I’m trying to find a job that doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but at least doesn’t make you sad and you can earn a good income
Is there any man happy in his job? What do you do?
r/AskMen
I’m trying to find a job that doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but at least doesn’t make you sad and you can earn a good income
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I’m trying to find a job that doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but at least doesn’t make you sad and you can earn a good income
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I’m a project manager. It’s fine. Pay’s good. Job security is good. We’ve always been around. Some ancient Egyptian dude was in charge of getting the pyramids built on time and under budget. Though if he fucked up, he probably got tortured to death.
So yeah, all things considered, being a PM in 2025 is pretty solid.
Hydrovac operator
It’s interesting, easy and pays very well
I’m a security guard on a shopping mall.
Ocasionaly i do security gigs ( nothing extraordinary )
Background: growing up wasn’t easy, some problems as a teen and former bouncer ( ONLY in legal places… although Boss had weakness for cheating and ladies )
Power plant operations, control room. Love my job and the schedule. 12 hour shifts with 7 days off in a row every few weeks. Pay is great, easy on the body and I feel like I’m doing something that matters.
Honestly, while there are days the Army sucked, it was a fairly enjoyable career. Even if you don’t stay for a full career–it can be the launching pad for you to get into places you never knew existed.
Construction Equipment Fleet Mechanic. 40hr week, good pay, minimal OnCall, OT is always available, low stress (comparatively).
I came from a 24-7-365 OnCall OTR Roadside repair with little support.
I love my job, I’m a web developer.
I’m a Labor Detective for my city. I do what I thought HR did when I was a kid, which is protecting employees from their employers by upholding their rights. Pays wells.
I would rather not work at all but I can’t say that I am unhappy.
I am pretty happy with the fact that as long as I have to go to work, I am okay with where I am going everyday to work.
I work for a pretty decent place. I am a jack of all trades in IT there. I started there in 1999 and have pretty much had full control of the direction of the position itself.
Even after all these years I am still learning new things and am constantly challenged to my threshold. I don’t do any inbox outbox type of work and there is a lot of room for creativity.
I never get hassled about vacation time or coming in late or leaving early to take care of personal issues and the employer hosts a lot of after work things or interrupts work with food trucks or whatever.
I’ve had a lot of jobs and this one is a one in a million and I’m going to stick with it.
I love my job. Just hate the pay, lol. 46k to 63k a year with overtime.
Cnc machinist. I run and setup a haas vm3. Been there 30 years.
While I run it. I listen to podcasts and music all night. No boss, and work at my own pace with no quota either.
I work in finance and I love my job
Artist for a Videogame Developer. I have my frustrations, but overall I love it.
Run a web design company alongside my wife. Pay is not through the roof. But it’s enough and I work from home and get to watch my daughter grow up. Doesn’t get much better.
I really enjoyed being an inside wireman while I was able to work. Running conduit perfectly and getting everything working correctly while being largely left alone and being able to listen to books was ideal for me. At times I was in charge of large projects and the stress was tangible but not overwhelming which was the right mix for me.
I’m an account manager and love my job. My customers are great (there are some that are really annoying) but the majority are brilliant and my team around me are brilliant
I’m a vegetable grower. However, it’s not my own farm, and even though I’m only on minimum wage I live on site (minimum fuel costs), have very cheap rent and a lot of free food. I’m saving my money and will be travelling most of this winter, hopefully doing the same next year.
Manager over the housekeeping department at a VA hospital. I have a really good boss and make more than I thought I ever would and it’s generally low stress.
I went from Pharmacy and Wellness(Despised it) to work at a University as a Professor and Advisor. I love my job despite it being much less money.
Money does not equal happiness folks.
I’m an arborist. A lot of it is a grind, but having a solid crew with whom you can tackle some tricky hazard trees is really rewarding. I like to describe it as long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.
Professor. Love it.
Electrician and personal trainer on the side pays the bills and I find enjoyment helping others
Massage therapist, I get to help people and nobody bleeds.
I work for my local government. I wfh 3 days a week and in office 2. I do my full weeks work in those 2 office days (except the odd teams call here and there through the week).
My wfh days are spent going to the gym, cleaning my car, housework and chilling on the Xbox. 10/10 would recommend
I love my job. I work on a tugboat.
I’m a BI developer/data engineer for a hospital. I like what I do.
Office manager. It’s a do nothing job. I work for my dad which has its benefits. Not enough money.
I’m retired now, but before I did, I worked as a Field Tech for Verizon. Field Tech as a job title covers a lot of different jobs, the work that I enjoyed was as a Lineman.
The work was dirty, dangerous and physically demanding. But… because it was dangerous, management largely didn’t bother us about increasing productivity numbers. Getting those numbers higher would require speeding things up, and speeding things up sacrifices safety and leads to injury or even death.
Also, we didn’t have to deal with the public, except in so far as we had to close down traffic lanes while working at the side of the road. And even then, since the public could see what you were doing and it’s necessity (broken telephone poles are an obvious problem), they didn’t hassle you at all.
It was a great job, and I would have happily kept on doing it for years, but the financial numbers and interest rates were just right for me to retire, so I did. I’m happy in retirement as well.
Mechanical engineer at a car manufacturer company. I’m very happy in my job
I work as a derivatives trader at a bank. I’m happy with my job.
I’m pretty happy with my job. Chemist that works on chemotherapy drugs primarily in phase 1/2.
I have never had a job that I hated. Sure there were days were i hated my life but that was just the day being super long and busy. IMO its how you see your job, I’d rather be employed than unemployed.
I’m in jewelry manufacturing at a family business. I operate 3D printers and scanners, CAD software, wax investment and molding, casting machine, pass raw casting to a bench jeweler, and I polish afterwards.
It’s a job, so of course there’s up and down days, but they take excellent care of me, pay to train me, and I get to play with expensive toys all day making client’s dream rings. Can’t complain.
But knowing that my art will define a couple’s love for the rest of their life, and outlive me brings fulfillment that very few have, so I’m blessed in that regard.
Edit: pay is so-so, I’m doing fine but it’s definitely nothing to brag about.
Azure cloud solutions architect.
Electrician for DOE in nyc…great pay and benefits and zero stress …probably one of best electrical jobs around
Me!!! I LOVE IT!!!
I’m retired!
😁
I make video games for a living and get paid pretty well to do it. I absolutely love my job and have never dreaded a single day of work in 13+ years of the games industry. Can’t really imagine doing anything else, just flew back in from a 2 week vacation today and I’m legitimately excited to get back to work.
I’m a software engineer working on cloud stuff.
I’m largely in charge of my day, I find the work interesting, I learn new things daily, I’m paid well, my reputation is pretty good so people give me lots of space, and the challenge is stimulating.
I wish I had beelined for it when I was first in college. I floundered around for a decade and went back to school in my 30s and picked software engineering. But I also wonder if I would have even found it if I hadn’t spent those 10 years bouncing around things that didn’t pan out. I don’t know.
I don’t think it would be right for everyone. A job is a job. And jobs suck. But some jobs suck less often than others. The things that suck:
The things that are great:
But to answer your post. I am mostly happy in my job (in terms of I find satisfaction from it, I find it interesting, and it provides me a good income).
Im a computer tech. I love helping people choose a computer or fixing them. Aint nothing like reading you name when a customer writes a positive review saying they are super happy with their purchases after following my guidance.
Yes. Software developer.
I think I was happiest driving a concrete truck. Now I work in the concrete plant. I like that, except my manager is shitty. Driving was great because I got to go out and see/know what was going on. Traffic sucked, but it wasn’t all bad. Best part is going around pointing out what I worked on. Drives the old lady bonkers.
Special education assistant teacher. Happiest job I’ve ever had. Also among the lowest paid. I regret not going for it sooner.
I do enjoy my job because I am an IT Technician for the school district in my town. Fixing computers, chrome books, spying on the kids, and even helping kids/adults in fixing their broken phones or other devices.
Radio. Still love it.
I work as Staff Accountant at a manufacturer. I love my job and the people around me treat me wonderfully. I’ve never had a single issue at my job in 3.5 years and never stress when I head into the office.
I have to leave soon because I want to make more money, progress into management and honestly I’m not challenged. It fucking sucks
I’m accounts payable for an electrical contractor. It’s a very sweet gig. 16 mile commute– one road. I have my own office. Free coffee, free water. Once a week a contractor we deal with brings in a fruit tray, veggie tray, chips & dip, muffins and donut holes. Every Friday another vendor brings in Mcdonalds breakfast. Health insurance is astounding. My coworkers are all carbon copies of eachother– midwest boomer outdoorsmen. My pay is sufficient and the owner gives us a $1,000 cash Christmas bonus every year and we typically also have a boat cruise w/ food and a lotto for tools/ gift cards, yard stuff, grilling stuff ect. It’s not corporate at all and the owner of the business is just 2 hallways away and knows my interests and i’m not just worker #6655 to him.
I started in retail then went to a tire shop and then to this place. I stayed working at the tire shop on weekends until covid.
Does it make me happy? Well, i feel like that’s a tall order for a job. Giving me nothing to complain about is quite a stellar circumstance. I mean, my department has a weekly meeting and we’ve on multiple occasions had that meeting on the VP’s boat with beers. It has to be one of the least objectionable jobs i can think of for someone with my background (kicked out of school, repeat 8th grade, no college, 7th grade math level.)
Not work under my boss.
I’m mostly content. I am a dual manager for an NEMT company. I am over an office and I am over scheduling for the state. We take people to and from doctor’s appointments.
Physed teacher. I freakin’ love my job. I teach martial arts, weight training and canoeing, and my schedule is light. Salary is good, summers are off, students are nice.
Work from home. It engineer
i work night shift in industrial robotics
pay is good, and its really interesting
some times its a chaotic rush, and sometimes its slow and easy
i like it
Sales Support Manager in a pretty niche industry, honestly very happy. Good pay, I travel domestically & internationally but mostly on my schedule, really strong product and brand so little to no sales pressure, have no direct reports anymore which is the best thing that’s ever happened.
I’m kind of a toothless tiger, like I have almost no authority to do anything but my job is to support (or sometimes pester) the global business to do what the sales area needs, and vice versa. Like a go between, so I can facilitate ideas, KPI’s, communication etc but at the end of the day I’m not responsible if those things get done or not.
I can work from home or go to the office if I choose, there’s no set hours, nobody knows what I’m doing or where I am most the time, my boss is on the other side of the world and when I joined his team he said “I’m not going to tell you what to do or tell you where to go, you have to make this job your own”.
Only drawback is night meetings because I’m in the global team, so might have a 6-8pm meeting when it should be bath/dinner/bedtime for the kids, but that might happen once or twice a month. Another thing is getting used to being ‘invisible’, I did 10 years of very high pressure, front and centre management roles and used to being in the spotlight of senior management and now I just sort of exist, like people forget that I’m there and leave me off meeting invites and stuff. I’m perfectly fine with it but feel kinda guilty that I’m on $200k+ and I’m not really contributing anything solid. It kind of brings some anxiety of redundancy but the company is that big and profitable there’s almost 0% chance of that ever happening.
OBGYN MD
I like what I do, I hate how much I have to do it.
I’ve worked up to 112hrs per week in the past
Pay is very good, but you have to put in the hours for it and you start late in life
The work is very interesting and nuanced, there is always challenging problems to problem solve and overcome. Doing procedures and Surgery is fun and interesting. You’re always meeting new people. You really have to work hard and be selective and often change huge geographical locations to find groups of people who are nice and good to work with. It’s very easy to Anchor to one location and wind up with a bunch of people who are awful to work with.
One of the few fields and Medicine where people are generally happy to see you.
Good mix of emergencies versus quality of life improvements.
Very hard on the family and personal life, though
Love my job but wish I made more. I work for a major US bank’s Tech department doing orientation and onboarding for new staff. Super little oversight, I get to know a ton of people, and management loves me because I take all that off their plates.
Electrical Engineer for an MEP/AE firm. Good job, good pay, rarely am I there past the 40 hour mark.
Got a boss who understands how important family is so he’ll tell me to go home if I’m still there when he leaves around 5:30
Run my own business consultancy. No the job itself doesn’t make me happy but it made me rich which allows me choices that make me happy. Grew up poor as fuck so I couldn’t give a shit if a job made me happy or not. I just chose something that made me rich as possible as quick as possible
Love what you do. Do what you love.
Medicinal chemist. It could be a frustrating job but I really like my team and management line.
Military Administration work pay is good lots of opportunities retirement and I get to keep my shoulders and knees I’m pretty happy I don’t like obsess and love it but i definitely don’t hate it it’s the most tolerable job I’ve had and it changes every 3-4 years so o don’t get bored of it really
Yes. I am an IT manager at a non-profit. Pay is good, benefits are solid, work/life balance is great, oh and as long as I’m available when my boss needs me and I get my work done, my boss leaves me alone and lets me work.
Work in DevOps (tech) generally happy
I manage all hardware test engineering labs for a large company. love my job. perfect life work balance
You are right. Find a job you love is impossible if you have no passion so at least just get a job dont make you sad and earn good income
I used to be happy until management started doing what every other corporation is doing. No raises, back to office, not valuing their employees in general. Treating everyone like they are easily replaceable. And all the while saying how much they need us to stay on task for the good of the company. Fuck them. Quiet quitting and subtle sabotage are the order of the day.
I’m a Gigollo
IT for the school district. Great pay, 11 month employee so I get a guaranteed month off (unpaid but I can payout my vacation time). Pension, free life insurance, health, discount on my car insurance and only pay my insurance payments 9 months out of the year, and the insurance just garnishes it from wages so I don’t even see it.
The kids love me, makes me feel like im making a real difference. Plus my administration trust me to do my job so when I have down time, they don’t really ask me what im doing because I work my ass off. Fantastic job
I run a memory loss center thats part of a senior center.
I love my Job.
Its how i imagine it would be to teach elementary school but my students are all senior’s with dementia.
I’m a CPA. 120k a year to handle taxes for a bunch of businesses. The first few years are rough but once you get over that hump I have a pretty absurd amount of flexibility and PTO outside of busy season. Forced to learn new stuff all the time, constantly challenged but in a fun way. I feel like you have to be a very certain kind of person to be good at and like this job, but if you are it’s pretty great.
Air Force aviator and navigator.
Yes. After pilot, it’s maybe the best job ever, with a direct pipeline to other cool jobs like astronaut (though done by people a lot more high speed than me.)
Outside of the Air Force, I can usually count on having the coolest job in whatever room I walk into. I plot courses from approach plates and fly routes where we’re zooming in at 300 knots at sometimes less than 150 feet AGL… sometimes through a canyon, and dropping stuff and/or people out the back. And I get to travel a lot doing it.
ECommerce
Surgeon. Love saving lives. The rush is unreal.
I work in semiconductor industry. Help design chips. Love it. It’s filled with challenges and complex problems and I just love solving those.
I’m retired. So happy
I’m a workshop fitter and sometimes service tech for a water treatment / pumping company.
I love my job (when they don’t send me to site). I get to build large containerised water treatment systems, skids etc.. it’s like a big adult Meccano or Lego set where I gotta measure/cut/glue/drill/ everything myself.
I get immense job satisfaction out of making a working product out of a P&ID + schematics and a pile of parts and fittings
I am. Commercial HVAC technician, 21 years in the trade.
I’ve had three jobs over the course of my career and I’ve loved all three. I was a counselor at a treatment center for abused kids, I was a cop, and now I’m a teacher.
Writer.
I am very happy with my job. I own a Trucking company, and an automotive restoration business. I worked very hard for many years to get where I’m at. Bitchin and complaining only keeps you pissed off.
I design software for a particular niche and get to talk to customers quite often. It’s very satisfying to be able to make a difference in people’s day to day work. Although I could really retire now at 60, I like what I do.
Office manager in training. My back and sleep schedule love it.
Attorney, practice probate and estate. Recently quit my last job because i was over the long hours. All the jobs with not work life balance has gotten me to the point I’m over working for others. I intend on starting and growing my solo practice.
Registration specialist for a hospital.
2 companies gave me the opportunity to work for them (a package delivery company and an airline) and it keeps the food on the table while raising a kid and we have a pretty decent lifestyle. I can’t tell you if I’m happy at my job but I’m not sad or frustrated neither
I am a Tech Lead/Software Engineer. I am happy with my job most of the time, my strengths fit this job exactly. But I believe I could be happy in other jobs. Factor number 1 is the people I work with. And I have many talents.
Yes I’m a filmmaker… I love what I do but the problem is having enough work to stay busy and also make a living.
Absolutely. I have been at my job for 4 weeks as a logistics account executive/broker. I get in contact with customers and carriers (truck drivers) to haul freight around the U.S.
Yes. Airline pilot.
Yes I am. There are two easy tricks: get a job that’s better than tolerable to you, and have a positive attitude about it.
Finance analyst for government department. I like it
IT technical, project and programme manager for a NHS Trust. I have a wide remit, although I’m being taken advantage of in terms of pay I’m not lining the coffers of anyone else. Because of the wide remit every day is different and I get to meet loads of people.
Pay is ok, it allows me to live very comfortably in my area but it’s probably not competitive in a wider UK scale.
The work I do hopefully makes a difference to make the lives of nurses and drs easier, allowing them to focus on their main role which is to care for very sick people.
I love it and the only time I wouldn’t want to go into work is usually because my kids have left me sleep deprived during the night.
I get a lot of job satisfaction knowing I’m good at my job and have respect from my team.
I work in a warehouse. It’s tiring but I’m happier
Im an excavator operator in the mining industry. Whilst I don’t know if I love my job, I’m very content in it. I have no desire to move on and I wouldn’t mind if I did this for the rest of my days. Work is good, people leave me alone and I can afford to be a single father and raise my two kids alone. Life is pretty good. I am however time poor. But can’t have it all