h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Had a really weird dream last night, I turned up for a job interview to find people in the waiting room that I'd worked with in my past jobs, some it was nice to see again, others I truly despised and would quite happily leave them in the forgotten corners of my memory.

Haven't thought of some of these people in thirty years, anyway interview turns out to be a kind of game show, each different room is a past job, each with the chance of earning decent money but having to work forever with a boss you couldn't stand and people you hated or a job you loved with decent workmates but the pay was rubbish...the decision is yours to make, but you're stuck with it forever!

Glad I woke up before I had to choose, but makes you wonder, what's more important money but being miserable or happiness and being skint?

Ah well money isn't everything!

If you had the same choice which would you opt for, but be careful - no get out clauses!

If the lack of money did not cause misery in other parts of your life, then clearly it must be better to be happy and poor.

This is weird, but your dreamed interview happened to me in real life. I had an interview at a well known transport hub office a few years ago. While waiting in reception, I saw a particularly obnoxious boss I'd worked for a few years earlier, and who had falsified documents to facilitate my compulsory redundancy. What could I do? I had to be polite and acknowledge them.

Had I known I wasn't going to get the job I'd have told the interviewer exactly what they were like.


And after suffering a long series of no-hope low-paid jobs with obnoxious managers, I'd be delighted to have either of your offered scenarios.

Oh Icy hindsight is a double edged sword!

I tend to find jobs I love but just don't pay the bills and am often forced to suffer truly obnoxious management to get back on track, then leave to find another job I enjoy but doesn't pay the bills, bloody Groundhog Day for the last thirty odd years.

Can't bear to put my family through financial hardship but they can't bear to see me unhappy! Loving my newest job but once again the bank accounts struggling,.....

I also am in the situation of finding myself having to 'choose' "no-hope low-paid jobs with obnoxious managers"...

I do try to find the good in situations, as I generally have at least some good colleagues and some worthwhile things to do, but it is hard work, and I don't know if there is a way to better scenarios in this day and age...

I sometimes wonder whether the obnoxious bosses are the way they are because of even more obnoxious bosses above them? Is it a systemic problem, in other words? I worked for a boss with a Jekyll-Hyde personality for 25 years. He was really, really nice most of the time, but he would flip out occasionally and become horrible! This was not something you could predict, though one of my co-workers times his outbursts to periods of full moons. By and large, it was okay working for him, but you never knew.....

My latest low paid but thoroughly enjoyable job ends mid January, loved every minute and the bosses are actually human!

I'm lucky that I love my job and it pays ok. Just enough to cover my outgoings with a little bit left over for a treat. But I have a really small mortgage, no dependants, I don't drink or smoke, my social life is generally based around other prople's houses and I don't have expensive tastes in clothes, cars, whatever.

Deb

Knew there'd be another satisfied person out there other than my wife, must be us blokes doing stuff wrong Deb! Lol

When you look at the expensive toys [Lamborghinis, big yachts, etc] that affluent guys sometimes have, you figure that they buy them to dull the pain of terrible jobs .

Now there's an interesting theory paulh!

As a related question, if at the end of your life you could have a year back and could choose either penniless joy or moneyed misery, who would honestly want misery?

if

I've had misery. Trust me, I wouldn't choose it.

Easy quotes , been penniless and joyful and moneyed and miserable, give me the joy and keep the pennies!

If you live in a place that has beautiful seasons, you are blessed even if you don't own much. Provided, of course, that there are public institutions able and willing to keep parks and public squares looking nice.