I manage a produce section at a grocery store and spend all day on my feet with no real personal workspace to unwind, other than a small shared office often occupied by talkative old women. I honestly love my job, am respected by my employer and I’m pretty well compensated (Canada), but even a desk in a cubicle looks kind of cozy to me. Just having a space for your things, a plant or two, a photo of your wife and kid. Not gonna lie, I kind of wish I had a small office and/or cubicle to retreat to. Even if it was just for the paperwork parts of my day.
What they sometimes mean by “fast paced” is “we are going to have you doing many things that are not in your job description.” Basically, you’ll be doing the jobs of 3-4 people and some of those jobs will pose a significant risk to your health and safety.
I get that for most people, this is a nightmare. But for me, having lots of varied tasks is fun.
It’s why I took a job at a tiny city with 11 employees in City Hall. Nominally, I’m a permit processor, but I oversee the permitting process, GIS, coordinating third-party services, and more. Yesterday I made a map for the police, processed permits, drove across town to fix a manhole cover that came loose (we don’t actually have a public work department), took pictures for the city attorney of a mansion being illegally built and screwing up city utilities, and fixed a broken printer.
Yes, I’m stupid busy, but I enjoy the variety. I’m also paid more than double what most permit techs are, and have my hands in development, public works, finance, administration, and more. All of which will be useful later in my career when I want to move into city management at a larger town.
Lol this is gold. Fucking HR people are the new Real estate agents. All the bullshit they put in a fucking job advertisement. Friendly and fun environment, Learning and development with opportunity to grow lol.
“Friendly and fun” = we force you to celebrate everyone’s birthdays, engagements, baby haverings, etc and so forth with cake and mandatory card signage and possibly gift/money givery.
“Learning and development” = you’ll be forced to participate in mind numbingly stupid seminars, self directed online courses, and/or online presentations.
“With opportunity to grow” = grow mold as you fester in the wretched job.
The constant noise in an open office plan is nervewrecking, and being permanently in view of your supervisors is annoying as hell. i don’t need someone to watch my every move, and if you think you have to watch my every move, i probably don’t want to work for you.
I hated cubicles until I discovered open offices, then I just plainly hated offices:
hated water-cooler conversations,
hated the smell of reheated meals,
the unending birthdays of people I spoke to once a year,
the parties and outings that are secretly interviews,
the idle people that are always looking for killing time chatting,
the busy people looking for a nasty rumor to climb higher,
I hated commuting and hated having to stay longer just so everyone thinks I'm working hard,
But above all, I hated the middle managers that want to both be your friend, your boss and the person that will fire you to cover a fuck up.
For me, it was a matter of how much I liked my coworkers. Technically I had a small office but we all (except HR and group exec) worked from open cubes, had plenty of huddle rooms, and those of us assigned offices left them free for all to use as huddle rooms or group call rooms.
It was just a good atmosphere. Hybrid model. Ping pong an hour a day, which near everyone participated in. And tea time we all took very seriously.
Covid and acquisition, in no particular order, made that office go away. I’m remote now, and have been for years. I would go back there in a heartbeat.
Random rant. But miss that crew. We still meet for a beer once in a while, though I’m no longer working there and a lot of us moved out of state. Virtual happy hour is actually fun when you like the people on there.
Yeah. Typically whenever you read that, assume it means that the management is a complete shitshow who do not have good time management and ridiculous expectations on everyone beneath them, as well as expect to be inundated with so much tedious work that provides no satisfaction that you will be burned out.
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