The avatar says it all John

I am disliked because of my role, so I compensate by getting as many beer vouchers as I can

I dunno, I'd put up with a bad environment at work for £1m a year. But then I'm very good at detaching work from my personal life.

It's obviously better if you can enjoy work, but eventually all 'work' you don't passionately care for becomes a pain. Portering in Asda amongst nice people may be good now, but give it three years and you'll have the same bitter angst everyone else who works in a job they don't have a genuine passion for does.

There are very few who are in the position of doing something they genuinely love. I'm very jealous of those people.

It all depends,, it's good you've found work.

Persconally, I've worked in hostile environments but earned a lot of money, and one outweighed the other, by some distance. Income affords you opportunity.

Interesting since Walmart, ASDA's owners are suffering a series of strikes in the US at the moment. Walmart a renowned for taking a tough line on workers rights, pay and conditions.

I have a relative who works for M&S down in the Poole area. What you describe above is very similar to the kind of benefits that M&S have [uremoved[/u from their employees in recent years. She even told me when the store management decided it wanted to open the store on boxing day last year (something they never used to do at that store) staff were threatened with consequences if they didn't turn in for work. The management had to force them to come in because not enough staff volunteered This move was late in he day and like the person mentioned in this article:

[urlhttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/money/3851935/.html[/url

She had already made arrangements to be away on the bank holiday but was told "tough, cancel your arrangements".

I wonder who gets more out of their workers, ASDA or M&S?

Similarly, I've earnt good money and also been on the bones of my @rse.
I haven't been in a 'better place' either way.
I can adapt, but I would imagine that's been a hell of a lot easier having had no dependents.

Job satisfaction hands down for me, life's too short to be miserable at work every-day, a lot of things in life are far more precious than money and happiness/contentment are on that list, priceless

You can't live off a good working environment, so money is important, whether we like that fact or not. But a good working environment is important too.

Anyway, congratulations. Hope everything continues as well for you.

TBH I think I have confused my point by bringing my employment into the arguement.

My point is/was would you prefer extra treats or a better working environment.

TBH I see lots of smiling faces and some have been there for years.

I currently earn JUST enough to pay our way and have a few little perks each month, there's not much fat on the budget but we could probably cut a bit more if we needed to.

The job I do would probably be classed by some as stressful (I manage a very busy software helpdesk) but to me its a piece of cake, a doddle, after running my own business for 24 years employing people and having to satisfy everyone every time the phone rang, pay all the bills, pay all the tax and then finally pay myself.

I wouldn't go back there now, I have no stress in my current job, enjoy speaking to (most) of the 30/40 different clients every day, my job now is simply to make everyone else happy and I don't have to think about who is picking up the tab or worry about whether there will be enough left for me at the end of the month.

In my previous life I simply earned whatever I wanted to earn and some years I earned an awful lot of money, some years I paid more in tax than my current salary is now, but towards the end I hated my job - now its ok to hate your job if your an employee but when your the boss and you own 100% of the company you really shouldn't be hating your job







I enacted Plan B, used the escape route and have never been happier, if there was a button to press to go back to the day when I controlled my own salary then I wouldn't press it.

In my opinion I would take the stress free option every time if family finances allow, even if it means cutting back on a few treats. The effects on your health are not worth the extra money if you can't handle the stress of the job.