I have been working for the last few months on starting my own business and it got me thinking: What is it about peoples jobs that they love and hate?

I currently work as an underwriter in the mortgage department at Wells Fargo Bank.

What I love about it my job is the freedom I have to do my job as I see fit, we have a decent boss that doesn't like to micro-manage and pretty much assumes we know what we're doing.

What I hate about my job are the constant policy/procedure changes being put out by the upper management. Just when we think we have a grasp on what we're supposed to do they change the rules on us. It's incredibly frustrating.

So first, where do you work (or at least what field do you work in) and what do you love and hate about it?

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

As a software engineer supporting the Goddard Space Flight Center:

Love:
- Working for the space program.
- Getting paid to solve puzzles.
- Creativity - creating something new.
- Autonomy (my bosses leave me alone most of the time).
- Commute (ten minutes from home, door to door).

Hate:
- Funding shortages (I'm the only one in my area doing technical work because NASA can only afford one person on it.).
- Not very challenging right now.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I am a graduate student (space physics specifically, tho I dont do any physics in space)

Love
cool subject matter (VASIMR.)

Hate
graduate level exams (why am I doing homework that people won Nobel prizes for?)
pay (graduate level work on a graduate stipend? I think they pay prisoners more )

I work in the financial industry. It's a joy here--very stimulating. I love my job! In fact, I love my job so much that I do acronyms about llamas while at work.

I did have a very interesting conversation today with somebody whose husband is a geophysicist in Virginia, security clearance being a problem, the Iraq war, etc, etc. Moments like that are the only time I like my job. Oh, and I order supplies so there are plenty of Pilot Precise V7 (fine) pens around here.

Ceci n'est pas un jeu.

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

I´m in the software business.

I Love the illusion of power; Making useful things to improve other people lives; The freedom; The rewarding sensation of solving problems, and, last but not least, the money I earn.

I Hate when people don´t understand a thing about what I do.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

i work as an internet marketer and i love my work. its pretty boring somtimes but its worth all the effort and learning.

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Independent Nurse Contractor

I have three part time jobs. One of them is teaching dance which is a lot of fun because I love dancing and the kids are generally great. I'm also a receptionist which I like because it's in a pretty laid back environment and if there's nothing to do I can work on homework . On days that I'm not a receptionist or at dance either taking or teaching classes, I work at CVS pharmacy though not in the actual pharmacy because you have to be 18 to do that . I used to like working there until I realised how mindless everything I did was- being a cashier, stocking shelves... stuff like that. My bosses are great and I like the people I work with, but I want a job that's a bit more challenging.

Love:
The 8.54/hr
(better then nothing)
Hate:
Standing up for so long

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

Love: I get to work outdoors and do varied tasks.
I get money
I get fridays off
I don't have to flip burgers

Hate:
The low pay ($5.65/hr)

Overall, it isn't too bad as a summer job. Much rather be doing it than working at mcdonalds...

Love:

The $200 pay check
Being outside
No "set hours"

Hate:

mowing ground that was excavated with bulldozers.

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Love:First place I've worked where I like everyone I'm working with, though there are a couple that are trying my patience. Seems like there is always someone that has missed the idea that they are there to WORK. And although my job isn't as technical as it used to be, face it, I'm splicing boxes of paper together and feeding them to a printer most of the time, there is a couple hours every day of file management/mergers to keep my brain semi awake. I love the fact that the end product of my work raises money to help folks in need and thanking the people that have donated. While 'Not for Profit' is a big part of our work, we also have 'For Profit' work that takes up the slack when we're not around a holiday. It's pretty slow right now, but Back 2 School is coming along and Christmas is coming hard.

Hate? Well, during the Christmas rush which starts late September my hours go up to the 16 a day thing plus weekends, that gets a little tidious. I have more help hired this year so hopefully it won't be so bad this year. The pay, well it's not as good as when I was a Mainframe tech, but I am not wearing a car out in 3 years either, don't spend 3/4 of the day in my vehicle and don't have a bunch of people that the only time I see them they are frustrated, worried, tired and looking for someone to flip a switch and get their system back up and running. Hey, when you do flip the switch they think your a genius. When it's not that simple you're just an irritating cure, like getting over poison ivy. Either case you have to be real careful how you handle the customer. So I don't miss that part a bit. The other part where all this happens at 2 in the morning I don't miss that either. But then I have to get up at 2 during the Christmas Rush anyways.

Walgreen's checkout lady here.

Love: the endless succession of Getting Things Done. Each person successfully checked out counts as a task accomplished, which gives me a good feeling. Plus I get to restock cigarettes and candy, which is a good feeling, watching the mountain of empty cardboard shipping cartons grow. Seriously. "Hah!" I think. "That'll show you, Ms. Management Person who doesn't think I can restock this whole entire cart full of candy outs tonight!" I win.

Hate: when people are snarky because I card them for cigarettes (Hey, I'm not going to jail for a $4 pack of smokes), or, worse, when their abused Link card won't run on the pinpad and they have to move all their stuff over to the other register, with its newer and more sensitive pinpad, which can read their Link card that they keep in their back pocket, sit on all the time, and apparently use to scrape frost off their windshield.

HATE

I work in a company of 8 people, selling recruitment ad space for Scottish newspapers. Hence I post mostly Monday to Friday 9 - 5.30.
I wish they would tell me to stay home and just mail me my salary.

LOVE

My other job is as a Les Paul slinging guitar player entertaining tourists at a bar in Piccadilly. We've been resident there for 10 years.

We supply wigs, hats hooters, plastic guitars, random onstage nonsense, get the audience up to sing etc etc. But the bar is closing in December and we don't have a new home in which to play. If you know of one, we will bring our own toys !

My ideal job would be to travel the universe documenting it photographically.

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Round...everything is always round!

As a network support staffmember:

Love:
Keeping the systems humming
Helping people who're genuinely interested in learning how to do something new.

Hate:
The abundance of updates required for our systems because Bill F. Gates failed to design Windows with security in mind.
The abundance of users who complain about the updates we're required to do and the interruptions to their work.
When users ask me to do things for them that as users they're required to do.

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If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

I have my own copywriting and marketing business so my job is pretty much what I make it, which is wonderful, but it's insanely hard work and there's no boss to pat me on the back and say well done

LOVE: The flexibility and complete control; the satisfaction of doing a really good job; answering to no jerk; seeing the business grow and thinking "I did that!"

HATE: Not being able to call in sick even if I'm dying; sliding specs from fickle clients; having to drop my personal life to do an emergency assignment; sitting up all night writing for a 9am deadline; knowing that the ultimate success or failure of a business is entirely on my shoulders.

But, I wouldn't swap it for the world.

Due to the nature of my work, I am not at liberty to say.... Wish I could though.

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Offer up your best defence, this is the end of the innocence. "Don Henley"
That which does not kill us will only make us stronger. "Steel Magnolias"

FireEyes clearly has the best job of everyone here....

I'm a research assistant at a university (grad student in a few months -- hurrah!). I think it is a pretty good job.

Love:
- getting to do research on something that interests me
- access to lots of journals and books
- setting my own hours, as many or as few as I like
- never dealing with people, if I want
- rarely have deadlines
- when a deadline exists, that feeling of triumph in doing something clever (or just working really hard) to beat it

Hate:
- when new results are slow in coming
- setting my own hours, because that often means working very few hours, which means that I am poor
- the disk failure that cost me roughly a year's worth of work

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"It's turtles all the way down."

Love:
-From 11 PM to 7 AM, I have a total of 2 hours of stuff to do (normally) and no supervision. I bring my laptop and have used it to turn out a 250 or so page website, plus cruise the forums here and in my game most of the night.
-Helping the people that come in that have a legitimate problem.
-Watching the sun come up most days.
-Meeting people from all over.

Hate:
-The computer program we use came from England and was sent over specifically as punishment for that whole 1776 misunderstanding.
-To list all of the things that they claim are features would take days, but some of the biggies include,
--If there is nothing to print, it doesn't tell you there is nothing to print, it acts exactly the same way as if had printed. Not a big deal except the print spooler locks up 3 times a day (on average) so there is no real way to tell if it's locked or blank
--The drop down boxes on the forms must be cleared to show any options other than whatever is in it when you open it.
--Every window opens in the next slot in the cascade setting, so they are never in the same place twice in a row.
--It may or may not run the credit card on it's own. There is no way to know before you get there.
--The inventory screen is completely separate from the room type screen, so if a room changes, it takes a call to England to set up an appointment to have someone go in and change the number.
--Each screen uses it's own print queue, and printer number, which must be set up in three different places, only two of which can be from the user's end, yet all screens print to the same device which is the only printer on the system.
-The support staff will wait 8 days to call back on critical issues then explain that I need to call when the issue is actually happening to get it fixed.
-The owner makes the claim that no one comes to a hotel to watch TV, so we don't have even basic cable, yet we have many rooms with 32 inch LCD TV's for the cleanest test patters the airwaves can provide.
-The other program that I use nightly lists the months in alphabetical order in the archive. April 2005, April 2006, August 2005, August 2006, and so on
-The AC doesn't work, so it's 3 am and 81* F where I'm sitting.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Likes: -
* Actually nice company with great colleagues
* Enough freedom of movement to occasionally spend an afternoon mountainbiking
* I use great software
Dislikes
* Worlds worst aircon - and England is currently enjoying a record heatwave
* Remuneration
* Bureaucracy

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There we were in the park when suddenly some old lady says I stole her purse..... I chucked the professor at her but she kept coming..... So I had to hit her with this purse I found.
-- Bender

Wow!

What do you do?

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

If he told you, he'd have to kill you.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I dash the hopes and dreams of small business owners everywhere by underwriting their loan applications.

I love not having to sell people things they can't afford. I love approving a qualified applicant and contributing to making their dreams possible.

I'm with the first underwriter. Policy changes are no fun. Boss, "We do it this way." Crew, "Uh, when did that change?" Boss, "What do you mean? It's always been like that."

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

In my company our credit policies change so often that those of us on the floor tend to give the new policies names like "The Friday at 2:45 policy" which is of course replaced by the "Friday at 3:22 policy."

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

aww

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

Well, I've been reading Dilbert for years, and I still don´t understand a thing about what software people do

Favorite part of my job? Having time to cruise the BAUT board.
Worst part? Being bored to the point that I'm cruising the BAUT board.

I've given up trying to explain to my wife what I do in any but the vaguest terms.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I'm a struggling freelance writer and programmer.
Love to get things published or distributed - very concrete sense of accomplishment along with the very cool possibility that my creations might outlive me.
Hate writer's block from staring at a blank page. Hate software bugs that just don't seem to die.

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Have you ever been just about to grasp the truth when somebody else suddenly yanked it out of your reach?
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