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