Are You Happy at Work?

I was looking through an old file of articles the other day and found one from Money Magazine. It was written in September 2014 and asked readers a variety of questions.

The first was "How do you feel about your job?"

• 42% said, "My job is okay."
• 22% were retired or unemployed
• 20% said, "I can't stand it."
• 16% said, "It's my dream gig."

Some thoughts:

• Of the people with jobs, the vast majority said their jobs were simply "okay." Basically they mean, "I don't like it that much, but I need the money so I stick with it."
• Only 1/5 said they couldn't stand it. I thought it would be much higher.
• I'm not sure what to think about the "dream gig" people. Is that a high or a low number?

The next question was about asking for a raise. The results:

• 56% had never asked for a raise
• Of those who asked, 66% got a raise

My guess is that the people who asked, deserved a raise, thus the high success rate.

The 56% probably knew they really didn't deserve one, so they didn't ask.

Finally, they asked people if they were earning their desired salary. 65% said they weren't.

So...what are these people doing about the situation? Are they trying to grow their careers or simply sitting back and taking poor pay? This would be very interesting to know.

That's my take. What do you think of these findings?

Comments

[Mrs. Picky Pincher]

Interesting! I also thought the number of "I can't stand my job" people would be higher. I wonder if the study missed out on some key participants. ;) I'm trying to understand that I have to be "just okay" with my job and that it doesn't have to make me phenomenally happy. Maybe that's why so many of us feel jaded by work? We were told we're supposed to be happy, but we're not.

[cmadler]

That question about how people feel about their jobs is poorly constructed. What if I like my job -- maybe I really like it a lot -- but it's not my dream job? There should really be another option between those (and maybe also between "OK" and "can't stand it").