Poll: What's most important to you in a job?

I'd really like to say it wasn't, but....it clearly is because if I were to go for what I would enjoy I'd have to take a huge paycut and I have not as yet done so. Money is a big deal with me, in the sense that if I am lacking it I get panicky and scared. I can't bear to live paycheck to paycheck. So I'd rather have a good salary and be miserable (which I am) than a crap salary and love what I do. That fact makes me really sad.

I left a job that I thought was bad for another job that paid $5K more.

Do you know what I got out of it?

More stress from people, not the work
Not enough work to do
Bored all day
Talents wasted
Co-Workers that broke into my desk to steal my own, personal manual for my position to give to said boss for her reference
Managers that weren't capable of their positions (a cheerleader as a banking officer? Yee haa!)
Managers who don't follow federal law
Co-workers who are insecure and tattle on your for saying anything
Managers (who are not yours) humiliating you in front of others
Being told to sit in your cube all day and not get up for anything
Don't talk to anyone else - even if you have a question about something you don't know
and in the end, after I quit, I was diagnosed with mono from said job which I probably had two months before I quit

So in the end $5k cost me more money than anything - it almost cost me my sanity. :(

Close call with a lot of these options, but certainly, if you don't enjoy the work you do, you end up miserable and brought down. I've had those kind of jobs, and I didn't stay there very long if I could help it.

It's pretty obvious that I need to enjoy what I do - running a record store is about as low on the payscale as you can get. Pretty much right about burger flipping. :) On the plus side though, it's my job to listen to music all day and occasionally I get to hang out with really cool musicians (even while having a nervous breakdown *g*)

i need recognition. i need grades and report cards and gold stars. my last job, no one ever bothered to give me feedback, and no one paid attention to anything i did, until they decided to fire me. bastards.

I'll give you a Gold Star with a blue ribbon wrapped around it!

my job is the bestest 'cause i get to play with all the little aminals all day. so there. :D

see, i think my job's the best because i get to play with the internet all day.

that, and the people here are *awesome* :D

The people here are awesome too... and I get to be online all day.... but when you get right down to it, I really would do just about anything if you paid me enough.

I get to play online at night any my job, and that's just about all there is to it! :D

On the other hand, I have no hours, and even as a student job it doesn't pay quite enough. Still, I think being paid to sit online and do homework is a fair-enough trade-off.

Of course, if money were an issue to me, I wouldn't be getting a BFA in poetry, nor would I be looking at getting my MFA ;)

you're all just in denial. you all wish you could work with leedle aminals all day too. *dances a smug dance* ner nerr ner ner nerrrrr! :D

It's important that any job I do is for "good" - nonprofit, community service, political action, research, teaching - I really feel that whatever I spend my time on should help better the world.

Or maybe I'm just a glutton for low-pay, poor facilities, understaffed projects, and overworked people...

(The not-so-long-awaited return of PauleyPoints -- 50 of'em to the first poster to identify the post title's reference.)

Ideally, enjoying my work comes first. Working a help desk like I do now isn't perfect, but it sure as hell beats stocking grocery store shelves. On the other hand, as a graduate-to-be, with loans and bills to pay off, I can't deny that money is a factor, too. Ick... I hate being in the red.

-- Pauley

You Don't Know Jack? :)

50 PauleyPoints to Andrea :) Congradjamalations. :)

-- Pauley

you dont..know jack. you just think you do. you think you, know jack but you dont..know jack! (to the tune of the theme song)

Ten years man, that's all you have left to be in the red...

Well, me, 9 years, 9 months, but that's because my deferrment period is already up.

How about all of the above? I can't pick over another because they all are important to maintaining my sanity at work...too bad none of the above are true about my current job :-/

As long as I can break even, the money's not my greatest priority. I had a series of temp jobs that paid $7.00/hr--not a lot, but more than the minimum-wage copyediting job at the campus paper I left them for. You know what? I don't really miss the money. I make just enough to pay my bills, but I have most of the day to write. Plus I can check my e-mail/read novels/chat with friends at work with impunity. And when I catch mistakes, I feel like my presence actually means something. Out of the seven hours I'm paid for, I'm only doing hard-core work for two or three. Good impromptu pot-luck dinners every once in a while, too. Someday, I want a real job, but I'd much rather do this than file insurance claims for eight hours a day.