I like my job but not necessarily love it. I work for a public university in Arkansas. PROS: Excellent benefits packages. $200/month for family insurance and I put in 5% of my income into TIAA-CREF and my employer matches that with 10%. Dental and vision are cheap as well. 2 week paid vacation every year at Christmas time and 1 week at Thanksgiving. 1 vacation day and 1 sick day gained every month and they roll over every year if they are not used. Flexibility in scheduling. This has become extremely important since my daughter was born last year. Understanding coworkers who, like others have said, make the job a lot more tolerable. The various discounts and assistance you receive elsewhere. The eye candy around this place is not bad either. CONS: It's a public university so I am not making as much as I could potentially elsewhere, although in this economic climate I'm not sure if that is totally true anymore. Putting up with students and their attitudes or even worse parents who won't let there children grow up and have to do everything for them.....still and their attitudes. Summers are usually boring as there is less traffic. I really don't like the politics of this place and I am assuming it's like that at other universities as well. There are probably somethings I am missing but that's off the top of my head.
Hopefully, you will. It depends a great deal on which type of school environment you're willing to teach in. You might not enjoy teaching in a Title 1 school like me. It's not for everyone... Currently, I teach fourth grade. I teach all core-subjects including some basic ethic studies, even though my state told teachers to ignore historical oppression.
Selling rocks on the streets is getting a little tiring... and dangerous at times. I don't like the environment, but the pay is pretty good
Don't love it, but I like it alright. I don't know if I'll ever love any job that is ran like the typical american workplace of 40 hour weeks, whether or not you have 40 hours of work to do. I work for a University and the months of July/August and January are terribly slow, yet I have to be here 40 hours a week. I could easily forward my work phone to my cell and work from home and be "on call" if something came up. I don't mind the work if I actually have work to do...but if I ever love a job it will be because I have free will to come and go, as long as I am performing my job at a high level and getting the work done.
I put up with my job. I work to live, I don't live to work. But every time I catch myself b****ing about it, I think of the people I know who have been laid off and would give anything to have it. So that keeps things in perspective. Best thing about my job is that it ends at 4pm every day and doesn't involve weekends. That gives me plenty of time for the job that I DO love - playing in a really good band.
I love my job, but that is because I have come to several realizations in my life that my job satisfies: -->the satisfaction of working with my hands -->solving skilled problems on a regular basis -->meeting new people -->still having a fair amount of time on my own -->knowing I want things in life and must pay for them -->knowing it's hard out there and I should be thankful regardless (having a job is better than not having a job if you have responsibilities/debt)
