What to Say to Someone Who Hates Their Job - The Muse

What to Say to Someone Who Hates Their Job - The MuseWhat to Say to Someone Who Hates Their Job Youre not the only one who hates your job.There are plenty of times when its nice knowing youre not alone. But when you hate your job and are trying to express that to your friends, hearing this come out of someones mouth probably results in a lot of eye rolling. As a former card-carrying member of the My job sucks club, Ive heard this my fair share of times- and I have to tell you that it never, ever helped me to be reminded that lots of people arent fulfilled by their roles. So, to those well-meaning people out there who are guilty of offering this uplifting nugget, Ill walk you through why youre not helping at all No matter why your friends despise their 9-to-5- youre shutting down the conversation before the other part can tell you exactly whats going on.Throwing out this line is not only the furthest thing from helpful advice, but its also a good way to make someone whos asking for he lp feel as if you want nothing to do with the conversation. And unless youre a jerk who doesnt want to hear about how your friends feeling, this is probably something youd like to avoid.What should you say instead when a friend wont stop venting about how horrible everything thing is at the office? Well, it boils down to asking these three questions (in this order) Whats going on at work right now?Is this a new feeling, or has it been going on for a while?How open would you be to starting a job search?These might look like simple questions, and they are. But thats all it takes to give your friends the freedom to both fill you in on whats going on, while also giving you a little guidance as to where their head is at. For example, someone who answers number one by saying, We have this annoying client who keeps asking me for additional projects that he wont pay for probably just needs to complain for a bit. But a friend who says that, and then answers number two with, It feels like all of my clients are asking me for extra work, opens the door for you to say something like, Would speaking to your manager help? or Is the rest of your kollektiv working this hard? If the person looks at you and says My manager doesnt care and no one else on my team does either, bring up number three. But if you get through all of these questions and still cant come up with anything helpful, dont worry. From my own experience I know that sometimes folks just want to vent a little bit or have someone someone listen while they sort through their thoughts aloud (which asking these questions does). But one thing I never expected was for anyone to fix everything on the spot. Sometimes, by just being there, youre helping a lot more than you know.