What exactly is a real job?

[lobo94]

I seem to recall reading about John Glenn's thoughts on the subject when he went into politics and his opponent said he'd never had a real job, just the military and later on being an astronaut. Glenn put this other guy in his place, but good.

[PepperElf]

"Must be nice having summers off."

Yeah because then i can recover from dealing with demon spawn like you.

though that's probably why a lot of teachers also do college teaching
or teach online college classes

[Green_Fairy]

when i worked at the cookie store, we had a tip jar. i can't even count the people that would say "here's a tip for you...get a real job!" and then laugh because they're soooooo witty and soooooo original. i always wanted to tell those people to bugger off and bake their own damned cookies, but...never did. oh well.

[superhotelworker]

Really? I don't have a real job? What the hell.. my brain and my little bit of sanity are now shot.

[Racket_Man]

ya know like others have said:

at my current job I am happier than I have been for many years. yes I know it just "Pizza delivery" but even when I was making 2.5 times the money I am now I was on call 24/7/365, worked 8 months of 12 hour days for Y2K (and no overtime was salaried), was tossed out (fired/let go/laid off) with out a second thought,had to tolerate with family fights (worked fior several family type companies), have to put up with the corp office polictics, ego tripping, territorial fights, change fights, shenaggins of the illegal type and downright idiots who somehow managed to rise above their level of incompetenece.

Now I get to spend a lot of my night by myself or engaged in activities that keep me busy. yes I depend on others "generousity" (ie. tips) but since Ex left and child is out of the house I (after car expences) make REAL money that pays my REAL BILLS with some left over. IF food delivery were to stop the howl would be heard on the Moon as a lot of lazy people would actually have to get off of the FAT ASSES and get the food themselves.

I have had that "real job" and for the most part it was not worth the time, headaches, the idiots, the fights, the unexpected and unwarrented job losses, the ulcer inducing stress and tension, the loss of hair, the greying of hair and the lack of bettering my position within the companies I did work for. I gave them my all and got crapped on for it. YEAH I know no good deed goes unpunished.

[Jester]

I seem to recall reading about John Glenn's thoughts on the subject when he went into politics and his opponent said he'd never had a real job, just the military and later on being an astronaut. Glenn put this other guy in his place, but good.

A great piece on this can be seen at snopes.com here.

[Stryker One]

Real Jobs

Here's a few places for "Real" jobs
Real
Real
Real

[sweetj82]

I have found out that i make more money at "not real job" than alot of my friends who went to college and have "real jobs"
i know people that owe what i paid for my house in student loans

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

Sadly once you become a teacher, you'll only be an overpriced babysitter

Overpriced? They don't pay babysitters much where you come from

[Sapphire Silk]

I now have a "real job" but it wasn't always the case. AT some point I had to pay for things like going to college and what not so I worked at the fast food place on campus. <snip> I have the greatest amount of respect for people that put up with all the crap I put up with while I was doing those jobs. <snip>

Amen to that! My first job was cooking hamburgers at Roy Rogers. I worked 16 hours every weekend for 3 months while I was in my first semester of nursing school. It sucked: my feet always hurt from standing in one spot 8 hours a day, I smelled like grease no matter how much I bathed, and the manger was a prick who never spoke in tone below a yell.

The most important thing I learned from that job was, "This is NOT what I want to spend the rest of my life doing." It was hard work. I never want to do it again. But I learned a lot from doing it . . . and I had money to show for it.

There's a cashier at my local Mickey D's who's been there for several years. Nice gal, always smiling and pleasant. Hard worker. If I ever heard someone tell her to "get a real job," I think I'd strangle them. That girl WORKS.

ya know like others have said:

at my current job I am happier than I have been for many years. yes I know it just "Pizza delivery" but even when I was making 2.5 times the money I am now I was on call 24/7/365, worked 8 months of 12 hour days for Y2K <snip>

I LOVED my job delivering pizzas. I did it for about 8 months or so, after I quit my first nursing job. I got completely burned out on the hours, the workload, the "do more with less" crap, the EW patients, and the moronic managers.

Delivering pizza was great. Got to drive around town all day, sitting down, listening to what I wanted to listen to on the radio. I hustled, so the tip money was good. It wasn't unusual for me to go home with $75/night in tips, plus my hourly wage, plus mileage. The manager was a nice guy, looked out for us and didn't screw with us (the owner was another story), so turnover was low.

The only reason I quit was because I drove my car (it was a lemon anyway) into the ground. I was still in college and needed money for school, and couldn't afford both a new car payment, plus rent, plus tuition so I went back to nursing (and lucky me fell back in love with the profession).

But it was an awesome job

[Duncan MacLeod]

Heck, I teach nursing . . . and I've been told it's not a "real job."

It's a nice little way for EW's to assault people when they have nothing better to say.

Nursing not a "Real Job"? Pshaw... i spent 3 weeks in the hospital after an accident, and the Nurses were lifesavers...

I am also not inserting my own needed for my MRI on friday.

[Seraph]

I actually had a client recently who was complaining to me that he had no money (he's unemployed). I jokingly said "Well maybe it's time to get a job" and he told me maybe I should think the same.

I asked him what I was doing right then? Was I not making his website? Was being a web designer not enough? How about being a mother of two during the day? Or taking care of the upkeep of the house?

He got quiet after that.

[chainedbarista]

by my thoughts, any job that pays the bills is a real job. some are a bit more 'real' than we'd like (dealing with customers?? hell yes) and no less valid that whatever some cuntomer might be doing.

to hell with them all, i say.

[Kereminde]

My favorite job was working concessions at a theatre house, and like teachers we had nothing to do during the summer. This meant 4 months out of the year we didn't have any work, or rather enough work to pay bills. I had a blast working it, due to three factors: the work being dead simple, the managers all being nice people, and those of us who worked long enough to get recognized by regular show-goers earned something of a fanbase

I've been told exactly two jobs weren't real:

- Substitute Teacher. And this was from a full teacher, who complained about how so many people were taking the positions thinking it was an easy way to make money rather than get a real job. "But not you, you work your butt off."

- Server Staff. Of course, this was at the place where I did get to quip back. "So, would you like to order from the real or not-real menu today?" I got a laugh out of it, because inflection and body language lets me make jabs like that into jokes. Most of the time, people don't catch on if you make it sound like a joke . . .

I'm going to quote my friend, when I was saying how my commissioned writing wasn't a real writing job: "A real job is whatever pays the bills. If the money is real, so's the job."

[AdamaGeist]

The truth is, for these people don't actually mean a real job. Every job is a real job, it's just common sense. I suppose that if you enjoy what you do, it's never a job, it's just doing what you love, but I doubt they mean that either.

What they mean, but would never dare to say... Well, that's quite simple. "If you want to disagree with me, then you need to get a job that I'd respect or acknowledge. But until you get a job like that, I'm going to treat you like a small child for telling me I can't buy liquor after 3am on a Sunday."

Or...

"How dare you, a lowly cashier, tell me I can't pay for two hundred dollars in groceries with two quarters and two heaping handfuls of expired coupons! You don't work a job respectable enough to tell me no!"