HealthyGamerGG - I Hate My Job

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Dr. K dives into having a bad job and how no one teaches us how to find the right job! He dives into the feeling of "everything sucks", and how it may not get easier but you'll get better, how jobs aren't static, and more on how to reduce your suffering. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This job sucks, and then you go to the next job, and you're like, that job sucks, you go to the next job, and you're like, that job sucks. You don't, like, it just all sucks. So, like, what are you do in that situation? How to not be miserable at job? Just entering the workforce and all, and it's hard not working these random odd jobs I don't enjoy whatsoever. The current job I'm working at, I absolutely despise.

I know plenty of people there who make it worthwhile. I always work my hardest to get done, so at the end of the day, I feel like I have achieved something, but I still can't help but feeling miserable. Does anyone have any tips on how to tolerate the job better? So like I said a minute ago, originally I wasn't going to pick this post because I thought that, okay, this is like so general. We don't know anything about where this person is working. We don't really know like, you know what their work situation is.

We don't know anything about their colleagues. We don't know anything about their upbringing. We don't know anything about anything. They're like, I started working recently. I don't enjoy it. Anyone have tips? And so it occurred to me, though, that, like, we actually don't need all of that information.

Like, if we get a general question, we can actually answer in a general way, right? So what I'd love to do today is actually share with y'all some information, like general information about how to not be miserable at your job. So everything that we're going to talk about today is it may not apply to everyone, right? So the more you relate to this, maybe some stuff, will stick some stuff, which is actually okay. But it's kind of interesting because we as a society don't really teach people how to enjoy their work. We don't teach people what is the nature of happiness.

We don't teach people what is the nature of enjoyment. We don't teach people what is the nature of contentment, what is the nature of suffering. And the cool thing is that if we sort of like, I don't know if this makes sense, but we always kind of assume that the suffering is within the job, right? that like, oh, like, you just keep on randomly, like, moving jobs until you find the right one that you enjoy. And once you find the right job, then you'll be happy. That's true to a certain extent, but, like, we don't really teach people, okay, how do you

go about finding the right job? How do you go about actually, like, enjoying your job? Is there any component in the person-job relationship that actually, like, is it just the job, any part of that that comes from you. And I think as we kind of tunnel down into that, we're going to learn a little bit about how to be not miserable at our job. Because it's tricky, right? So, like, this person is entering the workforce and, like, working these random odd jobs. And you could be in the same kind of situation where it's like, you don't have a career yet, but you're just, like, kind of randomly working jobs, and you're kind of miserable. And so what you do is you move from,

like, job to job to job. You're like, this job sucks. And then you go to the next job. And you're like, that job sucks. You go to the next job, and you're like, that job sucks. And you go from sucky job to sucky job to sucky job. And at the end of the day, like, you don't, like, it just all sucks. So, like, what do you do in that situation? Is this the kind of thing where you have to become, like, an inner Zen master and you have to, like, learn how to tolerate your job? Is it, like, finding the right job? Is it, like, learning detachment? Like, what do we do here? Okay. So, the other thing is in terms of the Zen stuff, what some people may think is that at some point what I'm going to do is share with them some kind of like secret detachment technique. I'm going to be like,

oh, like learn to detach. If you detach and you understand the nature of happiness, right, what I just said, if you learn this secret technique, this secret jutsu, then you will enjoy the job. And so the tricky thing also happens where if we sort of assume that, right, if I say, okay, there is a component that's you. Then it kind of like, it doubles your misery because you're like, oh, like, look at all these other people able to enjoy jobs. It's not the job. It's me.

I'm the idiot that doesn't know how to do the job. I can't detach enough. I don't know how to squeeze water out of a stone. Idiot me. And so there's a part, there's a funny thing here where there is a personal component, but unless we're careful, we'll slip into some amount of self-blame, right? And like, this is something the boomer. generation will sort of say, they'll be like, you know, I don't know why you're complaining.

Back in my day, we had to walk five miles in the snow to take out the trash and this and that and all this kind of stuff. They're like, we don't know why you're complaining. And so it's kind of tricky because this is like, is this the problem in you or is this the problem in the job? And if you sort of adopt this idea that like, oh, if I detach myself enough, then like, oh, I'll be fine. Then it's like a personal deficiency and then you're like, oh, like, you know, I guess I'm bad at this. But like, what if you're, what if you're, you know, what a if the job is just bad? What if it isn't a personal deficiency? So navigating this kind of stuff, and at the end of the day, if the situation is like, I'm miserable at my job, what do I do about it?

Does anyone have tips? It turns out that we do have tips. Okay. So, first thing that we've got to understand is where misery comes from. Okay? So if we understand like what the nature of misery is, and we understand what we will like about our job, what we won't like about our job, is we start to tunnel down into the relationship between me and my job. We'll start to really get a good sense of how to be less miserable at the job.

So oftentimes what people will do is they'll move from job to job to job, and they'll kind of like do it randomly, right? I don't like this job. Therefore, I'm going to just, let me try something else. Like even if we look at this post for a second, what this person is saying is I absolutely despise this job. So they're going to look for anything else. The problem is that when you jump to

anything else, your ship is sinking. So without really thinking about it, you just jump to the next sinking ship. And then that ship is prone to sink as well. And then you're like, man, it's just sinking ships after sinking ships after sinking ships. So this is where we've got to be a little bit careful about what is the nature of misery in our job. What is it about the job that will make it that makes it miserable for us. So we've got to sort of understand that. So let's start with a couple of thoughts that people in miserable jobs have and also sort of how to counter those thoughts.

Okay. So what we're going to do with y'all now is actually go through seven different kind of tips to help you kind of manage a bad job. Okay. So what we've got to do is understand what is the nature of misery and what makes us miserable in the job. And if we understand what makes us miserable, we can sort of start to understand how to move to the next job in a better way. Okay? So the first thought that we tend to have when we're miserable is it'll last forever.

So this is kind of interesting, right? So generally speaking, when human beings are suffering in some way, there's an assumption that pain will last forever. last forever. This is absolutely a cognitive bias. There's all kinds of studies that have been done on this kind of principle that shows that pain gives people a sense of infinite time. So when we're struggling, when we're feeling nauseous, it feels like this is going to last forever. So this kind of has an interesting effect when you're in a job situation, because if you're miserable at your job, and then if you think it's going to last forever, that's going to just go ahead and reinforce the misery.

Right? Whereas what I would kind of say is that the road to a good job is paved with crappy jobs. So the first thing to understand is that even if you have a bad job, first of all, it won't last forever. And also, if you pay attention properly, each crappy. job that you have will actually set you up for a better job down the road. Okay. So this is sort of like the price of tuition. So it's okay to notice this thought, to acknowledge this thought and to think, okay, this is going to last forever. And as we'll show you down the road, like first of all, just acknowledge that you feel that way. That'll start to reduce the feeling a little bit. And then start

to also recognize that this is sort of the price that you pay for eventually finding a good job. because even if you are in a job that you don't enjoy, at least you now know some element of what you don't enjoy. So the next time you find a job, you know specifically the kinds of things not to avoid actually, right? So there are particular things that make you miserable. So related to this, when we're miserable, we have a second kind of thought. Second thought that we have is there is no point to this. So this is where we kind of think about this idea of a dead end job. So when we're miserable, we don't see any point to the work we're doing.

We're like, who on earth would value this on a resume? I don't understand, like, you know, how this can help me in any way, shape, or form. This, too, is misery creates this thought. And then the more that we wallow in that thought, the more misery it creates. So what we've got to do is break both of these cycles to be less miserable at the job. How do we break these cycles? We start by becoming aware. and then we start to hopefully, like, as you become aware, like take a step back, do some kind of meditation

technique, you know, like decompress that emotion. And then what we want to do is start to like, like think critically about this. So don't think so black and white. Start to think in shades of gray. And then eventually as we think critically about it, we can start to think constructively. And we'll get to what that means down in a minute. But when we sort of say there's no point, what we're going to also recognize is that this job is actually valuable experience. It's valuable experience for you, because once again, we're going to teach you this in a second. You can use this job to sort of figure out, okay, what is it that's actually making miserable, and how do I avoid this in the future?

Because oftentimes what happens as we just randomly move from job to job, we're not thinking a little, we're not thinking critically about what did I dislike in this job that makes that I should be careful about in the next job. You also see this in people who get into bad relationships over and over and over again. They're like, okay, this relationship sucks. So let me just like piece out of this. They ghost, but they don't even really think at all about, okay, what made that relationship bad? What was my contribution to that relationship? And so what we tend to see in relationships is people will get into the same cycles over and over and over again. It'll be, it'll be a same relationships over and over again. It'll become a cycle. And you'll see this a lot with people who are codependent too, right? So like,

I'm dependent, you're dependent, we're codependent together, we end up breaking up after a miserable six years, and I fall right back into a codependent relationship. So you have to have awareness of the cycle in order to break it, then start to think critically about, okay, like, is there really no point to this? Like, why do I think there's no point to this? What do I do about it? And then what we're going to try to figure out is how there actually, there is a point to this.

So this is valuable experience for a couple of reasons. You may say, okay, it's not valuable experience. It's like, who cares that I was packing boxes for like six months? This looks great on a resume because you showed up every day for six months. And like, if you're interviewing with someone at a job and they're like, okay, what did you do? And you're like, yeah, I packed boxes for six months. And they're like, oh, that's interesting. Can you tell me, you know, why are you leaving?

And it's, I found it boring. And they're like, oh, that's a weird thing to say during an interview. And you're like, yeah, I know it's like, I didn't find it very intellectually engaging, but, you know, I told my boss that I would be there on time, so I showed up every day. And even though I found it boring, like I had committed to do it, so I did the best job that I could. I, you know, I worked really hard. My bosses were super happy with me. I'm really looking for something that will reward my hard work and that I can find, like,

a little bit more intellectually challenging. I'm a reliable person. I'll do work. If you tell me to do something, I'm going to do it. If I put my mind to it, I'm going to do a good job. That's what you can count on for me. Even saying something like that, if you've been doing menial labor for six, six months, like showing up every day and doing something is actually like a very, very valuable

skill. Right? A lot of people like, they don't even show up. Like showing up is half the battle when it comes to a job. So there is valuable experience there. So this idea that there's no point and that this is a dead end job, this is something that we've seen a lot in our career coaching program where like, you know, people think they have dead end jobs.

But even if you've worked retail for like a year or 18 months and there's no opportunity for growth, the fact that you've been a stable and consistent worker for 18 months is actually like a pretty big win, right? You showed up. If you've been working in customer relations, you've been dealing with Karens and like all this other kind of stuff, right? Like you're dealing with all these like different people and you can say, yeah, I work well under pressure. You know, I show up. I've opened. I've closed. I've gained increased responsibility. Like, I'm reliable and I'm good at customer service, especially because the place that I worked, our products really weren't great, so people would complain a lot.

And so I was kind of like I had to manage people as they were complaining about stuff. So even a dead-end job that you don't think is valuable can actually be like incredibly valuable as long as you think critically and constructively about it. So third thing that we're going to talk about. So tips on misery. So this is just kind of a tip. So it may not get easier, but you'll get better at it. So if we remember this scenario,

this person had recently entered the workforce. And this is something where human beings, like, you know, the first time that you, let's say, shoot a basketball, you may think to yourself like, oh my God, like, I'm never going to be able to do this. Anytime you start something out, you think to yourself that you'll never be able to adapt,

that it's way too hard. And like, you know, you'll never, just think to yourself, I'll never be able to do it. human beings are remarkably adaptable, right? So it's interesting. I learned this actually on my three-month jail rotation where, like, these people are in jail. And most people, when they come to jail, think I will never be able to survive jail. I won't be able to stay stuck within these four walls for four years. There's no way. There's no way. But human beings are incredibly adaptable. And even after a couple of months of despair and stuff like that, like most prisoners just adjust.

because that's what human beings do. Right? So like there's all kinds of adjustment. I've worked with people who have had, you know, physical injuries and disabilities, had things like legs amputated and stuff like that. And no one thinks that they're going to be able to adjust. Whereas the truth of the matter is that human beings are incredibly, incredibly adaptable. So if you're entering the job world and you're thinking to yourself, this is terrible,

this is terrible. I hate it. I hate it. I'm not saying that you should learn to love it. What I'm saying is it's a little. bit okay because you will learn to adapt. We're not saying that you shouldn't strive for more. We're not saying that you shouldn't change your job. We're going to teach you all that kind of stuff too. But have a little bit of faith in yourself in the sense that it may not necessarily get

easy. The job may not change, but you will get better at it. So have faith in yourself. It'll be okay. All right. Now we're going to get into a lot of the details. So the next thing that we need to do is diagnose our misery. So I don't mean like clinically. We're using. We're using that term to find out where your misery comes from. So what we're going to share with y'all is a few dimensions that you can look at that oftentimes contribute to misery, which we take for granted. The first is do you work with people or not? Okay. So some people hate their job because they have to work with particular coworkers. Some people hate their job because they're like sitting in a back room and they're like packing boxes all day and there's not another soul in sight.

So this is really important. Like, is part of your misery due to the kind of people that you work with? Or the fact that there are people or aren't people. Because this is something huge that you could sort of select the next job based on. So if you're working in a back room and you want some kind of like, you know, the environment, like the office where there are people and like inside jokes and y'all like go to the break room and like hang out a little bit and like the other kinds of like, you know, petty office politics. Like if you want that kind of stuff, then you know to look for that next time around.

So the next time when you're looking for a job, you're not going to take the first thing that comes along because you need to leave your job. You can start to think a little bit about, okay, do I want to work with people or not? Next thing to kind of think a little bit about is what is the boss like? Is the boss hands on? Most people may think, oh my God, hands out on boss. That sounds terrible. Other people, or is the boss like completely AFK? And what are you looking for?

Are you looking for a boss that's going to sort of serve as a little bit more like a mentor, is going to help you when you're down? Because I've seen both of these. People may assume, okay, hands-on bosses, and it's kind of interesting because what you resonate with is going to be, we'll sort of tell you a lot. So if the idea of a hands-on boss is terrifying to you, chances are you want more autonomy at work. Okay? So when you're looking for a job, you can even ask people, like, so what's, you know, what is the, can you tell me a little bit about what, like, what supervision, oversight, and learning process? am I going to be acting somewhat independently or, you know, do I work with a team or like, what's the kind of environment? Because even in places like, quote, quote, dead end jobs,

these can be very different. So are you working the late shift or you working the early shift or like, you know, what's going on? Because those can be, they can be very, very different. So in one, the boss may be, like boss may work from nine to five, but place is open from like four to ten. And so do you want to overlap with the boss or not overlap with the boss? You can sort of adjust some of the things there. And if you're boss to Super AFK, and if you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. These are places where, like, some people may be terrified by a hands-on boss, but some people are terrified of an AFK boss. Where it's like, I kind of showed up.

So I went to a conference recently, a youth mental health summit in California. And I was talking to someone who is a pediatric behavioral specialist, I think, something like that. So these people, like, worked for the state of California and would do, like, basically, like, do a social work interventions and they were like completely on their own. They go through a two-day training and then they just get sent out into the field and they're like driving like you like you show up on day one of your job. It's a Monday. You sit in a classroom for eight hours. You go home. You show up on Tuesday morning. You sit in a classroom for eight hours. On day three, they give you an address and they tell you go here and help this person. And you're kind of like left with no oversight.

So what kind of oversight or boss relationship that do you want to find? Okay. Next thing is because these are huge sources of misery. Third, you know, I guess this is subtopics. Third thing that we're going to talk about in terms of sources of misery is variety versus consistency. So what do you want from your job? Do you want your job to be like different every day? And this is where once again, if you're listening to this and you're like, who wouldn't want variety?

Like, of course I want variety. Like, variety is the spice of life. Like, I don't want to do the same crap over and over and over and over and over again. So people who dislike variety or want less variety, they don't use the word variety to describe their job. The word that they use is chaos because things are so disorganized. There's so much variety. There's no consistency. People are showing up at random times.

people are leaving at random times. Stuff doesn't get done. Work doesn't get a sign. Like, it's, it's, nothing is organized at all. Right? So people who like variety won't consider that chaos. But someone who likes consistency, likes routine, look, I'm happy to work.

I just want to show up on time. I want to do my job. I'm happy to do a good job at my job. I don't have to worry about, I don't want to worry about all this other crap. I don't need to worry about all this other crap. You guys focus on that crap. I'm going to build my widgets, because that's what I enjoy doing.

So these are the kinds of dimensions that you need to think about. So, like, what is it that makes you miserable at your job? Is it a particular coworker? Is it that your job is too regimented? Is it that your boss is AFK? Is it that your boss is not AFK? Is your boss micromanaging? And also is, like, remoting into your computer and can control your mouse, like a hacker.

Do you like to work with people or do you like to not work with people? And I mean, these will make huge differences in terms of the misery of your job. So if you're leaving, then you need to think about these dimensions ahead of time instead of randomly going to another job. Right. Oh, I didn't like working at Wendy's. Let me go try McDonald's. And then like you're at McDonald's for a while and you're like, okay, this sucks. And maybe I don't like fast food.

So you go work at a clothing store. But actually what you realize is like, I don't like working with people and doing the same crap over and over and over again. Okay? So you have to think about what makes you miserable at the job. And as you think about what makes you miserable at the job, think critically about it, then you can start to shape your future in a more positive way. Okay? Now, next thing, diagnose your pleasure.

So even if you have the worst job on the planet, there's a decent chance that there's something about your job. that you will like. There's something about your job that is actually okay. Maybe if you've got the worst job on the planet, there's nothing. Who knows? But generally speaking, even the worst job has some parts that are okay. So there's a very simple exercise that you can do to sort of figure out, if I ask you

this question and you're like, you know, what do you like about your job? And you're like, absolutely nothing. I hate every single aspect of it. That, by the way, is this black and white thinking. Right? chances are that's that's going to really mess you up because if you can't even think critically and nuanced about your job you can't even navigate towards the things that you actually enjoy in your job and if you're blind to what you enjoy in your job how on earth are you going to move

in the right direction into finding the right career for yourself or finding the right job for yourself and then what happens is you're going to get stuck in this cycle so i understand that your initial reaction totally fine i don't like anything about my job. Totally fine. I'm so sorry to hear that. Let me ask you something. If I could remove 90% of your job, what's the 10% that you would keep? If I could get rid of 90% of what you do, what's the 10% that you would choose to do? Tell me why. Tell me a little bit about that. What makes you enjoy that? Because chances are even the worst job, and I've had all kinds of jobs, Okay, my first job was serving ice cream.

I've built a photo bioreactor at a biofuel startup. I've, you know, worked as a clinician, obviously, like as a doctor. I've done research at like three different institutions, one in India, two in the United States. I've been a camp counselor. Like, I've done all kinds of crap. You know, I'm not saying I have the most diverse job experience. I've never been a web developer or anything like that. You know, but I worked a fair number of random jobs before I went to medical school,

trying to figure out what to do with myself. And so in each of those jobs, even making ice cream, there were certain things that I liked about it, which we'll talk about in a second. But this is also really important to think about, okay, what do you like about your job, even the 10% that you do like about it? And then that way you can sort of, you know, look for that stuff going forward. Oh, so what I really like about my job is that there's like a, you know, a couple hours during the day that like I get to kind of be by myself.

And even though I have to open, I've got a, I can turn on my audio book and I'm listening to an audio book where I'm like prepping all the food and chopping and stuff like that. And like that's pretty, that's actually my favorite part of the day. Okay, so it sounds like you really like some amount of time where there's some amount of autonomy and, you know, like simple labor that you can do. And maybe if you could like listen to an audio book, like, okay, cool, make sense. So you also want to diagnose what you enjoy about your job. And then what you can do is gravitate towards that in the next job.

Okay? Next thing. If you're miserable at your job, super practical advice. Jobs are not static. Huge, huge, huge misunderstanding about jobs. So most people, when we enter the workforce, assume that the job is what we do. Right? So if you're like an 18 year old kid or 22 year old kid or whatever, you're at your first job,

especially because of the power dynamic and stuff, you don't think that there's anything about your job that can be changed. Turns out, most jobs can be modified in some way, shape, or form. So I'll give you all just this example. I was talking about doing ice cream, right? So my first job was serving ice cream. So I worked at this place called Marble Slab. And so the owners, it was a, you know, small town. And so the owners, like, I was serving ice cream.

I mean, the owner started me off in the afternoon shift. Because in their experience, the afternoon was the busiest. And so you got the most tips in the afternoon. So most young kids who are looking to make money, that's why you get a job, right? They wanted to work in the afternoon. And that way you made the most tips. And so if you're working one hour instead of getting paid, I think I got paid. I want to say like maybe $5 an hour or something when I was working.

I don't remember exactly what minimum wage was. It was minimum wage plus tips. And so I started off working in the afternoon. And it was like me and like one other person, we'd like split the tips. And so I'd make like a couple more bucks an hour. You know, I'd make like eight bucks an hour instead of like $5.25 or whatever. And so they just sort of assume that that's, you know, because that's what most of the young kids did. It's busy.

Owner would come in early in the morning. They would open up and then, you know, they would kind of go home like around the time that things got super busy. and so that's kind of what was assumed. And so I kind of like, I didn't really like working during the busy times. I found that the actual money that I got was not that much more. People were cheap tippers. I didn't always get eight bucks an hour. Sometimes it was like, you know, $6.25 instead of $5 an hour, something like that.

So the tips, like I'd work for eight hours and I'd make like maybe like somewhere between five and $10 extra dollars for eight hours of my time, which I just didn't feel like was a good use of my time. So I asked the boss, I was like, okay, so like, you know, is there any way I could like open, you know? And the boss is like, sure. I mean, like, you have to learn some things. And I'm like, okay, please, God, teach me something. Like, let me at least learn how to make ice cream. Like, that's pretty cool. Like, let me learn how to make ice cream. Yeah, let me, like, I'd love to learn how to make ice cream. I already know how to make the waffle cones because we have to do that as we run out. I'd love to learn how to make ice cream. Turns out that if you

work in an ice cream place, making ice cream isn't that hard. They've got a machine. You put in a bunch of cream, you add some flavor, chop up some strawberries and toss it in there, turn the machine on, and then empty the machine and do a thing, and then stick it in a freezer. And then you move it from one freezer to the next freezer. It's pretty cool, like I made ice cream. And so what I really loved is like opening actually, the boss is like fantastic. Like, okay, so wait, so now that this kid is opening, I don't even have to come to work until like noon. Boss loves that. Get is going to, you have to accept deliveries, you've got to make the ice cream, you've got to open, you've got to get everything ready, you're going to have to show up two hours before we open up, and I'm like, great.

Because then what happened is, like, I started getting really good at it. I was like, all right, cool. So, like, I'm showing up two hours before opening because I have to do all this kind of stuff. And, like, the boss would also do bookkeeping and stuff during that time, right? So I got super efficient at it would start my making my ice cream, would accept my deliveries or whatnot. I'd pull out a book, and I'd read for like half an hour here, half an hour there. I'm getting paid for that. Like, that's great. I'd make some waffle cones, you know? And then, like, things would open up and things were, like, pretty quiet. Like, you know, the store would open up. I'd show up at 8, the place would open at 10. Who gets

ice cream at, like, 10 a.m. on a weekday? Like, not that many people. I get a customer, like, one customer every half hour. So most of the time, I'm just kind of like sitting on my ass, which is fantastic. So this was way better. And then things start to get busy around. I'd work from, like eight to three, or eight to four. So I'd be like super busy for one hour between three and four, make a couple of tips. And then at the end of the day, you know, I'd go home. My point here is that if you ask, you can actually adjust some things of your job. I'm not saying that you can necessarily adjust everything. Okay. Not saying that you can dictate what you want to do. But you can ask and you can actually change a couple of dimensions of your job and you can make your experience way better.

So if there's a particular part of your job that you don't like, I wouldn't frame it as, hey, can I not do this? So generally speaking, bosses don't like that. So a more practical tip here is to ask, you know, talk to your bosses a little bit about, hey, like, I'm interested in learning more stuff or what is the morning shift like or like, you know, try to be doing something, like be wanting to learn something as opposed to avoiding something. But the same difference, right?

So you can say, oh, I love to learn how to make ice cream. Like, that sounds pretty cool. Can you tell me about opening? In the back of mine, I'm like, I don't like dealing with customers. So there are modifications you can make if you ask and if you ask nicely. Very important tip, under underappreciated for people who are starting out. Last thing that I'm going to share with y'all is don't suffer alone. So there's a lot of research that shows that when we struggle with something and we share it with other people,

people. Sharing our struggles actually helps us in terms of like managing our emotions and having a positive outlook and things like that. So good examples of this is something that we've known for a long time. So a lot of times, so historically like in the history of humanity, so a lot of times a lot of community came through things like religious organizations, right? That's a place where people like funerals and things like that, like ceremonies where people would pass away. There's something healing about suffering with other people or commiserating with other people who are suffering. So good examples of this are funerals that take something that's, let's just call it an objectively bad experience and soften the blow. Some other examples of this are things like

the, you know, the sober groups. So like alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous, refuge recovery, things like that for people who aren't into the AA kind of religiosity. We can sort of get together and we can talk about things and we can share things and we can sort of like we can feel better right so it's a huge part obviously of things like a oe healing which is what we do so it's on this principle which is by the way very scientifically validated and there's a good example of this stuff like irvin yollum talks about this in his his books on group psychotherapy where he like unpacks what is it that's therapeutic about a group setting and it turns out that it's not some kind of clinical protocol, it's the fact that when human beings get together and they share their

suffering, it sort of alleviates it, right? This is also why we have a group coaching program, by the way. So that's like, you know, we've sort of also figured out that like when you create a space where people can come and share their troubles and you have a coach who facilitates that, instead of turning into a cesspool of negativity, which is sometimes what happens on the internet, which is you'll have these communities that are sort of help-seeking communities that can kind of become these talk success pools. And so how do you share negativity, but also as a group, work yourself out of it? And so one of the modifications we made in our group coaching program was that we added a coach, right? So if you think about an AA meeting, a lot of people there

will have experience, but it's essentially there's no one with formal teaching at all. So it's just peers. So there's also peer support mental health services, which have been studied and stuff like that. So the key thing here is that don't suffer alone. Right. So this person kind of mentioned that there are people at work. And I know plenty of people there who make it worthwhile. So I think this is where when we kind of think about our work situation, this person is sort of working alone. Do you all get that? Do you all feel that from this? Where they're sort of like working all by themselves. And so this is where I'd say reach out to someone and kind of ask someone. So if you're starting a new job, here's some language, right? So this is the kind of stuff that a coach would

help you do. So, because you're like, okay, how do I reach out to someone? No one's taught me how to reach out to someone. Do I turn to someone who make it worthwhile? And then, like, I absolutely despise this. Like, how do I talk to someone who seems to be enjoying this when I don't really enjoy it? Right? How do you say that? How do you open up that conversation? So here's what I'd say. I'd approach that person. I'd say, hey, you know, it seems like you're really awesome at this job and you also seem to really enjoy it. I'm just curious, is that the case? Do you really like like it here? Then first of all, you can sort of, you know, just ask them a question. You can ask them, what was it like when you started? You know, what was your, what were your first couple of weeks like?

Right? So you can ask them kind of an open-ended question to sort of gauge their sort of experience. It's a way to connect with someone at work. And they'll say, oh, yeah, first couple weeks are always rough, right? And you can say, yeah, I've, I've really feeling that. You know, it's like, it's a lot. And then you can even ask, hey, is like, do you have any tips for someone who's just starting out? And they're like, absolutely here. Let me teach you a couple things that will make things easier for you. Or they'll say, yeah, it's always rough. And then you'll kind of have a laugh about it. Maybe the next day at work, they're like, hey, hey, kid, how you doing? Right. So, like, you can start to form connections. And sometimes, like, we don't even know, like, the language

to open up that conversation because no one ever teaches us this. And so this is where sometimes having a little bit of expertise can help, right? Like, what do you say to someone at work? Because they don't teach us the stuff. It's some people sort of like, they kind of figure it out. Some people have good modeling and things like that. But the key thing here is don't suffer alone. So talk to other people at work. And, and, you know, this isn't about like, you know, organizing and putting everything on strike and down with the bosses. Like, I'm not talking about, just connect with another person. Don't suffer alone. Be like, hey, hey, this is hard.

And I mean, this is something I understood really well in residency, because residency is hard. You're working 80 hours a week. You're tired all the time. You're not getting paid very much. You know, we have a saying in residency that crap rolls downhill. And so since you're at the bottom of the totem pole as the intern, you have to do all the scut work. So you've got to fill out all the prescriptions and you have to do all the paperwork and stuff like that. You have to argue with the insurance company.

You have to do all the work, the bad work. So the cool thing is that when I was in residency, most psychiatry residencies do this. We had a 90-minute session once a week that was organized by our residency, where we would all get together in a room and we would sort of like commiserate around what the experience of being in residency was like. What do we like about it? What do we not like about it? What's hard about it? That was also facilitated. And we were a psychiatry residency.

So it was facilitated by a psychiatrist. interest. And so, like, don't suffer alone. So I know that oftentimes, like, you know, you'll be in this situation, which is like, I'm miserable at my job. How do I not be miserable at my job? And the first instinct may be, oh, just get a different job. The problem is that if you just jump to a different job and you don't really understand why you're miserable in the first place, you may just jump to another miserable job. And then it's miserable job after miserable job after miserable job after miserable job. So if you're looking at, okay, how do I be less miserable?

There are actually a couple of general things. The first two things we're going to talk about is two particular thoughts which are born of misery but also propagate misery. And as we become aware of those thoughts, as we think about them critically, as we sort of shape our thinking, we can start to be a little bit more constructive even about our job experience. And if we have this thought, there's no point. No, actually, there's some valuable experience here. There's actually a lot of, like, good stuff. Like, I'm really glad I worked, you know, serving ice cream. So, like, that taught me a lot about what to appreciate about my future

jobs and what to look for. It also taught me that I like autonomy at work. Like, I like to be sort of left alone and do my own thing. I don't want someone breathing over my neck. So another thing to keep in mind is that especially if you're early on, it may not get easy, but you'll get better at it. Right? So if we think about a classic RPG, you start off fighting level one mobs. And then does the mob become a level zero mob? And then the future mobs become level negative one, level negative five, level negative 50? No. You level up. You get better at it. It doesn't necessarily get easier. Even now, I'm not sure that my life today is easier than even it was in residency. There's a lot of stuff that made my life really easy in residency, even though I was

working a ton. So you'll get better at it. So have some faith in yourself. Next thing is we talk about this sort of thinking critically, what does that mean? That means diagnosing the source of your misery and the source of your pleasure, if there's any at work. And so the next time you look for a job, start to think a little bit about, okay, like, what do I want to move towards? Like, what do I need to move into. What do I want to avoid for my next job? And then what's going to happen is you don't like job number one, but then job number two, you've got two choices, right? You can get a circle or you can get a square. And you're like, oh, you know what? I definitely don't want a circle. Okay, let me try a square. Okay, well, now I've got two choices. I've got circle over here. I could

always go back to a circle, got a square over here, or I can get a triangle. Let me try a triangle. Oh, actually, this is pretty good. Now I've got this kind of triangle, right? And I'm a nice. isosceles triangle or an equilateral triangle. Okay, like, let me try the isosceles triangle, right? But this doesn't happen if you're just mindlessly jumping from one job to another. So you have to think a little bit about, okay, what are the dimensions of this job that make it miserable? What are the dimensions of this job that I enjoy? Another thing that they don't really tell you is that a lot of jobs are actually flexible.

If you ask politely and there's some flexibility, your boss may actually accommodate you. And so jobs are not necessarily static. So you may be able to swap work with someone. You can say, hey, I actually don't mind like cleaning, but I really don't like working with customers. So how about I do all the, you know, I do all the mopping and sweeping and you man the front for a little bit. And maybe if you don't like customers, you can do that. The last thing is that we know to not suffer alone. A ton of research that shows that commiserating with other people is actually really,

really important in terms of like forming connections and in terms of reducing misery. And this is something that we've seen, we've done it in psychiatry training. We know it works in group psychotherapy settings. We also do this in our group coaching program, right, where we like share problems. but a big part of our group coaching program is we sort of recognize that sharing problems is not enough. I mean, sometimes it's enough, but we also have it facilitated by a coach who sort of will also help you all facilitate accountability and things like that. So we have all that kind of stuff baked in there. Because one of the things that I found that was a little bit unfortunate about group psychotherapy was that there really oftentimes weren't goals.

Right. So if you like think about like a group psychotherapy that's oriented towards PTSD, I guess the goal is clinical improvement. but, you know, people wouldn't work on a week-to-week basis about, okay, like, if I have PTSD, how do I form a healthy relationship going forward? Right. So if I have body dysmorphia, how do I develop, like, a healthy exercise plan? Oftentimes, that component of, like, accountability and progress was, like, missing in psychotherapy. But this is something that's been very well researched, everything from funerals to even our

AEO healing, all this kind of stuff is really important. So if you're at a job and you're miserable, don't suffer alone.