Some jobs are just like that. Take mine for example. I throw paper for a living for a high end print shop. Nobody takes a 'lunch break' unless a vendor or the owners decide to buy everybody lunch, and I work four ten hour days minimum. I average about fifty hours a week, factoring in the insanely busy periods.

I work under a 'lead pressman' that is incredibly anal about efficency, quality, and basically perfection. Our customers expect that. He is never wrong (...) and I am his bitch. He literally broke a press part one time and told me "Never do that again.", essentially telling me that as far as everyone else knew, that was something *I* broke. The part probably cost a few hundred dollars, and it was a cheap one.

I am constantly learning new ways that I am fucking things up, in some almost insubstantial way, which is often because of something that is fucked up already, beyond mine or his control, tiny dents in a 38 x 25" sheet for example. He constantly bitches about our (admittedly) incompetant graphics guy that fucks up traps, piles 100% builds of all four colors, everything he could basically fuck up , he does, which makes us both paranoid about everything we print, constantly looking for that fuck up(s).

I smoke cigarettes, he's an ex-smoker. Supposedly I get three smoke breaks per day but that's not really enough for me (ten hours is a long time), I literally suck down a cigarette in two minutes or less to get my fix, and sometimes suffer the consequences of some sort of ex-smoker wrath. He generally tells me when to take a smoke break, usually about two times, after that it's up to me to squeeze in a fix.

When the paper doesn't run right, he comes back and recklessly jacks with the paper feeder until it does, usually taking more time to make it run than I would would with my admittedly meager experience with large sheets (he's been running this particular machine for four years, I've been there six months), but it does efficiently make me look like a jackass.

Eighty percent of my job is to pick up large sheets of paper and flip them over into nice neat stacks. Usually stacks big enough to require a forklift to practically get them near the press in the first place. My arms are sore as hell every day. I have helped put more ink on flattened trees in my life than most people will ever encounter.

Tomorrow, some asshole will come to replace a part that helps keep the water cool, and he's a smoker. I know from experience from the last shop that I worked at he will milk the fuck out of it, which will result in me having to bust my ass to get done what is on the schedule, nay, exceed that, to make up for that yet unknown downtime, and we are starting out with a five skid (about 9k 25 x 38" a skid) job.

My job pushes me to a point that I never thought I was capable of, and yet I persist. Army strong? puhleeze, I have many a GI neighbor and they might have to worry about bullets, but they don't got shit on me for working hard. Any job I get hereafter (and I KNOW I can't do this for another twenty years) will be child's play. Why do I stay? Almost 100% health, with a 3% matching 401k. I also feel pretty good about earning my money.

Weigh the costs and benefits of your present gig. If they are fucking with your timecard, thats illegal, and raise a stink, but bide your time. Talk to other employees about time card mischief, build a big case, don't be a puss and just walk away.

By the way I actually like the guy I work with/under. He has some huge faults, but he's my boss, and I can at least respect him on some level. He could be worse. Don't let *personal* problems cloud the big picture of what just needs to get done.

And try to keep the whining to a minimum.

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a clean bong is a sign of a sound mind