As always, Calvin might have a point here.
Most often, we don't really hate our job but rather the fact that we are forced to work if we want to survive. The obligation takes the fun away.

One reason that many people with good college educations hate their jobs is that they picked a conservative / climb-the-ladder-oriented career when they were young (i.e., right after college) and then they never switched.

When they first picked their career at the age of 22:

• They had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives
• They had a very narrow view of what career options were available to them.
• They felt the need to make money, because they were independent from their parents for the first time.
• They gravitated to jobs that involve credentials and pre-defined milestones, just like school.

Then, after doing that first profession for 7-10+ years, they feel locked in; they don't know what to do next / how to change. They are doing pretty well financially in that first career, and they perceive tons of risk to switching careers. So they do the same thing for the rest of their life.

You see this with lawyers, professors, bankers, sometimes teachers.

Marc Bodnick and Bob Hooker have made excellent observations.

Adding my own to the list, people hate anything they're made to do day after day, month after month, year after year.

It reminds me of the Tom Sawyer fence painting incident. "...Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." [1]

I like writing on Quora. But a huge part of that fun comes from the fact that I don't have to do it unless I really want to. The only times I write are when a question catches my fancy and I feel that I can contribute something that other answers haven't. But I bet if someone made me toe a deadline like, you have to clock 10 answers everyday, my enthusiasm would decline after some time. Then, to keep the quality of my answers above par, I would need incentives like money or perks.

If you have a passion for cooking or writing or music, the point is that the only exposure you've had to the field is when you dabbled in it as a hobby. If you check out the stress and competition that professionals in these fields face, they will be similar to any other 'boring' field.

I have noticed that people who are happy with their work are the ones who have a healthy variety in the tasks they perform. Or when their organization give them the chance to change disciplines every few years.

I guess, like another answer mentioned, the trick is to enjoy little things about your job and give yourself time to pursue hobbies simultaneously.


[1] Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer Whitewashing the Fence

This is an easy one! 

Most jobs are devoid of meaning.  People are simply doing those jobs to get money and survive.

Sociologists (and I think economists as well), make a big deal of the Enclosure movements in England during the early stages of the industrial revolution (maybe the 1700's on until the 1800's).  The British state had to pass laws that removed commoners from open land, as they were making a living on the land.  The state then passed vagrancy laws that outlawed simply hanging around and not working.  People were forced to become a cog in the capitalist machine, as it were.

It goes against our basic human nature to do something for eight hours just to get the money.

Subordination. That makes it unwinnable. If you aren't passionate about your work, you're throwing an ungodly amount of time into a pursuit you couldn't care less about. If you are, you won't be able to stand being a subordinate, at least in the typical work culture where that means you take orders and no concern is given to your development or career goals.

People like to work. They do it for free all the time and aren't even aware of it. It's our nature to want to produce things, to be active and engaged. We just don't get along very well with the corporate factory-farm work environment and the forced psychological monoculture. We're not broken; it is.

The average household income in the US is under $50,000.

In many places, job options are very limited and mobility has been gutted in the US. It's harder to buy a home and get a job somewhere new than ever before. Jobs for new college graduates are mostly non-existent and jobs that exist have no promotion track at all.

When you have no college degree, what do you think your career options are? You know all those for-profit technical institute ads on daytime TV? They aren't for you, clearly—they are for people who are not stupid and have ambition but no opportunity to find a non-retail job. Retail used to be where teens got their first taste of following arbitrary rules and having responsibility; now retail is a job sector for adults who are treated like disobedient teens, with pay so low, benefits so meager and the company so mean, that if it weren't better than nothing, no one would take it.

Jobs no longer have stability. Instead of knowing that after years of excellent work, I'll be promoted, I can almost guarantee that my job will be made redundant so the company can save a few bucks. My industry, which used to be one of the most stable in the US (so stable than no one ever retired, which caused bloat in the upper levels, seriously) has now been rendered into hourly-wage, no-benefits contract work.

Even exciting new media opportunities pay low, if at all—and yet, insist on  employees sitting in a chair in an office for the pleasure of being a permanent intern. New media, anytime, anywhere. Oh no.

Why do people hate their jobs? Because their employers hate them and they let them know through a million microaggressions every day.

If you work in a company that gives you awesome perqs and decent salary and benefits, then you are not average. Perhaps simply asking someone from Ohio about working for Wal-Mart will give you an idea of what I mean.

I'm not a psychologist or trained HR expert, but as a manager and CEO I've thought about this question a lot.

It can't be that the job itself s**ks.  Because every job, from CEO to VP to Director to Manager to Trash Pickeruper to Fishmonger (I've done all of these myself), has tons of stuff that is not at all fun.  It's not at all fun to do customer support every night from 1am to 8am -- and then go to work.  It's not at all fun to refactor code or fix someone's crappy bugs or rewrite some piece of code no one will ever see.  It's not fun at all to get on a plane to Pittsburgh or Joplin or wherever, stay in some crummy hotel, hurt your back in the crummy seat on the crummy flight, to go hear from some customer complaining about why they are angry and hate some part of your product.

All jobs have lots to them that s**k including the glorified Founder and CEO positions.

And yet, a job well done of any kind, of any sort, is glorious.  At any level.

So what can it be?  That makes people hate their jobs?

Ultimately, I think the core reasons I've identified, in order:

1.  A Bad Boss.  This really is 99% of it to me.  When I've had a great co-founder, or a great boss, it's all fine.  In the end, it's all great in fact.  A great boss can take you into any battle.  A great boss has your back.  A great boss looks out for you.  A great boss makes it all worthwhile, at least for X years.

And a bad boss ruins it all in about 30-60 days.  Makes it worthless, your work, your day, indeed ... your life.  No matter what you are paid, what your title is, how big your office is.

2.  Just Too Much.  This is especially an affliction of the well-educated in services businesses, especially.  Marc Bodnick is spot on that many highly educated people end up hating being bankers, lawyers, etc.  But I think it may be for simpler reasons than he alludes to.  I've been a start-up attorney and a management consultant for stints in my past.  The problem isn't the work.  The work is interesting, and working for great clients who appreciate you is rewarding.  It's just ... too much for most people.  Working 6 1/2 days a week, being on-call 24x7, having everything be High Drama.  Every IPO is High Drama.  Every Deal, Every M&A is High Drama.  The issue isn't the job itself as a function, it's the upside down ROI.  It's Just Too Much for most people who want more out of life than just money.

3.  Irrelevance & "Disempoweredness".  This one is hard to see in start-ups but it's so painfully obvious in the BigCos.  You can see it in The Big Company Shuffle.  When execs at leading Interent Cos. shuffle across the hallway to meetings, at the slowest possible pace, toting their iPads and mugs, to meetings they are always 10 minutes late to.  It's the snail's pace of someone that is well paid and educated but who is completely disempowered.  It sucks all the life out of you and spits you out as a peon.

I think if for your team, for your employees, you can focus on tackling 1, 2 and 3 for each of them, as best you can.  You'll see the best experiences, the least attrition, and the greatest ROI per individual that's possible I think if you get 1, 2 and 3 out of your company.

Look at these guys, the body language. I know they're rich as sin, but it's more than that -- they only take $100k salaries per year.  You want this relationship, this enthusiasm, this trust:


I think they'd be happy kicking arse together in any field.

pic from here: http://www.abcbullion.com.au/new...

Marc Bodnick gets the mechanics of how it happens in a person's life right.

What's missed is that the way we evaluate jobs today has significantly shifted.

The privilege of expecting your work to be fulfilling, or even a source of happiness is a very recent phenomenon. 

Since the advent of agriculture work our employment has been creeping it's way up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

• most work enables people to sustain and survive
• the industrial revolution and then unions introduced the expectation of security
• if you're lucky to work with a good group, you feel love and belonging
• most jobs and the nature of the job market at least provide the opportunity to develop self esteem, through skill and learning
• if you happen to land in a sweet spot job, that you have aptitude for but which challenges you and provides fulfillment, you've reached the top: SELF-ACTUALIZATION

Today, when you look around you, in social media and social interaction, you are presented with people who enjoy their jobs, or at-least feel compelled to imply that they enjoy their jobs... because not enjoying your job is failure. It's proof that you've fallen into the trap that Marc describes.

A job can also be made enjoyable simply because of the fact that you have CHOSEN to do that job rather than done it because it was the obvious option.

I was a farmer for a few years in my late twenties, I FUCKING LOVED it!  But I also grew up on a farm, and I can guarantee you that if I'd stuck around and been farming all my life just because it was there, I'd have hated it, largely because of what else I could have been doing.

To sum up: people hate their jobs because, now more than ever, there is the possibility to love their jobs.... and they don't.


ps. the secret sauce is in treating your job as if you love it, that is the surest way to lead you to a job that you actually love.  Treat each day like drudgery, and you will toil forever.

Maybe, because they haven't seen the lowest point yet

I think the reason people hate their jobs is that they haven't hit the rock bottom in their lives.

When they hit their rock bottom and lose everything, they will not hate it. They will start valuing it because now they know the value of something.

Love/Hate for that matter is just a cause/effect situation.

I went broke in college. Then I employed myself. It was fun. Then I let it go and chosed something I thought would develop me. It did. I don't hate my job. I don't mind fighting my way through traffic. I don't mind resolving customer complaints. I don't mind looking at tons of data on a daily basis and deriving inferences from just a whole sea of nothing but numbers. I don't mind. I enjoy it. I am grateful for it.

Why? Because there was a time in my life I was in utmost pain. There was a time in my life, I have walked in streets in despair. There was a time in my life, I have asked people - "Will you hire me, any kind of work will do?" There was a time in my life I have saved coins and counted them so I can buy something.

When you have seen those days, you cannot hate anything. You begin to value everything life has offered to you.

When people crib about their jobs, I just smile and move on. I don't say anything on their face but an inner voice speaks "Let it be. Someone out there is fighting like a dog for food and he is just in a job which he doesn't like. Let it be. Time will heal it."

It all boils down to what you have seen and what remains to be seen.

A lot of very good answers here.
And a lot of long winded ones.

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Your job is simply an economic transaction - You are being compensated for your time and your abilities. If you seek more in than that, you'll end up hating it because that is all there is.
2. You either live too far or too close to your job - If your daily commute is longer 45-60 minutes you live too far. You'll spend roughly two hours (or more) out of twenty-four traveling to and from your job. This is like a mini "job" of its own just getting and from your job. If you live too close (within 15 minutes) then you never "leave" your job.
3. Your future is unclear - You have no idea what's going to happen to you or with your job. Because you live in an almost constant state of uncertainty, you begin to resent and then to hate your job.
4. You've had better jobs before this one - Many people are working jobs that they are only doing because they were laid off from a better one. They hate their current job because it is clearly inferior (lower compensation, worse benefits, terrible work environment,etc) to one or more of their former positions. Nobody likes to "settle" for worse.
5. Your work doesn't matter - What you are doing doesn't matter. To you. To your co-workers. To your company. Your efforts are meaningless drudgery or busy work and everyone knows that. Since you have no real motivation to do much, you find yourself quickly losing interest in your job. When you lose interest in something and yet you have to do it every day, you'll find yourself first resenting it and then hating it.
   

Honestly, a job is simply an economic transaction. When you forget that, a number of differing elements come into play.If you simply think of it as that, you'll find that it's easier to cope with the daily ups and downs of employment.

It seems that the Romans already knew that "work" was a punishment, because the etymology of "work", in French, Spanish, Italian (travail, trabajo, etc)  comes from tripalion, "a instrument of torture" :) .

I am going to provide a slightly different answer here as most people have focused around the more obvious aspects.

I am one of the lucky few who love their job but I am surrounded by people who hate their jobs and I am constantly asked by people how it is possible to have been in the same job for four years and still love it.

I think one of the biggest reasons people hate their job and that they forget that they are working to live and instead start thinking that they are living to work - work takes over their entire lives and therefore causes unhappiness.

If work is the only thing one's life revolves around, then everything related to work will affect you deeply - whether it's conflict with colleagues/management or lack of decent salary.

Whenever I start getting too carried away with office politics or an upcoming bonus or the next promotion, I remind myself that my life outside of work is much more important. I make a point of leaving the office at 5/5.30 and not working weekends or taking calls outside of work unless it is absolutely necessary. I view work as a means to fund the rest of my life and focus on making the rest of my life enjoyable enough so that the 9 hours I spend at the office seem worth it.

When it comes to jobs most people have to choose:
 

1. Should I follow my passion and hope to make money
2. Should I follow the money and hope to buy happiness

Most people choose #2. If you did, chances are you're not very satisfied. You might ask "how do I know?". Simple. Because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this answer ;)


The fault is not with you. It's how majority of employers think they can motivate you or retain their talent.

Typical employers motivate by offering more money. The problem is money doesn't work. Once the basic needs of an employee are met, job satisfaction comes from these three things:

• Autonomy - feeling in control of your work
• Mastery/Competence - feeling that you are good and getting better at your work and
• Purpose/Relatedness - connecting to others and fulfilling a purpose larger than yourself

(From Daniel H Pink's book "Drive", short video below)


You ask why do people hate their jobs? It's because their employers make the mistake of trying to motivate their staff with money, and not with satisfaction.

I'm going to answer this from the other direction.

I love my job.

I don't think it's because every aspect of my job is fun or fulfilling, because frankly I've liked every job I've ever had. I think it's a matter of attitude.

1) I don't procrastinate (much) when there's something I don't want to do. As long as the dreaded task is hanging over your head you are doing it. So tackle that first, do it thoroughly and well so it doesn't come back to redo, and move onto the parts of the job that are more fun or fulfilling. At one job I had to make a number of cold calls which I didn't like. I could make them the first two hours in the office, and then the next six hours were fine. On the few times when I pushed them off, my whole day was spent dreading those calls.

2) I have decided that my role amidst the people I work with is that of the positive person who tries to get along with everybody. Those who want to complain avoid me because I'm not going to feed their whining. And in avoiding me, they don't bring me down.

3) I have some perspective. I lived for a short time in a third world country where I saw people doing terribly hard physically taxing labor for peanuts. My relatively easy and cushy job for a middle class income is not so bad. My cranky and demanding boss is nothing to the systemic oppression others experience. Any time I find myself wishing I had more, I remember how fortunate I am in the global scheme of things.

4) I cultivate my personal interests in my non-work hours. (And I do work long hours and have a spouse and kids who need my time, too!) I spend hours painting, writing, gardening, volunteering, etc. My employment alone does not define who I am or what I love, and therefore if I'm having a bad day, or week, or month at work it really doesn't matter that much because there is much more to life. Turn off the computer, TV, phone and you'll be amazed to find out how much time you have to engage life!