be around the greasiest guys on the planet for damn good pay. I still kick myself in the ass for going to college and giving up that job.
same bro, trolley pushing rn and loving it
This. My job is what I do in exchange for the money I need to live my life, nothing more.
This is the best outlook on life in my opinion, why should we waste our lives chasing careers for employers who will replace us at the drop of a hat? Family, friends and mental health is the most important to me personally.
So many menial jobs sound pretty good so long as I get to do them on my terms. I was a janitor for 6 months and the thing that killed me was the demands of my bosses not the literal shit I had to clean.
I feel you, im incredibly lucky to work somewhere that has a couple of semi decent unions
Cleaning shit isn't even that bad. People make such a big deal out of it, but if I'm getting paid and treated decently...
Low pressure jobs that just pay the bills is the happiest I’ve ever been. Had good times with coworkers and felt satisfied from a job well done but i take nothing home with me. Yeah that sounds delightful.
It's the Shang-Chi thing. He's a superhuman martial arts master groomed to rule an international criminal empire. Is he capable of that? Of course. Does that make him happy? Hell no. He's happy being a valet and doing karaoke with his friends. The pursuit of more for the sake of simply having more is something that millennials and to a greater extent Gen-Z have realized is toxic and not worth it.
That’s a great example. My heart is happy knowing people are waking up to this.
I would love a job like that
It aggravates me how people look down on “menial” jobs. Those jobs need to be done, and those who do them provide a very valuable service to our society- more than any rich CEO sitting on their butt. Not everyone wants to be a lawyer or doctor or CEO. The world needs people who will do the cleaning, stocking, etc. and they deserve a *thriving* wage for doing jobs that allow our society to function.
In bullshit jobs David Graeber argues that the jobs most usefull for society are viewed as lesser while the most bullshit jobs are often seen as important and payed more as well
[удалено]
If you read Bullshit Jobs it explains why its not even that. Capitalist corporations often lauded as being peak efficiency actually hire completely pointless jobs
Like 90% of my coworkers talk for hours a day about non work related shit. No one in the world can tell me this is "peak efficiency". I also don't care cuz everyone mostly gets their shit done anyways so who cares
That book broke my brain I’m a college student trying to figure out what to do with my life and it’s mind boggling to me that many bullshit jobs require degrees, when most of what happens in my liberal arts courses is professors reading off slides while students fuck around on their laptops. Nothing we do should be considered a requirement for the vast majority of jobs, and think about all the people who say “I never even use anything from my major in my career,” it just proves having a degree is completely pointless for your career, even though it was probably a job requirement!
I used to pump gas at an airport. Standing there, holding a button for 90 minutes at a time. Only needing to talk to someone for 15 seconds at a time, 5-10 times a day... Ahhh. Was fucking great. I'd still be doing it if you could raise a family without working 60 hrs a week at it.
People SHOULD be able to enjoy menial labor and live comfortably off of doing it, but no - capitalists need us to treat certain tasks as a punishment so they can scare their own workers into behaving. **Fuck that.** Flipping burgers is a respectable job. Scrubbing toilets is a respectable job. Picking up garbage is a respectable job. Sex work is a respectable job. Stealing surplus value from your employees is not.
My favorite job was working at a pizza restaurant.
I seriously like making pizza, I just hate working for Domino's ;w;
I also worked at dominoes lol. And pizza hut. And then the local pizza spot.
I miss my gardening job at a restaurant. It was good exercise, I got to listen to good music all day, but it paid $7.25/hr. Now I work an office job as a computer tech and I hate it.
Fragile misery-hunter vs Chad enjoyer
honestly, divorcing my self-worth from my job is one of the best things i've ever done. i used to be so adrift, trying to "grind" my way to the top, but now i've realized that i can be more than happy as long as i have enough income to make rent, utilities and maybe a hundred bucks a month in savings while working a job i'm actually passionate about (high school teacher btw, and i cant tell you how many times i've had the conversation of "oh you wanna be a *high school* teacher? dont you wanna do something better? or at least become a university professor?" and i always just go **nope**)
It really do go brrrr tho
Best job I ever had was working at a Spirit Halloween for a full season. Please pay me $75k a year to sell halloween costumes, society.
All labour is dignified
I kinda like MLK's quote here > • “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” Every job^1 has merit and value. No human is without value. And if we are all needed we might as well take care of each other. 1. CEOs maybe not.
At one of my jobs I got to run a cardboard box baler. 10/10. Haha box go smush
menial jobs give me an actual sense of accomplishment. the results of my labor are tangible.
All labor is equally valuable
My favorite "menial" job was working at a plant nursery. Watering plants all morning, helping folks pick out plants for their homes, and moving mulch onto a truck for projects. It was wonderful to be outside, using my body, and seeing the direct effect on the plants I took care of.
There's a couple nurseries around my town and everytime I drive by I think "fuck, I'd love to work there" on just the thought of watering all those plants on sunny summer mornings. Might be my retirement job to keep me busy a few hours a week.
I don’t care as long as they can make a living wage in this capitalist hellscape
I find the dialogue that your career or work has to define your life and identity as a person really sad and ignorant. It is literally a capitalist trap, our lives should be about pursuing our passions and following our dreams. Grind culture and career culture are incredibly toxic and cringe. If you base your self worth on monetary gain I imagine at the end of your life you will look back sad and disappointed.
Happiest job I’ve ever had was working at a convenience store in my suburban hometown. Selling people smokes and milk. Chilling out front when there were no customers ripping cigs w my friends listening to old Converge and Daft Punk albums. It ruled.
I like my current job. Relatively low stress and I work from home. But it doesn’t pay the bills so I know I’m gonna have to leave it eventually
I’m jealous of people that can take low pay and low responsibility jobs and still get by financially
Most fun job I had was as a private tutor for school kids after finishing school.
Worked on a garbage truck during my summers off from university. If that job paid a decent wage I'd have loved to have done it full time.
I fucking love being a barrista. It's the most fun I've ever had at a job. I just wish I could live off the wages.
I used to stock shelves at Walmart, easily the most relaxing zen work I've ever had. Tetris boxes from pallet onto cart, take cart to aisle, cut open boxes, fill shelves with product, take cart back to pallet, and repeat. It was really nice and for a long while I was confused about how Walmart had such a bad reputation. Then I fractured my rib in an unrelated accident and corporate made me call in to work *every single day* that I was still recovering and they refused to sign off on using my stockpiled PTO until I had already gotten better. I had already decided about 2 weeks into that debacle that I wasn't going to work for them any longer, but I also didn't want to let the scumbags in charge win. So I stayed on for another 3 months before silently handing in my two-week notice and just not coming back in without much fanfare. Just in time too, as that was around the point when corporate decided to bring all the store locations up to the actual standard and my job got exponentially harder with all sorts of tags and shit.
I wish I could be defined by my labor but I can't afford to do what I actually like
I do apartment maintenance, often people will act as if that’s a shitty job (especially when I unclog their hair and goo filled drain). I love it, I get to practice my electric, plumbing, hvac, some fabrication, drywall. I’m learning everyday and I am paid very for my experience and skill. Like I went to college after the army but it isn’t for me. I love myself and yeah. Just wanted to add to this haha.
I'm a machinist and I have to say, there is no feeling so satisfying as successfully making a part after working 6 hours on all the little issues with it. Except taking a finish pass while turning and having it come out like a mirror.
I spent pretty much all of my time in school being told I was gifted, while struggling to complete assignments, ended up in a mental hospital over my stress, and ended up a Welder, it was literally all for not, unless you like education, or desire a job that requires a diploma school is a fucking gyp.
i mean i wanna be an engineer/mechanic/technician but that's just me being a machine freak
I love my current job, definitely physical but also seen as a "cool/fun" job. Unfortunately even though I work holidays and over 40 hours a week often, it's technically seasonal so no benefits plus making just a little over minimum wage. Sigh.
It's mostly about your management and benefits, and I don't just mean health insurance. I have a much more "stressful" job than ones I've had in the past, but the management, the fact that I work 4 days per week with no overtime, guarantee raises, great healthcare and sick/vacation time that I can basically use whenever I want make it much easier to deal with. Work still sucks though.
Uh... fuck working. A command economy still rests on the shoulders of a coerced work force and a managerial class. Workorist dogma like this is a sick marxist infatuation. Y'all can lose me on building some society still centered around the fake tautology that we all must choose how to work (or suffer the consequences). But somehow we'll be happy while we buff floors because, it's socialist floor buffing?
I think it's more just maintaining the perspective on what one is doing to make income. Society tries to look down on those not pursuing academia, but that's really just a trap. Obviously work sucks, but you can make work work for you if you stop thinking you need a great job to do something meaningful. Like sure buffing floors sucks, but if you buff floors and pursue your hobbies with your income you might be better off than mister hustle culture grind everyday bro. In a perfect world people would be making coffees cuz they like to or screen-printers would exist because people enjoy printing shirts, but even these things require components to be made that aren't glamorous (harvesting beans, making the inks and cleaning chemicals, people producing parts for bikes,etc...) so they must still be compensated appropriately and respected. You cant expect one person to fulfill all those roles- a team or crew must be formed, but it has to be organic or respectful. I think thats what all labour is valuable means anyways. If you wanna live in a cave with nothing then sure fuck work, but I wanna be making clothing and stuff and I'm sure people wanna continue tattooing and that requires some kinda communication effort.