(just because you people are now officially my third place to turn when wrestling with life's thornier issues - after Tristan and my mum!)

My career dramas continue. I think I'm going to get given the choice between sticking with a fairly dull but ultimately worthwhile role (business development - involving lots of analytical work and forecasting) and looking around the company for something hopefully a bit more touchy-feely.

I'm not really at my best when it comes to facts and figures, but I know the experience of working in business development will stand me in good stead career-wise. However, I've been doing a bit of this lately, and I hate it.

Is it worth doing a job or a year or so if the long-term prospects will be good because of it? Or is it more important to enjoy what you do every day, on the premise that you could be hit by a bus tomorrow anyway?

I'd really appreciate some views on this.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Answers

If the worthwhile one will be one you will enjoy after the year - stick it out. Ultimately it's important to like what you do - sometimes that means doing somethig boring or crap for a while.
But if you don't really like - it's not going to matter how much you get paid you'll still hate it.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

I say, do the year. It will be worth it in the long run. Try to keep a positive attitude during the year you're doing things you don't like. A year goes by very fast! Before you know it, you'll be outta there! Again, keep a positive attitude.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Jackie, it sounds like putting in the year wouldn't get you a job you really want to do anyway. It's a cliche, I know, but you really do have to enjoy your work. You spend so much of your life at work.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Hi, Jackie -
I'm in a similar situation. I'm doing a dead-end job I dislike with some intensity because I know it's not forever. In my case, it's paying the bills while I finish up a Master's degree. Then, I'm leaving the company I work for now, and will be moving to a new city and changing careers (again).

My thinking on your situation is, if you believe the year-long job you don't enjoy will help you get a better job that you *want* and *love*, stick out the year. Yes, you may be hit by a bus tomorrow (God forbid!) and it's important to do what you like. However, if you have plans for the future, and many of us do, sometimes you have to struggle with less-than-ideal circumstances to get there. From your previous posts in this and other forums, it sounds as though you're ambitious and want to move up in your field (and I say, good for you!). It's great if working towards those long-term plans involves doing something you love all the time, but often it doesn't. That's life.

I wouldn't advise anyone to do something they hated just to make lots of money. But a year isn't that long, especially when there's something good at the end of it.

Just my two cents' worth.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

I think that one thing that anyone thinking about job should consider. No matter what decision you make, a quirk of fate can cut you down.

Many years ago a person could go to work for the railroad, a bank, the federal government including the mint and/or postoffice and if you kept your nose clean you were in for life. Now, changes come so fast and frequent that no matter what you do you will wish you didn't. The two big newspapers in Denver - - mortal enemies since about 1876 or so - with diametrically opposite views have "committed" a JOA (Joint Operating Agreement) I have read so much blather from all sides that it might be a year or so down the road when the dust settles that it will be known how many peons got shoved out the door.

Day after day now it seems to me that the very best thing one can do is to retrain for a better job, get a degree, go to tech school for further training in the thing you want to do, just don't quit your job until you know for sure that the new one is tied down. Continuing education seems to me to be the keyword.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

Thank you for these responses, they're really helpful. I'm not at all sure what to do.

The joint venture I'm supposed to be a part of looks like it's about to crash and burn, which is going to leave me without a job. As my company created this role for me with the understanding that the deal was virtually signed, I feel it is largely their problem to either find something else for me to do, or give me a hefty redundancy payment.

However, I think they'll try and slide me into this business development role. It would be excellent experience - seeking and developing new ventures, building relationships, all that stuff - but for at least the first year the bulk of my work would be internet research, very basic legal stuff, and endless forecasting. I just don't know whether I can face it.

I do know the experience would be very very valuable. I've been checking what the situation is like for jobs back in NZ and Australia (where we'll be in about three years), and business development is always a good area in which to be. Also, it would give me a lot of media knowledge, and as the TV industry in the Southern Hemisphere is a couple of years younger than in the UK, I'd be really well placed for media jobs when we eventually move down there.

And it would complement the business degree I'm going to start in September.

(Can you see how I'm trying to talk myself into it?!)

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000

I think it's worth sticking out a job you don't like if it's for a known, limited time and you are pretty sure it will lead to something you really want to do, and if there isn't anything else on the horizon that looks better. This could apply to going to school, too. Sometimes you really do find yourself in a situation where you just have to have more experience or a degree or something to move on.

Of course it's hard to know if at the end of the year you'll really get the better job or whatever. That's something you have to figure out from the situation - the hard part, I guess.

The exception to this is if you're the kind of person who just can't stand to work for one day at a job you hate. But if you're this kind of person, you probably wouldn't be asking this question.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000