Work ethic?

Moggy wrote:

Errkal wrote:Although this and last week doesn't count as I'm on holibobs.

So you are having a completely unproductive fortnight while expecting your company to pay you?

And the use of “holibobs” should be a sackable offence.

Damn right! Last year I saved 450k in licensing I think 2 week off is acceptable.

I enjoy my job and get paid pretty well for it.

I hate selling slices of my life 1 hour at a time just to enjoy the rest of it.

My job is literally just a source of money for me now. I've given a lot in my job and it hasn't got me anywhere. I'm glad I'm leaving in September (sort of, I'm hoping to keep my Saturday shifts but won't be heartbroken if they don't let me), the atmosphere is toxic and will only get worse. Management at County Hall have genuinely been taken off guard by how many people have asked for early retirement, voluntary redundancy or a buy out of hours and we all doubt that they will let us go under any of those three options. Things I will miss about my current workplace:

My line manager. In an organisation of shitty managers she is a godsend
My work friends. I have very few friends and not seeing them on a daily basis is going to leave an empty void

My work ethic in art/design studio is weird, I cycle around tasks if I get bored or sick and have long lead times/deadlines so I can do that. Obviously in other jobs with specific tasks to complete in some order I'll manage that accordingly but there are relatively few days where that is true for me now. Sometimes I'll work nights, other times I'll work half a day or even less than half a day if all my tasks are completed. I'll work it out working more hours some other time or doing extra long shifts, also I have no holidays so there's that. I'm only really capable of working part time (ableists strawberry float off). I learn new stuff as often as possible to keep things interesting, offer my customers more and stay competitive. I trial ideas and methods and evaluate whether they work rather than sticking to the same things for too long, which is satisfying because in some jobs there's no innovation so they get boring after about 2 weeks. I used to work my tits of for awful managers who didn't allocate resources or help where needed and made personal sacrifices that just weren't worth the terrible money or contract terms I was on. It wasn't always their fault just the tide turning against me. Now the buck stops with me. Once I get started on creative work I power through it relatively easily I make sure my customers probably don't care about expedience which doesn't usually actually matter that much by positioning myself correctly to offer the more consultative services and quality product. If a customer is an arsehole I find out and don't do the work, or I fire them in a nice way. If a customer doesn't want to pay for good gooseberry fool I don't care. Now my reputation precedes me which is great, I built that and nobody else did; I own it. It doesn't matter where in the world my customer is, I either find them or they come to me. I don't just have to do stuff because it's expected or I'm told to and I can change direction at any point, and nobody loses.

In the periods of voids for good feedback or inspiration (like sometimes I'll go months without any testimonials other than the usual thanks etc. and then I'll get loads of really high praise from total strangers), basically this comic, so yeah takes a lot of grit and always chasing money, but that's true for any kind of business. I actively engineer misery out of my work because what's the strawberry floating point otherwise, my brain does enough of that for me.



It's also weird because constantly analysing success and methods to gain traction/income/make better product etc makes you question what "success" means and I suppose for me it's a bigger mix of things than "holding down" a job or whatever my salary is. And I have done that before, I just got strawberry floated over too many times and I'm not really cut out for relentlessly pursuing other people's goals unless it's very short term, it just makes me mentally ill eventually because I'm not satisfied if I don't pursue my own ideas. I do suffer from burnout and with no formal pattern of work it's just as easy to do that as much as do no work, so there's a constant balance to juggle and a lot of self-care involved (something I have always been gooseberry fool at). I still think about doing "normal" jobs, short contracts or even full time/part time annual renewals/permanent positions etc. but I ask the people around me and they say it's a bad idea. It's also very isolating so I go to some other workplaces just for some company and shared work ethic, I miss working in a studio or larger arts organisation like art university sometimes but there are things like residency opportunities that are good to do at least once or twice a year, so I keep an eye out for those. I also follow other artists and my family; it's hard not to compare oneself to others in terms of visibility, notoriety, success and blahblah but it can help to see others just keeping on with what they do despite the total apathy amongst most office/corporate types for any sort of self-made creative thing, which is pretty much mandatory in the arts unless you go to ad/design agency/marketer etc. or get some talent representation, gallery etc. It's basically all entrepreneurial whether you like it or not and the social aspect is totally required. You have to believe in your work or it's never going to happen, nobody is going to just notice you. Sucks if your work is actually total gooseberry fool but yeah you have to be a businessperson/professional like anyone else trying to get work/money.

So yeah I make very little money and my job is pretty much harder than some top tier salaries etc. because of just how high the bar is and how much competition there is, but every day I can think, "I built this from nothing", just as much as I have made all these little individual projects over the course of my life that have got me to that point and taught me valuable skills from just doing it, and that generally spurs me on and I can't get that in any type of job for a company or whatever I'm never really going to give a gooseberry fool about.

The state of people in this thread

I think my work ethic is pretty good, but I also enjoy what I do and work for pretty good people.

I've done the odd bit of unpaid overtime since I do a lot of project work where the amount of money we have is set out from the start and I think it reflects very badly on me if something gets left unfinished because we ran out of funding. I also work pretty slowly sometimes so I know that had I worked at the rate I should have it probably would have all got done under budget. I also end up presenting most of my work to external people who in the past have given me jobs.

I'm hoping this work ethic will be enough as I plan to start my own business after I finish my degree, trying to do contracting work, while I look for a proper job. I think working for myself will be nice, and should help me get my private jet faster than if I worked for someone else.

Rightey wrote:The state of people in this thread

I know right?

I also work pretty slowly

I'd probably work a lot faster if I didn't spend so much time on here.

Rightey wrote:I'd probably work a lot faster if I didn't spend so much time on here.

Having a job is a privilege no one wanted.