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Work Sucks!

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JippiJ:
Haha suffering from a similar fate as most I too am trapped in the ever revolving world of office boredom.

But I have found a way to make the whole thing taste a little better. I remind myself that as long as the box's are ticked I will receive my wage. So if I have to be int he office 9 hours every day and I have say 100 units of work to do in any given week, I can pretty much portion it out in a very similar manner to what your sign suggests Mick. Now the skill and enjoyment comes from filling the say 88% of time left on a Monday whilst ensuring that I look busy!

Answer = MCF, e-books, other forums, digg.com, bbc.co.uk/news, hunting related sites

When my company introduced mandatory data tracker type things on our PCs to ensure we are not looking at ***** at work... Hello I-Phone!

Where there is a will theres a Jip W==(:D)==

misfitguy:

This thread was started by User Name and ever since he told us about his successful audition, we haven't heard a thing from him.  He is probably one of the new famous rock stars that I turn off.  I have had mindless jobs, but never for very long.  The longest I ever worked for somebody else was a little over 5 years.  This job, meaning our business, is the longest I have ever accomplished.  I started this in 1994, Sass joined me in 1998 and we are still chugging along.  One of the keys to our business, is we make sure we don't grow to big.  This business allows us to live our life as we like to.  It pays the bills and allows us about 280 days a year for us to do what we like to do.  Sometimes that is nothing and when you can sit around doing nothing with no worries about housing, food, etc, that is a sort of richness many individuals will never experience, no matter how much money they make.

Years ago, we were in a cash crunch and Sassafras was kind of wondering if maybe we should be doing something different like get back on the "employee" wheel.  I asked her what TGIF meant to her.  She said nothing, since many times we are setting up our show on a Friday.  I asked her what, "saving up for a vacation meant to her,"  and she said, again, nothing since we kind of live a vacation.  I said, "Exactly!".  We really don't have it too bad.  I realize that most people could never live like we do and I am happy we are one of the few that can.  I will say, though, that most people do not have to be tied to mindless employment.  There are so many alternatives to making enough money to survive.  I once met a guy that fixed gauges.  He bought the business from somebody else.  He simply fixed dial gauges for industry.  Unbelievable. 

In Arizona, we'll be picking stones up off the ground, putting them in boxes and selling them to people that don't realize they too could look down and pick these same stones up.  In Florida, once, a vendor next to us was selling sharks teeth.  The market we were in had just had a layer of river gravel spread and he noticed a lot of sharks teeth in the grave.  So he would pick them up and put them on the table and sell them for a dollar.  After he collected more of them, he sorted them out by size and had different prices for them.  We went to that market for about a month and Bill would walk up and down the aisles picking up sharks teeth.  It makes me smile. Bill said these items became on of his best sellers and he traced down where the gravel came from and where it was being dumped and he and his wife had collected hundreds of teeth over the past weeks. 

I suspect if "work sucks", then "life sucks" for that individual.  What a horrible existence.

Mick

JippiJ:
I think I have a similar attitude though apodt a different method for trucking through work related subjects.

I have some very keen ideas for how I will spend my days "working" ina  few years. At the moment I have a young family and many, many dogs to feed so it suits me to spend my 9-5's in a suit and working a job that is not overly rewarding but is serving as a means to an end. I am happy to go on a Monday but also happy to think TGIF which i think is the balance I am happy with for the time being.

I do agree that everyone should strive to be able to combine the things they love with making a little money but more often than not I thin people should just take a minute to think about the things they think they want. Often we strive for more money, bigger houses, more stuff etc. But the big house, two cars, swimming pool and latest electronic gadgetry usually isn't what makes us happy it just shows us what we can afford.

For me, money has always been something I have sought to pay for the things I need rather than looked to line my walls with. As the balance of life changes with age I hope that my requirement for money reduces in-line with my apathy for working for others. That way I will know exactly when it is time to say enough is enough and start my plan of working for myself. Though it won't bring in mega bucks I am hoping it will support my modest lifestyle as after all that is all I need to make me happy.

I think earlier on in this topic someone put a figure of around 5/7 of your life being work. Maybe if we can adjust the way we see work then its not a loss but rather a portion of our life that we can feel good about along with the other 2/7 whatever that may be. Just a thought.

Mick and Sass, you guys definitely are in an enviable position. Not so much because of the way you live or the fact that you only work so few days but rather that you are happy with all 7/7's of your life together. Thats a great thing to achieve.

Jip

Smokebender:
I know people that think they are what they do. They have forgotten who they were. I find this sad.

misfitguy:
Jip,

I too think we are in an enviable position.  Sass and I have been together 24/7 since July 8th, 1998 and still loving it.  There was two weeks in September of 1998 I was in York, PA and Myrtle Beach, SC without Sass, since she was attending classes in college, but that is the only time we have been separated. 

I thought I would mention that the key to me being able to live as we do was careful planning.  I decided that I wanted to do something like I am doing in the late 1980's.  I also decided that to do it, I couldn't have any debt.  I used the time from 1988 to 1994 to pay off all debt and build up stock before I walked away from my job.  Since that time, the only debt I have incurred is for medical things.  All of my vehicles have been paid for with cash.  All of our stock have been paid for with cash up front.  We don't have a credit card.  We tried to, once, but found we were always paying late fees, simply because we traveled and missed payment dates.  I love the debit card. 

We also don't let the little things get us down.  Yesterday, we were at a Wal-Mart in Big Rapids, Michigan, about 200 miles from our house.  I walked through a rainstorm to the van to get it so I could pick up Sass and it wouldn't start.  We waited out the storm and Sass got a gentleman to jump us and it didn't help.  I started to trace wires and found loose wires on our solenoid and a broken ground wire.  I tightened, put a new wire end on the ground wire and it started.  We then went for breakfast and when we came out of the restaurant, the van wouldn't start again.  I crawled under the van, crossed the posts on the starter and manually started the engine.  Then we drove home without turning the van off.  Today, I will take it to a repair shop to get this problem fixed.  The point of the story is that neither Sass nor I ever got upset over the car problems.  A long time ago, we decided these sort of events were simply just part of our journey.  This is probably the key to our being able to do what we do and enjoying it.  We are on a journey, recognize our life as such and enjoy not knowing what is going to unfold tomorrow but are looking forward to it.

Smoke, many of these people never found out who they were.  When I first met Sass, she was 22 and I was 50.  I remember her telling me what she wanted to be as most young people do.  I told her that day, the most important thing she could do for herself is figure out who she was and then what she would become would simply happen.  She actually pondered this and has repeated it to me and others over the years.  Both of us still look forward to what we will become when we grow up.

Mick

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