I subscribe to: Work to live not live to work. If there was only a way I could get by without working, but my wife refuses to work 3 jobs. Fortunately my job is pretty easy so I won't complain too much.

Its easy to love my job, as my job brings me to Europe every month and, while there I am there, I can take long weekend trips to wherever I please. Certainly, my work life often intrudes into those weekends, but I am content with that.

But even if I take that traveling away, YES, I do love my job. Life is short and we spend a minimum of 40 hours a week earning our bread, for most its far more. That’s a huge chunk of your life, so you should always find a profession that interests, challenges and delights you. Traveling/vacation, 3-6 weeks a year, should complement a working life but should not be just a respite from an otherwise boring working existence – IMHO anyway!

I love my job....In-Home Wine Tastings! My company is setting up a few vineyards for personal wine tours for our trip to Northern Italy this summer. I come back from Europe and a week later head off on my Incentive trip to Santa Barbara, CA for more vineard tours
What's not to like??? LOL
Vino

Some years ago a personal tragedy gave my close friend the opportunity to go to college well after the age when such endeavor is expected. He wanted to go to NYU and he did, but he had no idea of what to study. His academic counselor asked him what he really loved to do. My friend replied, "Go on vacation and eat in nice restaurants."

Alas, NYU didn't have a major to suit his loves, but he graduated, anyway.

I LOVE my job. As a self-employed artist who has been lucky enough to make a living at it I feel very fortunate. That said there is nothing like vacation, especially a few weeks in Europe. That said I always find it hard to get back in the groove when I return, I usually don't force it and just wait for my creative mojo to come back. I can't say the clients are always happy about that.

I'm counting the years, months, days to retirement.

I love my job even after 33 years of doing it. I was fortunate to find a job that allowed me the flexible hours,different scenery and people and no office backstabbing. I can truly say that I look forward to going to work each week although I have to commute to get there-its still fun and interesting.I love people and all their various "stories" and issues so I quess that flying international for a major airline has been a blessing!

About 2/3 of the way into a two-week trip, I start to feel somewhat unsettled by not working. I do miss working when I am on vacation.

I hate my job. Times not quite right to move yet.

Muck

I like my job but I'd quit in a heartbeat if I did not need to work. As cmt said, seeing your home with tourist eyes is one of the pleasures of travel for me too.

I enjoy my job and don't mind coming back after I've been away on holiday. I have interesting, pleasant colleagues and an airy, sunny office to work in. Nice places nearby to have lunch and a big stack of CDs to listen to as I work. My work is intellectually challenging and I'm always learning new things (I translate from French, Spanish and Italian into English). There are plenty of downsides to working as a translator but I enjoy it and like the mental gymnastics that it usually involves. And speaking lots of languages is very handy for travelling

Before I was who I am today, I was a receptionist at a high class beauty salon. It was either the worst of the best or the best of the worst. . . I have yet to decide. Anyways, I did not have a coherent weekend (I got Sat. and Mon off), the money was OK, but the stylists were impossible to work with, I loved the clients, but I myself was completely detached from the job. I knew it was time to leave when I started devising ways to rip off the salon. I must have come up with at least 10 different schemes that would have worked perfectly had I not been taught morals as a child. Anyways, I applied for my Master's degrees, got in, and was swept away from the job for my last few months by a wonderful boyfriend and an even better part-time job.

Ever since then I have wondered what people do who truly hate thier job. I don't mean hate as in "what a drag" but hate as in "I want to hurt the company" or "I cannot get out of bed and do this today." I spent 4 weeks like that and not only did I lose a bunch of weight from just general anxiety, but I actually started withdrawing from the good stuff in my life. I was not truly back to normal until a few months after that experience, and I attribute the full recovery to a month of travel in Southern Spain. Never again!

Do I love my job? Yes, 100%. I must be the only one among my peers to say so. What not to love? I'm in an industry which I have known for 15 years and I still learn something new everyday. My freelance status means I take on projects and work only with people that I truly like. I also do international writing assignments, meeting industry people which often become my clients. Enviable? Yes. But I spent 10 years climbing up the office ladder and dealing with all types of sharp implements aka office politics. That's the period whereby I enjoyed my work but didn't love it. Now it's a different story. Heard of the saying 'If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life'? Well, it can go to the extreme. Some friends have called me a workaholic because I spend so much time on my projects. The problem is: I don't feel like I'm working. Is that strange? Maybe only to those who don't love their jobs...

90% of the time, I love my job. I get to work with the US Military every day and it brings me to Europe 4 or 5 times every year. I work out of home office, so I get to roll in wearing whatever I want. If things are slow - I take my grandfather to lunch or my mother shopping. When it's busy - I make more money! I've met hundreds, if not thousands of wonderful people - customers and those chance encounters at the airport or in a bar. I make a decent living, own my home and essentially make my own hours.

All that being said, however, I do have short bouts of minor depression when I'm not sure when my next trip is going to be. Not right now, though I leave for Germany in 17 days and then have a trip to the UK scheduled for October. Like Ger, I like to add on time for myself after these trips - in October - I get to go to Ireland for a few days.

What's not to love?

Me too susan001....2029 can not come soon enough for me!!

I agree with abbydog...North Americans do not get enough vacation time. I heard that the French have six weeks vacation on average. I had to cut my last trip to Italy down to 10 days...the woes of middle management.

I starting planning my next vacation on the plane ride home from the last one. I am a self professed travelholic.

Greetings, kswl.
I'm a psychotherapist...one of those corny ones who feels honored to be invited into the privacy of others' lives. Worked for agencies / hospitals for 23 years, built a "name" for myself and then went into private practice 10 years ago. It's been a great ride.

I work freelance in Munich but I've been contracted to the same company for over 8 years after getting an initial 3 month contract.

The pay is incredible and I know the job inside out, but I've had enough.

So, as I've just hit the 40 mark, I'm going to go off in the next couple of months to live in Australia.

I have a young family so I'm going to be semi-retired so that I can spend more time with them when they're growing up

I have also set myself the challenge of becoming a golf pro by the time I turn 50. I've always been a pretty good amateur player but never quite good enough to turn pro

I'll miss Munich, it has a great quality of life and the people at work are all great, its like one big happy family but it will never really feel like home.

Geordie

I love my job! However I happen to own a small B&B in Italy as well as grow grapes and make wine. Its long hours, hard work and little material reward but the job satifaction cannot be beaten for anything!

Geordie, if you can shoot scratch consistently, you can go pro and succeed.

A few years ago, golf.com created a hypothetical golfer named "Mr. Par" who always shot exactly par, and they compared his totals week by week to the actual PGA scores. IIRC, he finished about 40th in the Tour standings, well in the money (prizes minus expenses). So you don't have to be a Woods or Mickelson to get out there and make a go of it.

Go for it, and good luck!

Sallyjane:

thanks for the reply! I have become increasingly interested in the whole idea of people who "work for themselves"---a misnomer, as you so clearly point out, as a great many of them do so in order to provide the best possible service person-to-person. The impact on the economy is obvious and statistically significant. I wonder if the impact on our society isn't even more significant---if that is the current embodiment of that independent American spirit. We live in an area of Georgia that has been economically depressed from textile mill closings over the past 10-15 years. Many workers who lost their jobs have moved away. Others have been incredibly creative and have started their own businesses on little more than hope and determination. Whenever I hear that someone is self-employed, I always ask in what field. Thanks for answering!

(A very good friend of mine trained at the Psychoanalytic Institute (name?) in New York City. Her approach to life--and, I assume, her patients---was just unbelieveably humane, and her attitude about her job was similar to yours.