How to Cope with a Job You Hate and Can#8217;t Quit

How to Cope with a Job You Hate and Can8217t Quit Americans Hate Their Jobs, Even with Office Perks, a June 24, 2013 CNBC News headline declared. But do they hate them enough to quit and, importantly for the discussion to follow, what about those who, for whatever reason, simply cannot quit? There are lots of reasonsmany very good onesfor being unable to quit, including heavy family responsibilities with no available alternative way to earn an adequate income. So, what can anyone who has to cope with a job (s)he hates, but cant quit, do to make the situation bearable, if not better?1. Think of the good your job does or something about it to be proud of. I have a true story, from my childhood, to tell, about an immigrant who, long ago, for mora than 30 years, worked like a robot in a U.S. industrial plant at the height of American industrial supremacy, ceaselessly pounding out piles of silverware e very day at a cramped, noisy work station, one spoon at a time, operating a deafening, enormous mechanized drop-hammer. To get himself through his thousands of shifts, he drew upon one of the few reserves he possesseda reserve of pride. Although numbingly bored and exhausted by his job, whenever hed spot his companys silverware at a restaurant table, hed proudly beam as he pointed to the stamp that he may have banged onto the spoon in his hand. Although not enough, that pride and the wages helped him cope all those years.He welches my dad.(Despite being gently lampooned in the King of the Hill series, cartoon Texas family man Hank Hills expressions of small-town. small-scale pride as a myopic propane and propane accessories schlussverkauf manager are emblematic of this kind of professional and existential coping, and, in his case, celebration.)Even though spoons dont save lives as often as other things, unquestionably nurses and seat belts do. So, if your job, like nursing or seat-b elt manufacture, saves lives, or merely makes them substantially better or safer, take comfort in deserved pride for a job not only well-done, but also for one that does good.2. Beef up your free-time satisfactions. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, and probably since the dawn of man, offsetting dreary or otherwise unsatisfying work with free-time pleasures has enabled generations of workers to cope with the worst kinds of workwhether through cheery gatherings at the local pub, DIY hobbies, community involvement or just through spending time with ones family or cat.But, giving this coping strategy a modern, savvy spin, it is worth noting that the compensations of post-work activity may get a bonus boost by including anything that upgrades ones employment skills, e.g., a software design course that is enjoyable as well as professionally valuable.Interestingly, free-time satisfactions are neither intrinsic nor extrinsic job rewardsthe two fruchtwein commonly cited forms of job benefits. For Mozart, as employed, commissioned composer, music provided both kinds.There was the intrinsic, exquisite pleasures afforded by composing and performing perfect and immortal music, enhanced with the extrinsic cash payments and perks from patrons (which, unlike the intrinsic aesthetic rewards are separable from the act of composing or performing).As a historical matter, we are left to wonder to what extent in his free time Mozart continued to compose, just forand only forthe intrinsic fun of it.For the rest of us, it may be thought that post-work free time is an extrinsic reward at the end of the work daya payoff for having stuck to the job for yet another shift. But this seems incorrect, not only because free time is not synonymous with good time, but also because the amount of free time one has is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent at work.This is quite the opposite of money earned as a reward for the same work time, since that extrinsic cash reward increases proportionately with the work effort, as presumably most other extrinsic rewards should and do.No, punching the time clock on the way out from work is merely the cue to resume other activities in the free-time zone, activities that may or may not be especially rewarding and that can include going home to fight with a battle-prone mother-in-law.The challenge is make that free time a sufficiently effective offset to whatever it is about the job that makes it hatedor, even better, to make the free-time satisfactions a way out of that job.Perhaps we should recognize, in addition to intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, a third category of job-related rewardsthe offsetting.3. Ignore status-consciousness. What do you if you hate your job because it is demeaning or incapable of financing your status strivings? Michael Jordan, Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber may have enormous wealth and status stratospherically higher than a nurse, a wheat farmer, a seat-belt assembler (if human), a we lder or you, but we have to ask ourselves, who is more indispensable to our lives and civilizationHilton?As for general socioeconomic status cravings measured in terms of things other than a job or its associated income, we must ask exactly what is accomplished when they are satisfied. Chances are that even when the latest specific cravings, e.g., for a pricier car, are satisfied, most people arentor at least not for very long.4. Reframe the boredom. When I, at 19, whined to a co-worker standing at his machine next to my gargantuan aircraft-plant center-drive lathe about being bored, he found my boredom unfathomable. That was because, he said, with visible signs of genuine excitement, the huge room-sized jet-engine turbine disks we made might be titanium one day, steel the next or some exotic alloy the third.He had averted or overcome boredom through a Zen-like fascination with some of the details of his job, framed or re-framed as a varied and therefore engaging experience. (I last ed about two weeks on the job, until he snitched on me, reporting my boredom to the foreman, and before I was reassigned to the parts inspector department, which I stoically held down until I returned to college.)5. Improve your stress-management skills. As an offset to a hated job, this is huge. Assuming that you cant quit your job, you cannot do what the average savannah zebra will do to manage sudden stress at the first whiff of a pride of lions flee. Also, if you cant wage a war at work for improved conditions, mission, etc., without getting fired, fight, as well, is unavailable as an option.So, with fight or flight ruled out, it would seem that, following zebra and general animal logic, the only alternative is to freeze, which, although useful for well-disguised rodents in the bush, is unlikely to work for zebrasor you, since, absent a better strategy, the job, if not a lion, is likely to eat you up.Situations in which freeze (which is to be distinguished from unhelpful paralyt ic fright) may pay off are those in which the stressor is not extremely intense engagement would be too risky, ineffective or premature when you do not believe you can immediately control the stressor or when you require more feedback or other information before taking any other steps.Fortunately, you are neither a zebra nor a rodent, and have far more stress-management options available to you, including forgetting (tuning out) and framing (and re-framing) of the kind mentioned above, in connection with the aircraft plant.If you hate your job (or are merely stressed by it) and dont have the time, energy or opportunity at work to formulate additional stress-management strategies like these, you can explore and develop them by taking another piece of advice presented above.Beef up your free-time satisfactionsby using your free time to devise more ways to manage the stress of your un-free, on-the(-hated)-job time.Even if you dont have the time of your life, it will be well-spent time for your life.