Quotes About Hating Your Job

Many people are dissatisfied with or even hate their jobs. Some people dislike their scheduled hours or days; others dislike their co-workers. You can also hate the duties assigned to you, the clients you have to deal with, or your supervisor. Even though there is a lot about work you can like, there's also a lot you can dislike.

If you're feeling unhappy about work, it's not just you. Workplace satisfaction has a major impact on our overall happiness and sense of well-being. Many surveys on worker satisfaction indicate that many of us are unhappy with our jobs. The reasons range from autocratic bosses, unpleasant co-workers, toxic work environments, and excessive demands to alienating or tedious job responsibilities.

The following quotes capture the benefit of self-affirming work and the toll of persisting in jobs we don't like.

Quotes About Hating Your Job

"There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over—and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its value." –Ellen Goodman

"Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job." –Jim Lovell

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar." –Drew Carey 

"Working at a job you don't like is the same as going to prison every day, my father used to say. He was right. I felt imprisoned by an impressive title, travel, perks, and a good salary. On the inside, I was miserable and lonely, and I felt as if I was losing myself. I spent weekends working on reports no one read, and I gave presentations that I didn't care about. It made me feel like a sellout and, worse, a fraud. Now set free, like any inmate I had to figure out what to do with the rest of my life." –Kathleen Flinn

"Every job I take, within minutes I'm thinking, 'I can't do this.' I think it's what makes me work. People think I just swagger in and do it. But I doubt myself all the time. It's what pushes me, what makes me work harder. The older I get, the less I take for granted." –Ray Winstone

"If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing." –Ronald Heifetz

"Quitting a job can be like an exorcism where you cast out a demon. The demon is the foreign spirit who occupies you through your occupation." –Bryant McGill

"Having a bad boss isn't your fault. Staying with one is.” — Nora Denzel

"Everyone rises to their level of incompetence." –Dr. Lawrence Peter

"If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn't have a job if he was any smarter." –John Gotti

"Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." –Confucius

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on." –Steve Jobs

"I'd rather be a failure at something I love than succeed at something I hate." –George Burns

"My mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general. If you become a monk, you'll end up as the pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso." –Pablo Picasso

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word—excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it." –Pearl Buck

"Work without love is slavery." –Mother Teresa

"To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth." –Pearl Buck

"Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures." –Joseph Campbell

"Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire." –Bobby Unser

"Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else." –George Halas

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy." –Kahlil Gibran

"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time." –Joseph Campbell