"Paying your dues" at work

Does anyone have an inspirational story about this about how once they got past the first few years it was worth busting your azz? I know a lot of you have been in the workforce long enough to establish yourselves, so I'd like so advice on what to tell my FH.

My poor FH has been in the workforce for about a year working at a major financial firm. He's just totally burning out with the hourse and the stress. At a minimum he works 10 hours a day, and that's really just his minimum work day and never never ever happens. It's usually more like 12 and I've seen him have 15-17 hour wordays. He also has night duty, morning duty, weekend duty and if they call him at home at 2am to fix some random problem, he's gotta get up and do it whether he's on duty or not. He's just burning out. It got to the point where he told me he wants to start looking for another job. I told him "nooooo...are you crazy!?!?!" Because jobs are not easy to find, and it's a good job he makes more than any of our friends, he gets full benefits for both of us, and it's a major company, so it will look good on a resume. I told him hang in there, he's just got to get over this hump of the first few years and then he'll be able to do something that's less miserable or at least more interesting. Occasionally he gets a high visibility project and they just started ahaving him interview job candidates, plus he may get a promotion at the end of the year, so I really want to encourage him to hang in there for another little while and it'll be all worth it in a few years. Do you have any similar stories where this worked out, so I can wave it like a carrot in front of the poor kid's face as he races toward that finish line? Anything to inspire him and tell him there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks!

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

jenn, i wish i had a good story for you, but i don't

we're all corporate whores and this is the nature of the beast. That's why you gotta like what you do.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

Posted by CaptainCharisma424

jenn, i wish i had a good story for you, but i don't

we're all corporate whores and this is the nature of the beast. That's why you gotta like what you do.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

is it the hours or the work that he dislikes?

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

It's both. I think it's just right now. He didn't mind the hours as much when he was getting interesting projects. Now when he's doing 12 hours of drudge work then it really gets to him. He loves programming in general, but he likes to do it when he's doing something innovative or something that's going to make the business run more smoothly or help people, he doesn't like it when he has to spend all day correcting someone else's mistakes or just cleaning up random stuff.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

honestly jenn, that kind of stuff never goes away

i would tell him to give it another year, get the promotion and then start putting feelers out there for a new job

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That's what I figured too. I figured he needs at least 2 years and once he has a promotion then he can look at jobs that require more experience, pay more, etc. But I don't thin levaing after one year is going to loo very good. I'm just like not sure a financial firm is for him. It's where the tech jobs are and it's where the $$ is, but seriously most of the people he works with are divorced and don't have families and just LOOOOVE their money. And they all have ulcers and all kinds of stress-related conditions. So the answer may be just to work long enough to have something put ona resume and get the heck out of dodge. I keep telling him I think he should go for his PhD and teach, because I think he'd do so well as a teacher and he'd get to do interesting research, but...*sigh* we'll see.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

oh yeah, financial firms have a high divorce rate

i have a friend who is a VP with chase, makes a boatload of money but he and his wife are constantly at odds cuz she never sees him
and when he is home, he's either sleeping or working

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

I agree with Don, it doesn't matter how many years you are working there will always be tedious projects.

I have been at my current job for 10+ years. I started as the admin asst to the CFo and I am now the manager of the finance dept. While I have many more responsibities and get to do work I really enjoy doing there are things that I just have to get done.

But I would be concerned that if he is working so many hours all the time, that they are understaffed in his dept. Is that likely to change?

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Message edited 10/5/2006 5:29:47 PM.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

I agree with Don as well. I started at the bottom of the food chain at my place as well now I am in management. It took me 5 years to get where I am and I hated working my way up to it but it had to be done to get the experience. I think he should hold out another year especially if there is talk of a promotion. At least if he gets the promotion and he still doesn't like it, it will look good on his resume that A. he worked in a major firm and B. he was promoted to a higher position within only a year of being with the company.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

Right now, aside from the intern he's the lowest rung on the aldder so he kind of gets stuck with this stuff. He got to do a lot more interesting stuff before the boss hired this random gy to do all of hte important stuff, although basically everyone agrees that this guy nows NOTHING. Even Fh's direct supervisor is just waiting for his year end bonus and then he's getting a new job because it's just been so annoying. But if FH gets a little higher he'll probbaly be doing more interesting stuff or at least he'll have enough experience to get a job elsewhere with more interesting projects. He doens't mind doing tedious stuff sometimes, I mean come on, it's computer programming, it's all about tedium..lol...but I thin maybe it's the politics getting to him now. They're not understaffed, they just expect you to work a lot of hours. And also he's not low in the totem pole because he's unskilled, just b/c he's new, he actually can do a lot that other people can't do, and he's written a lot of the programs that most of their work is based on (as I said in the beginning he had interesting stuff to do), so when a problem arises, a lot of the time only HE can do it, so there's no one else to call and he gets called upon a lot for that reason.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

See I think your DH should go out and see what's out there!
How do we know he doesn't have enough experience? A year is alot-- and there might be a company out there that might consider him pretty experienced especially with a nice company name on his resume.
I wouldn't shoot the posibility down of looking just yet.
He isn't losing his job-- so why discourage him from looking???

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

DH has been somewhat successful in his job. He started there in 2001 and went from Staff Accountant to Senior Accountant in a short amount of time (with lots of long hours put in) and then after developing good relations with directors and VP's and the CEO, he was given the opportunity to take over the position of senior treasury analyst and he is working less hours, leaves early two days a week to go to MBA classes (which his boss loves) and is doing something he likes.

I on the other hand, spent five years in publishing and got nowhere and then laid off. But my industry is different.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

I think this is a problem for a lot of IT people. DH also does IT work and is in a job he hates right now for many of the same reasons you mentioned, although he is not working hours as long as your FH. I'm not an IT person, but as an observer it seems like one of the problems with IT work is that people don't really understand what you do, and expect you to give them firm deadlines for when projects will be done. As a programmer, I think you can ballpark it, but you don't always know how long a new project will take to finish. In financial firms, or companies that are very revenue driven, I think they want you to say definitively, "this will be done on ____" and expect youto work as many hours as possible to meet the deadline. I have limited programming experience, but I think that working longer hours as a programmer doesn't necessarily make you more productive. I think after a while, there is a law of diminishing returns.

I think if your FH hates that type of environment, he should look for IT work in another industry. The money there is good, but he is giving up a quality of life that he may never have in that firm. JMO.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

It's so true, with the deadlines, etc. His boss really knows nothing about programming so that adds to the situation. The thing with the ther IT jobs that were out there at least when he was looking were that they were IT jobs, setting up offices and setting up networks or something. Every job he applied for told him he was way over qualified for the position, and the money was not good. The only upshot to that would ahve bene that he would ahve had overtime pay at most of those jobs, but the thing is, setting up networks is not what he likes to do. He likes to create. He loves programming. This is someone who taught himself how to program I think at age 10 or 12, so... there's only so far he'll stray from it. I'm just going to keep encouraging him to stay another year at least, it may improve or it may not but at least he;ll have been there long enough to leave w/o it looking bad. I'll also tell him stories about Juliet's DH, to show him that you really can move up to a better position!

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

He has to use his own judgment to decide if they are taking advantage of him, or if he is just working his way up.

Not all IT jobs are like, that but a lots are. My FIL gets calls as all hours & he has been there for years.

DH's job is more reasonable. If he is not on call, he doesn't get called.

He isn't a programmer though. My aunt is though , & I don't think she gets called in. It probably depends on the industry.

If it just a bad situation, he could start to look after 1 year, instead of 2.

Re: "Paying your dues" at work

I might be able to give you some good advice... but I have a few questions first.


You said he works at a financial firm... but you mentioned IT. Is he doing IT work at the financial firm? What type of IT work is he doing? What is so "grunt" about the grunt work he is doing?

Does he get paid overtime per hour for those long hours he works? Or is he salaried and get the same pay every month? If he doesn't get OT pay... does he at least get comp time?



Knowing those answers would give me a better idea.

But I can tell you right off the bat that if I were him... I would stick it out for at least another year.

When looking for a new job... having two years of experience at your old job looks way better than one year. One year or less... the employer will see you at the type that likes to "bounce around". Not good.