Jobs

[portentous]

This isn't about what you do, but how long you do it for.

I've been doing the same job now for 12 months-and am now bored sh**less. As a casual employee, I have no rights, no entitlements and no career path. I'm now looking for a new job and had several interviews last week.

Anyway, I'm wondering how long do people stay in the same job, if they aren't promoted etc? How much notice do you give before you leave? As a casual I don't have to give any,though I'd prefer to. I run the risk though of the boss making my life miserable if I do.

Thoughts. Is anyone else feeling the same or changed jobs recently due to boredom??

[Macca19]

Ive been in the same job now for a couple of years. I would like a challenge but I dont neccesarily want to leave where I work. See what happens over the next 12 months.

[Troy Wingate]

I've been with Woolworths for 3 years come November 3rd. Was at Mawson Lakes for 2 years then got promoted to a 2IC position at Virginia at the end of November last year. I'll be moving to another store around January/February.

Woolworths provide great career opportunities should you want to make a career of it.

[portentous]

I've got an interview with an alcohol retailer on Monday. Sounds like heaven to me :)

Reckon I should be one of those instore demonstrators/samplers.

[Powerstufff]

I moved around quite a bit in my younger years but fell on my feet when I trained as a Registered Nurse in my early 20s. As luck would have it the late 80s when I trained was the end of paid training, I couldn't have afforded to have gone to Uni to do it.
The profession is very kind to footloose people and I've worked in quite a few areas and institutions here and o/s without it being considered unusual.
Right now I'm doing some casual website maintenance 3 days a week and Agency nursing 1-2 days more a week.
I usually leave a job conventionally, giving notice etc. My most recent job change had me, for the first time ever, walk out after resigning on the spot. That was the end of 15 years at a large private hospital and was provoked by a rotten shift to which the background was an ongoing battle about staffing levels.

[RoosterLad]

I was in my last job for 3.5 years, about 1.5-2 years too many. I got sick of it quickly but the people were good to work with and the work, while being physically tough at times was fairly easy because i'd been there so long. I couldnt see myself doing it for the rest of my life though so quit in March and went back to study.

[dreamkillers]

up until June this year I worked for a major govt department up here.......managing their previous billing system through Y2K and GST.

In 2003 they decided they wanted a new system and whilst initially involved with this I got out when I realised senior management had no idea about what they were doing.

I left in June this year and at the time they were still having major issues with the system as the whole process was completely mis-managed by our senior levels which resulted in the company getting a system that will take them 4-5 more years to have the performance (and more importantly accuracy) of the system they replaced.

I now work for a company that sells camper trailers (and soon to be trailers) setting up the whole office saide of things including the accounting package and the best part about this job is what I put into it I get back through commissions and bonuses.

Whilst my pay is down on what I had previously at the moment, within 12 months I'll be earning more here than I did before and knowing everything I do for the benefit of the company benefits me..........:D

[missionpossible]

not counting all the casual jobs through uni.

Current job has been 11.3 years

Previous job 5 years.

I still think as a casual it is polite to give two weeks notice.

[portentous]

Since when have I been "polite" Phil??

[missionpossible]

Since when have I been "polite" Phil??


see this is where I know the real girl behind all the sarcasm:D

[lost_20]

[quote=portentous]

I've been doing the same job now for 12 months-and am now bored sh**less.

Yeah me too. When I 1st started my job just over a year ago, there was soo much work too do now theres hardly anything. On friday I finished everything by 2pm and sat there for 3 hours almost going to sleep. Getting to the point, I'd only work there to buy my new car and help pay the mortgage.

[Ray Nolan]

Insolvency Consultant - 2 years, 3 months.

[Jumbo]

Been in the same job for seventeen years. Only another seventeen to go (at age 55) and can get a big lump sum and pension for the rest of my life!!

[MrMeaner]

I've been in my current job for just over five and a half years (if you count going from being an articled clerk to a solicitor). It will be just on six years by the time I leave.

As I had to apply some time ago for entry into the course to become a barrister, I let the partners know that I was intending to travel down that path when I applied. It was not exactly formal notice of my resignation but it let them know when I was intending to leave. In February, will give the firm the standard on month's notice.

The only problem with the timing is that I miss out on being eligible for pro rata long service leave by a year.

[Total Power]

Been in the same job for the past 11 months and loving it.After completing my masters degree from a B-School, this is what i wanted to do and i got my opportunity big time in Europe. Would love to move back to australia sometime but the pay is so much better here, its not even funny.I reckon i will stay here for the next 5 years or so.

[Pred]

I've been an amateur gynacologist for many years now.

Apart from that, been teaching English for about 4 years.

[Jumbo]

I've been an amateur gynacologist for many years now.

Apart from that, been teaching English for about 4 years.

Shouldn't you be at school?:)

[captain ebert]

ive been told one should not hold the same position for more than 5 years - ie, if you have not been promoted in that time, something's up.

[Pred]

Shouldn't you be at school?:)I am :)

[PowerKat]

I've been at the same company for 10 years and in that time my job has constantly changed, including 2 promotions. Good working environment, good people and new challenges, mean it doesn't get boring or feel like I've been doing the same things in all that time. I've only seriously thought of leaving once, about a year ago.

[Papa G]

Been in the same job for seventeen years. Only another seventeen to go (at age 55) and can get a big lump sum and pension for the rest of my life!!

I'd look into that if I was you Jumbo. For someone your age, access to your super will be 60 and not 55 as is currently the case. It might be different if you work for a goverment department, but you should clarify it all the same.

[dreamkillers]

***warning the post below goes on a bit but if shows my full work history***

Just giving a bigger rundown on my jobs/careers so far and the aims for the future........

Back in the early 80's during 4th year (Maths I & II, Physics, Chemistry, English And Economics) at high school I had every intention of doing matriculation...........after a mid year chat with one of the school counsellors he suggested just for the experience to start applying for jobs as it would be a good learning tool for the future.......

So mid year I applied to places like GMH and ETSA for apprenticeships (not that I was real serious about doing them) as well as all the banks and a few other jobs that interested me from the paper.

By September I had won jobs at GMH, Bank of Wales/Westpac, a couple of insurance companies and other office type jobs so then I had to choose whether or not to continue on with matric the following year or take one of the jobs.

The real good thing about this was the fact my Year 11 exams were still over a month away and it really took the presssure off.........

A classic example of this was with my Chemistry teacher who had already written my end of year report saying that due to getting sidetracked by others I didn't concentrate enough on the tasks at hand which in turn had me failing the year..........with the pressure off at exams I actually got an A in the Chemistry exam and the teacher being the idiot he was just ruled a single line over his previous effort and added "Due to an eleventh hour effort I miraculously passed my Chemistry exam" this resulted in the grade being changed from a D+ to a B+ overall..............

It certainly was amusing hearing him try and explain his comments to my parents at the parent teacher night as they knew I did practically no study for the exams.

In the end I was accepted into matriculation for Maths I & II, Physics, Chemistry, English and Economics but dropped Chemistry as only 5 subjects were required for PEB but I had also decided to start with Westpac in April.

I worked opposite Arndale for my first 12 months in before going onto relief staff where I enjoyed travelling to many country branches including Woomera, Coober Pedy, Pt Lincoln and Gawler (which was considered country even though it was quicker fro me to get to than Modbury/Tea Tree Gully.

I then took a promotion to work at Coober Pedy for 12 months and for a young 17yo it certainly was an interesting experience and one I totally enjoyed. After this I was asked where I wanted to go next and I jokingly said Victor Harbor and a couple of days later I was offered a promotion to go there which again I gladly accepted.

After 12 months there I was getting pretty bored with branch banking and really had no interest in getting a transfer to Adelaide branches where you either worked totally on the counter or totally behind the scenes. I was speaking to a mate who worked in the data centre who advised there were some opportunities to get into the computing side of things as a mainframe computer operator. This had me very interested so I headed off for some logic tests and within a month had scored a job as a computer operator.

I worked in this area for 5 years starting as a computer operator working through to shift manager and it was one of the best jobs and places I worked due to the flexible hours and great team of people.

Unfortunately when Westpac had the big losses in the late 80's and early 90's they decided to centralise things and we were given job offers to go to Sydney or work elsewhere in SA. I looked into going to Sydney but decided against this as the bank coulldn't promise that we'd still have a job in 2 years time.

In November that year I was made redundant and took a nice package and was basically going to have a break for the next 3-6 months. When setting up for a New Years party at home I borrowed a few things from the transport company my mother worked for and was offered a part time job doing debt recovery and forklift work at the depot. This company also owned the Blinman hotel and after a few discussions with the boss I decided to work at the hotel for the tourist season (March - October) and basically enjoyed the outback/country experience before heading back to Adelaide to work at the transport company.

In December I was asked whether I was interested in going to Alice Springs to set up the office side of things to which I said yes and worked there until the end of June when again I was retrenched as the company had decided to get out of the parcel freight side of things and just concentrate on large loads, car carrying and refridgerated transport.
I still did some part time work with them as well as delivery work for a couple of other companies whilst at the same time keeping an eye on the local job market.

I applied for a job at a government agency and after the interview I had a phonce call from one of the panel members to say they wanted me but not for the position I applied for...........so to get my foot in the door I was employed as a meter reader which I did for my first 2 days and won myself a very good nickname on my first day there.......Chuckie...:D

Basically we had been out to the bore field and I spent most of the morning hopping in and out of the car getting the readings whilst the other meter readers kept himself in the comfort of the air conditioned car. We got back into town around lunch time and I was very very thirsty and between the shop and the office had consumed close to 2 litres of water. Inside the office my stomach was starting to rumble and just as I got up I turned around and expelled water over the other meter reader..........

Whilst I wasn't feeling too good about it the other staff there couldn't stop laughing about it as they all hated the person I soaked.........on the Friday after this it was my birthday and I was duly given a bucket with the new nickname on it which became pretty famous throughout the company......and things really could only get better......:D

After 2 days of meter reading I started covering one of the debt recovery staff who was ill and that was the end of my meter reading day..........in the 18 months I worked there I basically did debt recovery, reconciling major accounts, controlling the meter readers and their computer system before starting to get a little bored of this. I noticed a temporary job in Darwin as a system administrator for the company's main customer database and billing system and applied and won the job. Upon getting to Darwin I was told the job had to be advertised full time so they kept extending my contract until properly advertising the job 6 months later which I subsequently won and finally shifted all my bits and pieces up to Darwin.

I loved the challenges we had and worked though Y2K and GSt projects before the company decided they were going to buy another system to replace the system we had which was custom made to specifically suit the company. I was initially involved in this process but due to doubts I had about the way the project was being managed I decided it was time for something different as I could see this turning into a total mess and they weren't going to listen to my comments let alone do anything about the issues I raised.

From here I side stepped to look after the billing of our major customers (our top 50 customers accounted for 80% of our revenue each month - approx $20m) and assisted on some of the sub projects of the system changeover but didn't want to get seriously involved with it due to my earlier concerns.

18 months later, 3 months behind scheule and still with numerous issues this system was introduced with quite a few consequnces. The scariest part of the changeover was the fact senior management went ahead with the change even though they had never billed our major customers in it during testing and even more concerning the fact they had never even done a full end to end test of the product. My concerns were justified as this new system was meant to streamline processes which meant ower costs by having less staff..........the reality was that with all the problems it was creating by things going wrong including customers getting incorrect bills or no bills at all meant even more staff were recruited just to try and stop errors getting out. Part of my work after this was checking a pdf file each and every day from our printers in Adelaide before giving the go ahead to print - generally between 5-10% of invoices were returned to us due to errors/problems.

The checking of invoices went on for close to 2 years by which time the errors were down to less than 1% and were caused by staff not fully understanding processes or the system not having enough checks in place to prevent staff making the errors. As you can imagine I got pretty sick of this as we were never really able to be pro-active about things and things weren't looking like improvong as due to cost cutting the extra staff we needed to keep things flowing were not retained.

So just before I came down to Adelaide earlier this year I was speaking to a good mate who opened up a Camper Trailer business up here and he said he needed someone to set up the office side of things as well as doing sales. After giving this serious thought over my holiday I knew it was time to move on and whilst I hadn't even considered work like this previously it was perfect in timing and was going to be a good challenge for me.

So when I returned to Darwin I met with my mate a couple of times to nut out various things and by the end of the week had agreed to come on board. I know when I handed in my resignation it shocked/surprised quite a few people except those very close to me who I had discussed this with.

That was at the end of June and since then the business is picking up well, the office side of things will be fully done by the end of November and it's been a very rewarding experience to go through as the company is showing very good promise to be a successful business in it's own right...............if things continue on as they are within 12 months I'll be earning more here than I had previously, working a lot less hours and really enjoing life again.

As a side note to the job change it's also cleared my head of most of the garbage I had to put up with working for a govt department as I know the work I put in in this job gives me actual rewards whereas in govt you just get more bull**** and no real opportunity to rise up the ranks unless you want to play the games senior management like doing. At the same time I'm now more active outside of work (we used to work 20-30 hours OT compared to 6 day 30 hour week I now do) and no longer stressed at all about my future as I know for everything I put into this job I get something out of it.

Those that saw me when I was down earlier this year had noticed that my weight had dropped off a bit......well it's now back to what I was 12 months after leaving school........at my worst I was close to 140kg and I'm now down to 98kg (I was 110-112 when in Adelaide in May) with the aim to get it under 90 by early next year.

So that's my work story so far........hopefully I didn't put too many people to sleep and I'll catch up with some of you early next year as I should be down for the pre-season comp showdown before coming back up here to hopefully see Port play the following week.


You can wake up now.........:D

[Jumbo]

I'd look into that if I was you Jumbo. For someone your age, access to your super will be 60 and not 55 as is currently the case. It might be different if you work for a goverment department, but you should clarify it all the same.

Nah, I got lucky with my job and signed up in 1989 under the old super scheme, six months later and it would have meant anoth 5 years work for me (gotta love the public sector)

[Papa G]

Nah, I got lucky with my job and signed up in 1989 under the old super scheme, six months later and it would have meant anoth 5 years work for me (gotta love the public sector)

I know people who have rolled out of that scheme including my brother in law. I'm not sure he knows how big an idiot he is.

[Captain Wacky]

I've been an amateur gynacologist for many years now.

Apart from that, been teaching English for about 4 years.

I hope to hell you don't combine the two pursuits. :D

OK, that was in poor taste...

[Arsene Wenger]

Been working on a year now as a solicitor. Fairly fun - can be boring can be very entertaining.. Pays the bills

[Captain Wacky]

Been working for the last six months or so in database maintenance, also picking up a little money here and there with freelance writing... some editorial, a lot of incredibly tedious advertorial.

[morell]

Not much of a story. Graduated from HS with an ok TER.

I love computers, but hate people, so I needed a career choice that involved computers without having to go through the nightmarish idea of desktop support.

I also love geography so I figured ... Geography on Computers ... luckily enough there was a course at UNISA which was exactly that.

Graduated with a Bachelor of Geographic Information Systems at the end of 2003, immediately started applying for jobs, got a couple of offers and took the one that paid the most and was in a good location. Worked here ever since, great job really, piece of cake, work with great people, goodish money.

If only it was in Adelaide :(

[Port1978]

Been working in my current job for 2 months now. Absoloutely loving it. My previous job was in a hospital, and I had been working there for 5 1/2 years. I left there because I'd been doing higher duties in a senior position there for 3 years, but then when that job everntually got advertised they gave it to someone else who's pretty crap and expected me to go back to my base-grade position. I wasn't going to put up with that so decided to go to a private company. At the end of the day I'm now getting payed more than I would have been at the hospital in the senior job, plus I don't have to do on-call anymore, so no more worries about being called into work on the weekends or at 3am in the morning! :thumbsu:

[Mr Magoo]

I've got an interview with an alcohol retailer on Monday. Sounds like heaven to me :)

Reckon I should be one of those instore demonstrators/samplers.


Tell me where & when your working, so i can taste some samples ;)

I'm unemployed & have been for close to 30 years now as i've been holding out for a management position. No i shouldn't make fun of the unemployed people.


I'm self employed right now & have been for close to a year, after basically starting off as nightfill for coles & also cleaning offices & collecting trolleys before moving onto being a factory worker & then office clerk. I got sick of ****ty jobs so my mate & i started up our own business selling dvds/video games/cds basically all home entertainment gear.

[blackdiamond]

I got sick of ****ty jobs so my mate & i started up our own business selling dvds/video games/cds basically all home entertainment gear.

Home Entertainment gear hey???

What type of DVD's are those? :p

[portentous]

Well I've got 2 more interviews today-both in the city. Who said work's hard to find?? I'm just itching now to get out of where I am.

[portentous]

Well I've got a new job-permanent part time, 3 hours per day 11.30-2.30 with a currency exchange etc dealer. My last day at the bookshop is tomorrow. I'll miss the books but not the conditions/boss I've had to deal with.

[Ported]

my mate & i started up our own business selling dvds/video games/cds basically all home entertainment gear.

Over the net? Give us a link ;)

I've been working as a visual effects artist until just recently. Trying to make it as a freelance illustrator.