Many want a pleasant work/life balance.
Whats your opinion on people who work everyday?
- Thread starter The motor guy
- Start date
My grandfathers both worked almost every day. Both lived a long time. But they worked at their own pace, I can definitely see why heavy manual labor every day, not paced could be really hard on the human body. A lot of old time work was not even close to ergonomic.
I appreciate your advice - and it is good advice.
When I was working two jobs (which was a couple of decades), the second job (Navy Reserve) didn’t always come with much of a paycheck. I got a bit for drill weekend, but there was an opportunity cost from my airline job. Worse, when I was active duty Navy, I got paid zero for being the commanding officer of a Reserve unit, and it was a lot of work.
But I was investing in myself. Hard work, uncompensated hard work, led to promotion and better assignments. It also led to a better pension at a higher rank, with more time in the benefit calculation. Those experiences also built a resume that had great value in certain areas.
An investment in myself.
That said, the reason I worked two paid jobs at the airline, and picked every bit of extra flying I could, was for the money.
I needed the money to pay for college. For 14 years, we had between one, and four, children in college and we had a commitment to pay for it, without loans, for each of them. My wife and I both worked two jobs each. Four family careers, four paychecks. It was grueling. A day in/ day out grind that was hard to manage.
But that was an investment in our children.
I think the latter investment is even better than the former.
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There are times when that pleasant balance is a luxury. We had to choose between work life balance, and the commitment to our children.
We gutted out the hard years, and got all six kids through college without debt.
That commitment was more important to us than our own luxury. Our youngest graduated in 2022.
Now, we can throttle way back. My wife retires this month. I am taking it easy.
Which is more important to people - their comfort? Or the success of their children?
Working everyday has no meaning. Complete respect for those who work every day.
Some folks believe in building generational wealth and some do not. It goes pretty deep and beyond the scope of BITOG's purview.
Some people enjoy what some call work. It's a passion not any different than like a hobby. They dont feel like they are working, they enjoy what they do and having money rolling in doing it. For these people it's not about the money, it's about enjoyment.
An example - Young man with wife and young children invents and patents some products that greatly fill a purpose in a national, heck global way. He is having a great time, now expanded his products nation wide, he doesnt need to work but his passion and fulfillment of of coming up with this idea, bringing it to market and making money like an ordinary American dreams about is the American dream.
Nicest people in the world and you would love to have as a neighbor. The kind of people who would help anyone, easy going who both worked pretty ordinary jobs that they liked and then he came up with this idea and had the passion to bring it to market. He doesnt considered this work.
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Astro, huge kudos to you and others (@Trav comes to mind) that worked hard to put their children through school. On one hand I can say no one paid for my education, but that is not true; my companies paid for the vast majority and importantly gave me time to do what I needed to do to keep up.
You were far smarter than me, because I went back to college for the millionth time at 29; things got much better when I got sober at 33 after my 3rd drunk driving conviction. I made so many mistakes. Graduated at 40 with a Degree in High Tech Business, minors in Econ and Computer Science. Late bloomer puts it mildly... I do not recommend following my path, but don't ever say you can't do something.
I have no children of my own, but let's just say I am committed to walk the walk with family and friends in their life efforts. Education saved my bacon, which is why I believe in, "invest in yourself". It opens a lot of doors... That's my experience.
I feel like working a lot for yourself is much different than working a lot for someone else.
To me one feels like fixing up your own house while the other feels like fixing up your landlord's house for minimal compensation.
Of course this varies for each person and based upon pay structure, also.
Most who do would prefer not to. When we had 4 young kids I would work a month straight sometimes. I didn't want to but you do what you need to. I had 2 jobs for 15 years. The wealth disparity in this country is sickening but that's another topic.
Many people at my place of work try to work 10 hour days and weekends. Why? Is it because it pays time-and-a-half on Saturday and double time on Sunday? Sure. But it's really a shame because more than a few of these people do it for reasons less than admirable. I work as little overtime as possible. I want to enjoy my life and my time off. I have no kids to support and my vehicles are paid for.....so why bother?
Well said, been there and more, never regretted any of it.
No, not really.
If you lived to age 60 statistics say you will live another 20 years
They are factual data.
If you live to age 65 for a male, you can expect to live to 82
I think what you were confusing is from actual birth. A male at year 0 can be expected on average to live to live 73 years.
The table below shows how it works the longer you live means others have passed away before you so age 60 since those others have already died off you can expect to live another 20 years and that at 65 another 22 years
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SammyChevelleTypeS3
$50 site donor 2023
I worked with a guy who was really a close friend. Almost a brother to me. We worked together so well others would complain to our boss that we were having too much fun! Anyway. He was a work-a-holic who would hang by his phone on days off and would never turn down a double shift or call out overtime. He worked more than he was off. What did he accomplish. He passed away in his sleep at age 60 and left a massive 401k for the wife and kids. He barley ever enjoyed what he earned. I miss him every day but feel sorry for him.
I also admire a strong work ethic.
I have some Filipino friends that came to the USA with nothing, worked very hard for 20 years and now living the American Dream. No food stamps, welfare, SNAP or EBT……. nothing.
These folks have no problem working 6 days a week, zero complaints.
I have learned so much from our CA immigrants; Latinos, Filipinos, Vietnamese, etc. Around here we say you never met a Mexican who wasn't working or looking for work. My boss for many years was a drop dead gorgeous gal from the streets of Saigon. Came here on a boat sponsored by the Catholic Church with nothing. I am sure she's easily worth $50M today, maybe $100M. Hard nosed lady; I love her to death. She gave me a chance, pushed me hard, and rewarded me beyond any expectation.
"Whats your opinion on people who work everyday?"
I certainly know that I appreciate and respect farmers, a lifestyle that the majority don't have any idea of. Of course not literally every day, but the behind the scenes work when inclement weather prevents being out in the fields is monumental - infrastructure repair, maintenance, and replacement, record keeping of all sorts (book keeping, regulatory records, etc.), life-long education, family matters................ whoa, makes me dizzy.
I certainly know that I appreciate and respect farmers, a lifestyle that the majority don't have any idea of. Of course not literally every day, but the behind the scenes work when inclement weather prevents being out in the fields is monumental - infrastructure repair, maintenance, and replacement, record keeping of all sorts (book keeping, regulatory records, etc.), life-long education, family matters................ whoa, makes me dizzy.
@JeffKeryk
You guys are talking about my wife.
Came here 40 years ago fresh out of college in the Philippines, her entire family stayed in the Philippines.
Stayed in a Catholic dorm located in Manhattan .
She was 20 years old when she landed a job in Manhattan, which ultimately led to her becoming the operations manager.
She married, had a baby, when their child turned four years old, her husband abandoned both of them and left behind a mountain of debt unknown to her at the time.
She was clueless how much debt and woke up to a note one morning left on the kitchen table.
She kept going all through this total hell (and don’t use that word loosely)as she describes it, took charge cleared up all the debt while taking care of a four year-old girl, ultimately purchased her own home on Long Island, no child support and no help buying the home. Her family and life was devoted to her daughter.
Three years later, we met and began our journey as a family. We don’t refer to her daughter as my step daughter she is my daughter as my own children from my first marriage are. She knows I’m there for her and now as a young adult/successful business person and very proud of her.
Just for the record ultimately she has always stayed in touch with many friends from high school and college. It blows me away how accomplished and successful they are. I could name some names you would even recognize a company here in the United States with that person is a CEO
OK, so she’s sitting next to me as I put this in here, for her personally and we laugh as we say it she’s a 5 day work person!!!
However, when the chips are down as proven to keep things together for her young daughter. She’s a can-do person and will not cave to pressure.
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