Doing A Bad Job Quotes & Sayings

Beautiful day out there," I said, perching on the stool and crossing my legs. "It's autumn, Sunday, great weather, and crowded everywhere you go. Relaxing indoors like this is the best thing you can do on such a nice day. It's exhausting to get into those crowds. And the air is bad. I mostly do laundry on Sundays - wash the stuff in the morning, hang it out on the roof of my dorm, take it in before the sun goes down, do a good job of ironing it. I don't mind ironing at all. There's a special satisfaction in making wrinkled things smooth. And I'm pretty good at it, too. Of course, I was lousy at it at first. I put creases in everything. After a month of practice, though, I knew what I was doing. So Sunday is my day for laundry and ironing. I couldn't do it today, of course. Too bad: wasted a perfect laundry day. — Haruki Murakami

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

I don't read reviews. Just because that is something that's directly connected to my job. I'm doing this because I love it, not because I'm necessarily looking for approval or anything like that. To me, it seems that reading reviews - whether they're good ones or bad ones - can only sort of force the person to divorce themselves from the reality of what it is they do for a living. So I don't read reviews. — Kate Winslet

Life will throw everything but the kitchen sink in your path, and then it will throw the kitchen sink. It's your job to avoid the obstacles. If you let them stop you or distract you, you're not doing your job, and failing to do your job will cause regrets that paralyze you more than a bad back. — Andre Agassi

Product Warning
If this book were a medication with a label, it would read something like this:
Side Effects Include but Are Not Limited to
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Hair-tossing (commercial-style) is common, but seek medical attention if you pinch a nerve or can't stop doing it. — Stacy London

You're at the age where the rush of the job has passed and the grind of the job is taken in stride, and this is the time when you're wondering if it wouldn't be so bad if you just stopped giving much of a shit and rolled along doing as little as possible. — Warren Ellis

I spend a great deal of time working for kids in Uganda and India and chasing bad guys who hurt them. I started a nonprofit a number of years ago and now Sweet Maria and I think about my day job as a great way to fund the things we're doing. Now when I put on a suit and tie or jump on a plane to go take a deposition, we call it "fund-raising." It still makes me grin every time to say it this way. It's like a really successful bake sale to get rid of bad guys. — Bob Goff

So the challenge, as you contemplate your next opportunity to be boring or remarkable, is to answer these two questions: (1) "If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impact? Will I lose my job, get hit upside the head with a softball bat, or lose important friendships?" If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you'll get from actually doing something worth doing. Being remarkable is exciting, fun, profitable, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off.
And then, once you've compared the bad feeling and the benefits, and you've sold yourself on taking the remarkable path, answer this one: (2) How can I create something that critics will criticize? — Seth Godin

I tried my hand at writing, I tried to write out a little script - and it's not too bad. Mostly, though, it let me understand how incredibly difficult that job is. I can't even imagine doing it on a weekly basis for a series in any way. That's tough. I think I'll try to leave that to smarter people than me. — Nathan Fillion

I don't mind if someone thinks I'm a sell out. I go to bed happy knowing I do what I do and I'm not doing anything for reasons of money, and if I were trying to pick up chicks, I'm doing a horrible job. And if I wanted to drive awesome cars, I'm doing a really bad job there too. — Patrick Stump

The truckers are staring," I said after a few seconds.
It was true. They were. The whole row of them was doing a bad job of pretending not to look at us.
"We just got engaged," Lucy shouted over to them. "I just asked this man to be my wife."
The men at the counter traded confused looks. I burst out laughing.
"We're glad you and your ass cracks could share this moment with us," she went on. "Seriously. We really are. Those are serious cracks and this is a serious moment. — Nick Burd

I did a bad thing tonight, one of the most terrible things ever: I waited for her to fall asleep, then stole the sheet from under her head. I am missing you or maybe just the idea of you. I have begun seriously thinking about other men. I am afraid I am not strong enough or tough enough for this. I am afraid all the time. I have not slept well in months. When are you coming back, you jerk? We are all trying to be brave without you and doing a real crummy job of it. I do not want to have to be brave anymore without you. — Joe Meno

Everything I told him was technically true, more or less, and I got the job done," Jack said stubbornly. "Look, sir, if I were perfect, I wouldn't be working here in the first place. Now, would I?"
And then he hung up. On speakerphone. On a freaking archangel.
I couldn't help it. I let out a rolling belly laugh. "I just got suckered into doing this by ... Stars and stones, you didn't even know that he ... Big bad angel boy, and you get the wool pulled over your eyes by ... " I stopped trying to talk and just laughed.
Uriel eyed the phone, then me, and then tucked the little device away again, clearly nonplussed. "It doesn't matter how well I believe I know your kind, Harry. They always manage to find some way to try my patience. — Jim Butcher

In some circumstances, a focus on extrinsic rewards (money) can actually diminish effort. Most (or at least many) teachers enter their profession not because of the money but because of their love for children and their dedication to teaching. The best teachers could have earned far higher incomes if they had gone to banking. It is almost insulting to assume that they are not doing what they can to help their students learn, and that by paying them an extra $500 or $1,500, they would exert greater effort. Indeed, incentive pay can be corrosive: it reminds teachers of how bad their pay is, and those who are led thereby to focus on money may be induced to find a better paying job, leaving behind only those for whom teaching is the only alternative. (Of course, if teachers perceive themselves to be badly paid, that will undermine morale, and that will have adverse incentive effects) — Joseph E. Stiglitz

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do. — Colin Firth

You learnt that, whatever you are doing in life, obstacles don't matter very much. Pain or other circumstances can be there, but if you want to do a job bad enough, you'll find a way to get it done. — Jack Youngblood

You're a sovereign as a citizen. If you're not involved in your government, you're not doing your job. In the long run that's very bad for the Republic. — Michael Novak

I'm aggressive, quite frankly, because Staten Island gets screwed all the time. And if I'm not aggressive, then I won't be successful. That's not being a bad boy. That's doing my job. — Michael Grimm

I figured being a bed salesman was a job of biblically bad paradox. I mean, here he was, forced to stand for eight or nine hours a day, and the whole time he's surrounded by beds. And not only that, he's surrounded by shoppers who see the beds and can't help but think, Man, I'd love to lie down on that bed for a second. So not only does he have to stop himself from lying down, but he has to stop everyone else from doing it, too. I knew if I were him, I would be desperate for human company. — Rachel Cohn

If life is so bad, how come you're so happy?" "Did I say bad? I said it was tough. Nothing to make you happy like doing good on a tough job, now is there? — Katherine Paterson

People don't want drama 365 days a year. I'm a sense of relief; it's my job to take your mind off what's bad for that brief second you're in the room with me, regardless of shape, race, colour or anything. It brings people together, and it makes me feel good about what I'm doing. — Kevin Hart

I was doing bad movies as a day job. And it almost ruined my life for a while. But I have done 130-odd films, and only fourteen have been spooky ones. Im not spooky! I want life! — Karen Black

Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, I did it again. — James Altucher

I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog some days because I'm just not here enough. I just feel like I would do a bad job if I took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I'm doing. — Rachael Ray

Don't you think," said Father Rothschild gently, "that perhaps it is all in some way historical? I don't think people ever want to lose their faith either in religion or anything else. I know very few young people, but it seems to me that they are all possessed with an almost fatal hunger for permanence. I think all these divorces show that. People aren't content just to muddle along nowadays ... And this word "bogus" they all use ... They won't make the best of a bad job nowadays. My private schoolmaster used to say, "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well." My Church has taught that in different words for several centuries. But these young people have got hold of another end of the stick, and for all we know it may be the right one. They say, "If a thing's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all." It makes everything very difficult for them. — Evelyn Waugh

If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it's not politics - and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy - but I look at politicians as, they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, 'That's what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?' But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, 'Bad monkey. — Jon Stewart

When things go bad, it's easy to point fingers. People who attempt to switch the blame are afraid to fail. We've all been afraid to fail before a game, but it shouldn't stop us from continuing, and from doing what we have to do to get the job done. — John Elway

Bad habits were all a matter of perspective, and as long as the present was viewed through the lens of the past, anyone would say he was doing a spectacular job. — Ann Patchett

From the moment we are diagnosed with any type of diabetes, we begin a part of our lives in which we are constantly graded. Constantly tested. Constantly told whether we're doing a great job, a good job, an okay job, or a really bad job based on the numbers that show up on our glucose meter and A1C test. We are graded on what we eat or on how often we exercise. Whether we check our blood sugar regularly or rarely, and somewhere in our heads we can't help but tell ourselves that we're "good" or "bad" based entirely on how well we are able to accomplish this neverending to-do list throughout every single day. And that is exhausting. — Ginger Vieira

There's no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. — Ayn Rand

You couldn't pay me enough to be a law enforcement officer. Their job is a tough job. You have to solve people's problems, you have to baby-sit people, you have to always be doing this cat-and-mouse game with the bad guys. My respect for them is immense. — Christopher Meloni

If a hungry lion suddenly appeared, you'd be terrified. So terrified you'd probably run away. Great, fear's doing its job. But you might get so afraid that you lock up and can't move. This would be very bad. Guilt's the same. It can prevent you from fixing the situation, make you feel so bad you can't function at 100% and even lead to more guilt-provoking bad behavior. — David D. Burns

Don't whine. Don't complain. And don't check out. Make the most of the situation. Do little things like they are big things. Keep a good attitude. And faithfully carry out your current obligations. If your job isn't exciting, then bring some excitement to the job. One of the greatest acts of worship is keeping a good attitude in a bad situation. And doing a good job at a bad job honors God. It will also open doors of opportunity down the road. It did for Nehemiah. — Mark Batterson

You're probably wondering why there's never any good news.
I mean, I've been doing this job a few months now. I've been soaking up the paper every week, same as you, and watching the same newsfeeds as you. I got the same list burned into the front of my head as you. Death. Horror. Bad sex. Living nightmares. Each day a little further down the spiral.
There's never any good news because they know you.
I mean, here's the top of today's column that I discarded: I had a really good time last night down the bar with my assistant and some cheerfully doomed sex fiends of our acquaintance.
No one ever sold newspapers by telling you the truth; life just ain't that bad. — Warren Ellis

At a certain point in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. This isn't always the case, but from experience I'd say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn't the messenger's fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality. — Haruki Murakami

We had a strict routine that nothing could change: we'd get up at six, and it would be my job or Meinhard's to get milk from the farm door. When w were a little older and starting to play sports, exercises were added to the chores, and we had to earn our breakfast by doing sit-ups. In the afternoon, we'd finish our homework and chores, and my father would make us practice soccer no matter how bad the weather was. — Arnold Schwarzenegger