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What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of your job?
We probably all have things we love about what we do, and we also all have those things that we loathe or that really get under our skin. What are the highs and lows of your job? Do the highs outweigh the lows, or is it the other way around?
Also, this question is not limited to careers alone. It can refer to your role as, say, a student or a parent -- pretty much anything that saddles you with consistent responsibility.
Highs
I've worked from home long before COVID hit, one of the many benefits of the company I work for. Others include unlimited PTO (that I take full advantage of), a general lack of middle management/expectation that we're all adults and can be trusted to do our work, generous 401K, better-than-average health/dental/life insurance (completely paid for by the company), etc. Upper management is competent, capable, and pleasant to deal with.
I'm experienced enough at it and have risen to my position enough that while I'm expected to "be available" 40 hours per week, I do 10 hours of actual work each week, including meetings if averaged out over the year. Sure some weeks involve late nights, which I balance by taking equally long lunches or a Friday off, but other weeks require as little as half an hour check-in meeting per day. If I were in an office this would be maddening, since I'm at home it just means more time to do what I actually want so long as I'm in range of wifi.
When I actually need to work it involves applying my experience and intelligence to solve unique problems at a fast pace.
While I see and interact with them less now, the company is quite multicultural and I enjoy learning about my coworkers lives and traditions outside of work.
Lows
I can't always be motivated to work on my own projects and as a result I get bored as I'm tethered to my home wifi.
With COVID came more meetings. Meetings that should be emails. I despise these.
Upper management is annoyingly optimistic, loves corporate-speak, and is eye-roll inducing far too often.
I despise the industry.
$day_jobis in tech. But, as a musician:I believe the arts are among the highest endeavours of humankind (others being {philosophy, religion}; and {parenting, caregiving, teaching, coaching}). Music can be deeply fulfilling, touching, exhilirating, moving -- both for myself and my audience, followers, etc. I love performing and creating music.
On the other hand, making enough money from music to live off of seems exceedingly difficult and unlikely. Especially if you want to support N more humans other than yourself, for N > 0. Given equal income, I'd be in the music industry, not tech/computers.