Man of Honour
I prefer the job title of "Pirate" and when socialising with strangers, I usually tell them I'm a student but yes, I'm an Air Traffic Controller.
Anyone here Happy in an average job?
- Thread starter Hedge
- Start date
I prefer the job title of "Pirate" and when socialising with strangers, I usually tell them I'm a student but yes, I'm an Air Traffic Controller.
Yes I would and am happy in an average job, although in saying that I'd like to do more. Not necessarily out of financial gain but to excel in what I do personally and try to be the best, I like achievement. I also like to be comfortable financially. In a nutshell. I don’t know. 
^^^ this
also your back ground, where you live, who your friends are....
not much fun working in a call centre if your mates are all lawyers/bankers - socialising with them alone might well blow any spare cash you have - unless they're subbing you all the time (which also wouldn't necessarily be great in the long run)
I'd say most people would want to at least maintain the same standard of living that they're used to so if you've got middle class parents and were brought up in a nice house in some suburb somewhere you might want to have the same standard of living for yourself.
Also if you live in say London you're less likely to want to undertake low paid work than if you live in say Sheffield, cost of living is lower & quality of life you get for your cash is much better up north.
Tis much more easy to be content in a low paid job if your mates are all in the same situation and you can still live a modest lifestyle without much hassle.
Associate
I'm not massively happy in my current job... even though its well payed and quite enjoyable and could be far worse. I find the routine grind of doing the same hours day in day out and only really having the weekend to enjoy my wage a real pain. I don't like working for others either and having them schedule your day, I can manage my own time kthx. I miss the freedom of uni 
Postgrad study is looking like a good option... I guess I never was cut out to be yet another worker drone :\
Postgrad study is looking like a good option... I guess I never was cut out to be yet another worker drone :\
Last edited:
exactly that.
if i woke up on a morning thinking i gotta go to work in a regretfull way id quit and do somthing else
i think that is more important
Soldato
Happy as a pig in ***
Took a pay CUT to work where I am.
No stress
I'm good at it
It's easy
it's close to home.
Meet lots of "interesting" people.
Good environment..
What else do you need in a job, I certainly don't care about the money.
Indeed. Enjoying the job and the surroundings is as important if not more sometimes..
Associate
What exactly is an average job? Are we talking about your typical sales assistants, mechanics, plumbers etc?
What job would you say isn't an average job? How many people here consider themselves in a non-average job?
What job would you say isn't an average job? How many people here consider themselves in a non-average job?
Associate
- Joined
- 10 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 13
Warning! Wall of Text Ahead! TL;DR! 
I think an important question, is how many people are lucky enough to actually choose their current job?
I would imagine on these forums its probably a fairly high percentage. From the many years I have been lurking here, its obvious the average forum user is very intelligent, and probably earns a good living.
For average Joe, I would think its more a matter of take what you can get? I really don't believe that £24k average salary; I would have thought for the UK in general it would be quite allot lower? For £24k you can live pretty well, especially of your part of a couple, you could actually afford to buy a property in some parts of the country.
OK, This is a bit of a spleen release, probably tl;dr
From the age of 7, I wanted to make computer games. I live in south west London.
I choose not to go to university, as at that time, there weren't any degrees in animation/computer games design etc.
I started my professional career at 19. I was amazing lucky to get a job with Acclaim as a character animator, specialising in motion capture. I had my dream job
my starting wage was £10k (in 1996). Within a year I was on £15k. I moved into my own 1 bed flat, which cost me about £400 a month. after being there for 2 years, they closed my department, I was earning £20k at the time. I got £8k as a redundancy package, and went and worked at Acclaims New York studio for 2 months. I got paid a small fortune for that, and got offered a full time job. I didn't really want to move so far from friends and family, so turned them down.
After that I spent 6 months being unemployed; not a huge call for motion capture engineers. Eventually, I heard on the grape vine that my old boss had set up a company in Banbury, doing animation for TV/films/computer games. I gave him a call, and got a job on the spot. My starting wage was £18k, was on £30k within 2 years. While i lived in Banbury I rented a 3 bedroom house with 2 other guys; Monthly rent was £130 each!!
I was there for 2 years before the company decided to close the artists department, making 50 people redundant. I chose to resign rather than get a pay rise and stay in a huge building with only 7 of us working there. I had a great time working there, Got to work on some Hollywood block busters, and a good few music videos ( if you've seen Robbie Williams "Rock DJ" Video, I did the skeleton), and more football games than I care to remember! Definitely the best working years I've had.
Was out of work for 2 weeks this time. A bunch of us decided to form our own company. 10 of us went to Pinewood Film Studios, Rented an office in the Stanley Kubrick building, and started working on our own animated TV show, aimed at pre-school kids.
All was good, until 9/11. After that event, no one was willing to put up funding/venture capital for us to carry on. after 18 months of going it on our own, we were forced to shut up shop. That was in 2002. I personally put £30k into the company, which was via a bank loan. I didn't draw an actual wage while I was there; lived of savings, and creative accountancy with the company books Nothing too dodgy! I was just "driving" about 1000 miles a month, and claiming the fuel back I would guess we were looking at an annual salary of between £50-60k if we had got the funding.
This time, I was out of work for close to 18 months.
It finally got to the stage, long after my savings had dried up, and after getting paid £60 every two weeks on the dole (I did try to get a job through the job centre, but they didn't have a classification for my line of work, so put my down as "clothing designer") when I realised, that I was never going to find another motion capture job (at the time, there were only 4 motion capture studios in the UK, two of which I had worked at, totalling about 25 people).
I gave up, and just went for a job doing workbench repairs at a small computer shop.
I have been there for 7 years now. I'm 31, and earn about £22k a year (that's including benefits like private health care).
There we go
sorry for the wall of test, but I felt it necessary to give some background info most of which has nothing to do with the OP's question
I cannot stand my job, I loathe it. I am being paid less than I was 8 years ago, doing a darn sight more boring/tiring work. It is a dead end job; no prospects for promotion (only 6 employees). I do the majority of the work, for the lowest salary.
I know allot of you will say I should stand up for myself; don't accept it, but I really don't have any fight left in me after all I've been through work wise.
I always imagined by this time in my life, id have my own house, maybe married, kids etc; be living comfortably at the very least, I would have thought id be able to have the basics, like my own roof over my head.
In reality, I am still paying off a loan I got when we set our company up 8 years ago (10 months left! then I'm free!), I'm back living with my parents, and I'm single (Suprise suprise).
I passed up several opportunities to do amazing things. I regret all of those decisions. I am not money driven; I would rather be happy than rich. But being in my 30's, and not even being able to afford to rent a bedsit, is a pretty terrible state of affairs.
but what can I do? I cant get back into animation, due to being out of the loop for so long, plus the fact people can actually go to university and get a degree in motion capture now!
So that's my take on "Anyone happy being in an average job"; Not on your life!
Again, appologies for the rant I'm pretty hyper tonight as I've got my first time off work since Christmas; 12 days of no alarm clock I can't afford to go anywhere though!
I think an important question, is how many people are lucky enough to actually choose their current job?
I would imagine on these forums its probably a fairly high percentage. From the many years I have been lurking here, its obvious the average forum user is very intelligent, and probably earns a good living.
For average Joe, I would think its more a matter of take what you can get? I really don't believe that £24k average salary; I would have thought for the UK in general it would be quite allot lower? For £24k you can live pretty well, especially of your part of a couple, you could actually afford to buy a property in some parts of the country.
OK, This is a bit of a spleen release, probably tl;dr
From the age of 7, I wanted to make computer games. I live in south west London.
I choose not to go to university, as at that time, there weren't any degrees in animation/computer games design etc.
I started my professional career at 19. I was amazing lucky to get a job with Acclaim as a character animator, specialising in motion capture. I had my dream job
my starting wage was £10k (in 1996). Within a year I was on £15k. I moved into my own 1 bed flat, which cost me about £400 a month. after being there for 2 years, they closed my department, I was earning £20k at the time. I got £8k as a redundancy package, and went and worked at Acclaims New York studio for 2 months. I got paid a small fortune for that, and got offered a full time job. I didn't really want to move so far from friends and family, so turned them down.After that I spent 6 months being unemployed; not a huge call for motion capture engineers. Eventually, I heard on the grape vine that my old boss had set up a company in Banbury, doing animation for TV/films/computer games. I gave him a call, and got a job on the spot. My starting wage was £18k, was on £30k within 2 years. While i lived in Banbury I rented a 3 bedroom house with 2 other guys; Monthly rent was £130 each!!
I was there for 2 years before the company decided to close the artists department, making 50 people redundant. I chose to resign rather than get a pay rise and stay in a huge building with only 7 of us working there. I had a great time working there, Got to work on some Hollywood block busters, and a good few music videos ( if you've seen Robbie Williams "Rock DJ" Video, I did the skeleton), and more football games than I care to remember! Definitely the best working years I've had.
Was out of work for 2 weeks this time. A bunch of us decided to form our own company. 10 of us went to Pinewood Film Studios, Rented an office in the Stanley Kubrick building, and started working on our own animated TV show, aimed at pre-school kids.
All was good, until 9/11. After that event, no one was willing to put up funding/venture capital for us to carry on. after 18 months of going it on our own, we were forced to shut up shop. That was in 2002. I personally put £30k into the company, which was via a bank loan. I didn't draw an actual wage while I was there; lived of savings, and creative accountancy with the company books
Nothing too dodgy! I was just "driving" about 1000 miles a month, and claiming the fuel back I would guess we were looking at an annual salary of between £50-60k if we had got the funding.This time, I was out of work for close to 18 months.
It finally got to the stage, long after my savings had dried up, and after getting paid £60 every two weeks on the dole (I did try to get a job through the job centre, but they didn't have a classification for my line of work, so put my down as "clothing designer") when I realised, that I was never going to find another motion capture job (at the time, there were only 4 motion capture studios in the UK, two of which I had worked at, totalling about 25 people).
I gave up, and just went for a job doing workbench repairs at a small computer shop.
I have been there for 7 years now. I'm 31, and earn about £22k a year (that's including benefits like private health care).
There we go
sorry for the wall of test, but I felt it necessary to give some background info most of which has nothing to do with the OP's question I cannot stand my job, I loathe it. I am being paid less than I was 8 years ago, doing a darn sight more boring/tiring work. It is a dead end job; no prospects for promotion (only 6 employees). I do the majority of the work, for the lowest salary.
I know allot of you will say I should stand up for myself; don't accept it, but I really don't have any fight left in me after all I've been through work wise.
I always imagined by this time in my life, id have my own house, maybe married, kids etc; be living comfortably at the very least, I would have thought id be able to have the basics, like my own roof over my head.
In reality, I am still paying off a loan I got when we set our company up 8 years ago (10 months left! then I'm free!), I'm back living with my parents, and I'm single (Suprise suprise).
I passed up several opportunities to do amazing things. I regret all of those decisions. I am not money driven; I would rather be happy than rich. But being in my 30's, and not even being able to afford to rent a bedsit, is a pretty terrible state of affairs.
but what can I do? I cant get back into animation, due to being out of the loop for so long, plus the fact people can actually go to university and get a degree in motion capture now!
So that's my take on "Anyone happy being in an average job"; Not on your life!
Again, appologies for the rant
I'm pretty hyper tonight as I've got my first time off work since Christmas; 12 days of no alarm clock I can't afford to go anywhere though!After working in IT for a year i have found that doing a job i enjoy is essential and would'nt want to do anything that makes me feel unimportant, i want to know i have a good role in society and have a job that people would depend on.
And since working in an IT environment was not exactly that i decided to become a tradesman and start an electrician's course which im loving at the moment!
My drive is to have a job that i feel good about, money is never a pusher for me enjoying what i do is.
And since working in an IT environment was not exactly that i decided to become a tradesman and start an electrician's course which im loving at the moment!
My drive is to have a job that i feel good about, money is never a pusher for me enjoying what i do is.
Associate
I'm making not as much as most on here, come out with about £16500 at the end of the year, but my job is remarkably easy and I enjoy it most of the time. A little bit more money would be nice, but at the end of the day I've got no real complaints.
Soldato
i make about 10k a year . and i HATE my job , but i've been saying that since 2004 (since i left college) 10 years of service and nothing to show for it. Ofc i still live with parents and dont pay housekeeping , as i have £430 outgoing a month i hardly have enough to keep myself going each month.
I've always wanted to aim for the 30k job as this is where i think (anyway) id be able to buy a house and support a family i guess thats all i want in life ... oh! and ofc to work in IT (my dream job)
I've always wanted to aim for the 30k job as this is where i think (anyway) id be able to buy a house and support a family i guess thats all i want in life ... oh! and ofc to work in IT (my dream job)
Caporegime
I used to believe that this bracket would allow that kind of lifestyle. Having just reached it, I doubt it is true, at least in the current economic climate.
Soldato
Permabanned
Reading this does make you think, but even if the real average wage is £20,000 if you take into account married couples many households would be on £40,000, which sounds very realistic to me.
20k in london maybe