Job Satisfaction

Ugh.

It's hard to get back to work after a nice weekend. It's even harder after a long weekend.

Had some time to catch up with old friends this weekend, and was surprised at how unhappy said friends were. (Note: they are not in medicine!!) Some are in law, some in business, engineering, biotech, banking. The consensus? Work is a highly overrated, time-consuming activity.

Seriously though, not one person I know works a 40 hour work week. Most people feel like they are stretched to the max. There's a sense of instability because the companies go through mergers ever few months, and the ax falls not too long after each merger. And jobs get lost from the merging but are never refilled. The excess work is just -- "absorbed."

Other common complaints: Managers that are incompetent. Office politics. Job instability. You're never really sure that you will have your job a year from now. Heck, a few months from now. No loyalty from employer to employee, and none the other way around.

Such, apparently, is the working world. From a big business perspective, I guess these changes have to take place to be competitive, but when's enough enough? At some point the employees are going to be stretched too thin, and then how will the next layoff be absorbed? How do companies keep employees? How will society function when a generation of young workers are already counting down the years until retirement?

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There's quite a bit of a generation gap between our cohort and the one before. I'll work extremely hard while at work, but at the end of the day, work is work. Which happens to be part of a bigger picture called life. Which isn't supposed to be all about work. Ya catch the drift?

We've seen members of the previous generation throw themselves completely into their jobs. (not everyone in the previous generation, but you know who I'm talking about...) They lose their identity. Their families evolve without them. Life passes them by. And when they retire, they are at a loss as to who they have become. No hobbies. No relationships. Nothing to look forward too. We don't want to be like them. *stepping off soapbox*

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Are we representative of the larger population?

TNS, a "market information company" performs a yearly study on U.S. job satisfaction. I don't know how they collected their data and how valid their calculations are. But they do the same survery every year for at least the past couple of decades, and the general trend is that there is an overall decrease in job satisfaction. They sample 5,000 U.S. households and got the following information:

% of people satisfied with their jobs: 50%
% of people satified with their >$50,000 job: 52%
% of people satisfied with their <$15,000 job: 45% % of people under 25 years of age satisfied with job: <39%
% of people satisfied with their pay: 33%

% of people who do not see themselves staying in the current job a year from now: 20%

% of people who feel disconnected from their employers: 40%

% of people that do not identify or feel motivated by employ'ers business goals and objectives: 60%

% of people content with workload, work/life balance, communication channels, potential for growth: 36%

Sombering results, my friends. What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

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