SemiConscious Dot Org

According to a recent survey, Americans hate their jobs more than ever:

The trend is strongest among workers under the age of 25, less than 39 percent of whom are satisfied with their jobs.

Workers age 45 to 54 have the second lowest level of satisfaction (less than 45 percent), according a survey conducted by The Conference Board…

(snip)

Overall, dissatisfaction has spread among all workers, regardless of age, income or residence. Twenty years ago, the first time the survey was conducted, 61 percent of all Americans said they were satisfied with their jobs…

(link via The Culture Ghost)

Hmm, couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that real wages for American workers are declining relative to inflation, and have been doing so since the early 1970’s, could it? And it certainly couldn’t have anything to do with our illustrious Preznit’s ongoing attempts to destroy the last tattered shreds of the social safety net that his father and Reagan hadn’t eviscerated already.

Nah, I didn’t think so either.

Speaking of job dissatisfaction: I’ve tendered my resignation here at the ol’ liberry and will be leaving at the end of the school year in June. However, in my case the reason isn’t so much disgruntlement as burnout. While I take an inordinate amount of pride in the fact that I’m doing something to help the most forgotten members of our society, and that I’m not toiling away in an office to make someone else richer, this job is amazingly stressful. Working with traumatized kids is such an emotional drain that I need a change of scene. Some of my coworkers have been working at this school for almost two decades, and I honestly haven’t the slightest clue how they do it.

The other reason for my decision to quit is a happier one: the fiance and I are moving back to Maine to live in the house she inherited from her grandfather. Library jobs in Maine are fairly scarce right now, but the town in which we will live is the largest one in the state, with a six-branch public library and several small colleges. If I’m going to find a library job anywhere in the state, it’ll be there.

I have moved coast-to-coast three times now (from Maine to Seattle in 1997, Seattle to New Hampshire in 2002, and back to Seattle again in 2004.) This impending move is the first time since 1997 that I’ve felt I’m moving towards something, rather than running away from something.