We do exactly the same job.
To me the idea of enjoying a job is an odd one: I don’t want to work, I only work because I need the money. If I had money I wouldn’t work.
I don’t know if this makes me the oddest person on earth, but where I am my coworkers sometimes make me feel so.
She asked me if I enjoy my job. I looked at her surprised while thinking to answer her with a regular blanket manager answer like ‘it is such a honor to work here, fuck yeah, I’d love to work here for free!’ or being completely sincere.
I was in a good mood, so I chose being sincere: ‘I don’t enjoy working, I work because I need to pay for the rest of my life, I enjoy cooking, writing poetry and walking through a forest.’
She looked at me a bit surprised and replied: ‘but you have to like your job.’ My answer? ‘As long as I earn money all’s good.’
This happened in a big room with like 9 coworkers hearing the convo.
Now I don’t know if I just committed job suicide where I work at, but it was liberating saying out loud at the workplace what I think a job is.
And why the fixation that you must like a job? It’s a job for fucks sake. Why do you have to like it?
To me this only confirms my current job is a cult. Am I exaggerating?
If every workplace is like this I should stick with the devil I know…
I think in a lot of cases people have not much choice but to continue working in their job. In order to not go insane in that situation, a lot of those people willingly maintain the self-deception that they do actually want to be there and it is good. It allows them the make the best of the situation and to bond with colleagues etc.
When someone openly undermines that shared illusion there is actually quite a lot at stake emotionally for those people, and they don’t like it.