Which Job is tougher?

[Saltex]

So some long text incoming. Anyway, yesterday I went to get my car washed and there the owner of the car wash was helping wash the cars. I know him personally and I know he is making good money from it and it can be kinda physical at times with long hours, and just standing in the sun with him while he was busy made me think what a crap job, and it kinda made me appreciate my job more BUT...

I am in the art industy, I pretty much work from 11:00-18:00 6 days a week, 6 of those hours require alot of concentration and focus with the task I am busy with at that point in time, so come end of the day I am really killed, but now that is not where it ends, when I get home I am always doing things work orientated to help better myself in what I do, this is obviously something I only do by choice because I don't wanna be average in what I do but get better everyday, so I pretty much have my job on my mind 24/7, that it just gets mentally draining, because my job has become my life as I just want to be good at what I do and am fortunate enough to get paid well for what I do.

So that's when I kinda had a change of thought. I thought to myself yes maybe I do work alot less hours than him, and yes my job isn't physical nor a crappy working environment like his, but then I also just thought how nice it must be to wake up every morning not having to worry about the tasks that lie ahead throughout the day, and to be able to just get home and not have to worry about preparing your things for tomorrow and pretty much my nights involve things that are work orientated.

I am just using the car wash and my job as an example, so I hope it can help understand the point I am trying to get at as I am not too good at explain what I really mean sometimes and things get blown out of proportion.

 

[Saltex]

Also I dont mean that say the car wash does not have any worries at all etc. but i hope you guys can be open minded and try understand just what I am getting at.

 

[D3x!]

i don't want to live on this planet anymore :/

 

[Chevron]

You could pray and ask your god the question, I'm sure he'll answer.

 

[Saltex]

 

[saor]

I don't think you can answer this in terms of degrees of toughness. They're just different. Some people enjoy the comfort of a straightforward 9-5 and the free time it affords them, others enjoy doing what they're really passionate about even if it requires more time & energy put in to it. The dude with the car wash probably enjoys his holiday house over the weekend and is looking to expand his business - he might not think life is that tough. You might think it's tough because washing cars in menial. Depends how you look at it.

 

[cerebus]

I imagine it's tougher not knowing how you were going to afford to survive.

 

[BobsLawnService]

Hmm. Let's compare this...

1 is your friend.
2 is you.

1. Is his own boss so the money he makes is directly in proportion to how hard he works.
2. You are a wage slave working to make directors rich.

-

1. Does had physical labour in the sun keeping himself tanned and fit.
2. Spends all day slouching in front of a monitor getting flabby and damaging your back with bad posture.

-

1. Meets and interacts at varying levels with different people every day.
2. Is stuck with the same people and their annoyances every day.

-

1. Gets to switch off from work completely most evenings and persue personal interests.
2. Gets to work some more in their personal capacity every evening or get overtaken by some new star willing to work for longer hours and less money.

--------

Your friend seems to live a better lifestyle than you do, I'm afraid.

 

[RyanPCMR]

Different things are "tougher" to different people. Why not do a survey on it for yourself using your friends as a sample?

 

[Chevron]

Hmm. Let's compare this...

1 is your friend.
2 is you.

1. Is his own boss so the money he makes is directly in proportion to how hard he works.
2. You are a wage slave working to make directors rich.

-

1. Does had physical labour in the sun keeping himself tanned and fit.
2. Spends all day slouching in front of a monitor getting flabby and damaging your back with bad posture.

-

1. Meets and interacts at varying levels with different people every day.
2. Is stuck with the same people and their annoyances every day.

-

1. Gets to switch off from work completely most evenings and persue personal interests.
2. Gets to work some more in their personal capacity every evening or get overtaken by some new star willing to work for longer hours and less money.

--------

Your friend seems to live a better lifestyle than you do, I'm afraid.

Nice way of looking at it.

 

[Joeboy69]

Also factor in your risk profile, meaning how stressed will you be if you had a high risk of being unemployed if the business fails. I am in a steady job, same place for over 20 years but do not worry about where next months pay is coming from. Song can plan ahead for holidays, buying toys etc. Friends who work on commission have this risk in the back if their minds, 24/7, it would stress me beyond comprehension!!

 

[CheekyC]

remember, he has to deal with unskilled employees. that in itself is the single worst aspect of his job

 

[genetic]

:wtf:

Those guys are washing cars just to survive. I can't even see how you can compare the two.

 

[WaxLyrical]

I imagine it's tougher not knowing how you were going to afford to survive.

Well said.

Most of the financially secure people I know love working their asses off.

The rewards of hard work are directly propotional to the reward.

This is especially true if your working for yourself.

Would be interesting to know how job satisfaction relates to success for the working class.

 

[^^vampire^^]

Just on a side note and something that took me a while to figure out:

I'm a software developer and while studying (read: drinking/partying or wasting time doing nothing) used to come home and code all night, learning new things and always improving myself.

Once I got my first job I worked hard all day coming up with new code and better ways of doing things as well as going home in the evening and doing more coding. I thought I needed to keep coding in the evening to be on top form. This is where I was wrong. I was stressing myself out and doing 16 hours of coding a day which was mental. I realised with my job I am practicing and getting better every single day! I'm fortunate to have a boss that let's me get on with it in any way I choose and therefore can do the research on the best methods and practices and then apply that all while at work.

The best part is I pursue what I want in my personal time and get to forgot about my work until I'm at work, all the while getting better everyday. And If I feel in the mood to do/learn something new programming wise in my spare time - I can

 

[Ecco]

OP what do you do between 08h00 and 11h00?

 

[Brawler]

OP what do you do between 08h00 and 11h00?

Skommel

 

[-Prismo-]

Skommel

LOL ...

....


This 11 - 18:00 thing about slouching over a PC may be assumption rubbish at it's best.

He does art..

He MAY be active physically dealing with print outs & going on site to deal with clients and so forth..

OR

He MAY be sitting on PhotoShop all day ...

We don't know any of that, I feel OP has the better end of the stick but really this is a "each to he's own" type of situation.

Some prefer (Job Security > Everything else) ------ (People will always want to have their cars washed)
and some (Financial Security > Everything else) ------ (Your money isn't dependent on whether people wanna wash them today or tomorrow .. and if it rains you aren't screwed for the day)

But that's just 1 way of looking at it