Resistance to hard work - vent - question

[rayinpenn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by workburnout Is it just my perception - or has there been an increase the past few years in people not valuing hard work and building a career, saving and investing, not over-spending and basically doing what it takes to ensure a successful retirement later on?.

workburout you run with the wrong crowd.
I want to share a secret with you... You get it. Plenty of young people still get it. I work with them 4 days a week and most are very hard working. My younger colleagues went through a pretty rigorous interview process to get hired. We only recruit from certain colleagues and you’ll need a B+ average to even get an interview. Yes even amongst the cream there are those that have not figured it out, but will eventually (I was one) and there are sadly too many of those that will never figure it out.

Even for my educated colleagues It starts with the little things: They built a beautiful Starbucks on the first floor of my building. I think the cheapest cup of coffee is around $2.50. I had it once when it was raining too hard to walk to Dunkin. It very trendy to sit ,chat and have a $4 cup of chocolate mocha java and with a $4 blueberry muffin. (I can means for that scene but a life time of thrift will make that coffee bitter - plus all that darn sugar). I discovered with an Artic travel mug (the Yeti was to pricey) I can walk into the office with warm cup of coffee that the Mrs. buys on sale. Maybe it cost me 30 cents. My mind says $4, 5 days a week for 48 weeks a year is roughly a grand a year. Over the next 20 years if they throw it into the market that averages 8% they’ll have a $45,000 nest egg. It all takes discipline, time and a plan. Yeah its just a cup of coffee and not a problem if you are doing everything else right - but how many are?

A 40 year old colleague of mine came into a modest inheritance and asked for advise on how to invest. I sit next to him and he’s heard my vocal enthusiasm for investing. I took him through the process of opening a brokerage account then I reluctantly picked some low cost dividend ETFs. He told me a few days ago “I told my wife its up $18,000... can that be right?” “Yes Joe it is right.” We’ve had the whole conversation about long term money and inevitable market dips .. My hope is it registered. But for a guy with a business degree I have to ask myself how do you know so little?

My point in all this is
1. Someone had to tell you (e.g. parents, instructor, Dave Ramsey) or you had to read it and it had to stick.
2. You have to have the discipline to act on it
3. You have to recognize that working hard isn’t enough you have to work and live smart. By living smart I mean abstaining from the ‘bling’.
Oh and how easy it is to fall under the spell of bling. Stuff oh how I hate it but thats another rant.

Yeah the future managing directors will find every excuse to work until the middle of the night. The really smart ones will find balance, LBYM build a good bye pile and be exceedily happy.

Im pretty sure my ‘bring my lunch’ daughter’s got it. I helped her do her first electronic trade into a short term fund on Friday. I bought her a couple of books on investing that posters on this forum suggested.

Remember I said you have to learn it from someone. I told the son 3.2 GPA or I yank him from college and he can go to the Local Penn State. I explained lower than that and you wont even get an interview.
It is a hard cruel world out there...

[TimeMeasure]

Quote:

Originally Posted by frayne I think it is just your perception. There will always be lazy people and those who try to game the system, nothing new there. From my vantage point, most people I know are good honest and hard working folks doing the best they can.

Subjectively, this is my sense as well. But I’m keenly aware that there are limits to our knowledge. We only know what we’ve come in contact with. It would be interesting if there were a reliable way of measuring the actual prevalence of attitudes in one generation vs. others.

But I would add this:

Almost everyone in the general population is aware that money is a limited resource. In this forum, many people have realized that time is also a limited resource, that life is finite, and that it’s worth planning for being able to spend some of that time with as much freedom and self-determination as possible.

But attention, consciousness if you will, is also a limited resource. In a given day, a third or so is spent on sleep. More hours are spent focusing one’s attention on necessary details of daily life: cooking, eating, shopping, etc. Even if one is retired, the number of hours, or minutes, in which one can focus one’s attention on purely discretionary matters, is limited, and it is also a choice. How one chooses influences the quality of one’s life. There will always be annoyances, but trying to minimize the amount of attention one devotes to resenting annoyances, and maximizing the attention one devotes to what is good, can improve the quality of one’s limited lifespan.

Easier said than done. Am just as irritated as anyone by matters over which, realistically, there is no control. But in the background, as a kind of lodestone, are the closing words of Candide: Let us cultivate our garden.

[Aerides]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thefamilytruckster There's a chasm full of high quality disenfranchised people that simply don't have the resources to get anything remotely resembling financial independence. Good grades in college doesn't cut it anymore. You also need some good luck or access to an outside influence to end up in an rewarding career track. Maybe it was always this way, but the competition in post-college career tracks is getting crowded. Last time I interviewed for an engineer, we had a pool of over 50 highly qualified candidates for one $35k entry-level job.

EXACTLY! The environment in which most of us started or even finished careers, is vastly different today than it was even just 20 years ago. And all those 50 candidates have thousands in student loans because college is 35k per year. Non-college starting jobs are competitive for $10-$12 (I started at $8 in 1990, that should be $15 today - it's not even close, and that job is no longer in the US, offshored a decade ago).

Still think they are whining? They were raised by us, or our children, so it didn't come from nowhere...

[Maenad]

I have found no method to turn a slacker into a hard worker if they don't want to. I have had to work with a couple of those slackers when they've been forced to get a job for one reason or another, and it's torture.

I'd honestly rather have my taxes go to support them - then I don't actually have to interact with them on a daily basis.

[joeea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby I am wryly amused by rants about others not working hard on a forum devoted to the prospect of not working at all.

LOL!

[John Galt III]

OP, I think it's been that way since the 70's. Welfare participant driving the brand new SUV, etc. Disability scams all over the place. Running up credit card debt and defaulting, preplanned. And on and on and on. ...sigh....

[calmloki]

I rent inexpensive housing and have for decades. Was renting 53 units at the top. I have yet to rent to the mythical Lexus driving welfare recipient. They just don't seem to be among the applicants for our places. I have never felt any jealousy for the lives of my tenants.

[John Galt III]

I think there are still pockets of people in the U.S. whose ethics prevent them from abusing the social benefits system. Among some poor communities there is still a big stigma to being on any welfare program.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki I rent inexpensive housing and have for decades. Was renting 53 units at the top. I have yet to rent to the mythical Lexus driving welfare recipient. They just don't seem to be among the applicants for our places. I have never felt any jealousy for the lives of my tenants.

+1
Never seen one either. I see more people w*rking multiple jobs, living with multiple roommates.

Perhaps we see what we expect to see?

At one time in my life I worked with a bunch of folks who were one step above homeless(some were homeless). They didn't drive nice cars, have credit or anything else. They were people who tried and lacked some skills, some life handed a bad deal to.

I recall one guy who didn't have the mental capacity to move a board from one pile to another. It wasn't for lack of effort, the man was so upset by his inability to do the job, he stood there and lost his bladder. Yeah, there for both the grace of God goes me, or anyone here.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronnieboy My own daughter can't hold down job for longer than two weeks and gets food stamps, but is too lazy to listen to the educational program to get WIC food coupons. Some excuses I have been told?? We don't drink a lot of milk, we can't use that many eggs, we don't like the kind of cereal that you are allowed to get....WHAT?? are you freakin' serious??

That WIC stuff is pretty complicated. We were most likely eligible for a year or two once I quit working (the eligibility is pretty liberal if you have a kid under 5). ZERO chance I would ever spend all that time to get some tiny benefit. My much less wealthy brother in law came to the same conclusion and eventually gave up on the WIC program.

[Walt34]

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Originally Posted by Gumby I am wryly amused by rants about others not working hard on a forum devoted to the prospect of not working at all.

[frayne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MRG +1 Never seen one either. I see more people w*rking multiple jobs, living with multiple roommates. Perhaps we see what we expect to see? At one time in my life I worked with a bunch of folks who were one step above homeless(some were homeless). They didn't drive nice cars, have credit or anything else. They were people who tried and lacked some skills, some life handed a bad deal to. I recall one guy who didn't have the mental capacity to move a board from one pile to another. It wasn't for lack of effort, the man was so upset by his inability to do the job, he stood there and lost his bladder. Yeah, there for both the grace of God goes me, or anyone here.

+1

After I retired I worked for H&R Block and VITA doing taxes primarily for low income and elderly. I saw plenty of new iPhones, crazy tattoos, piercings and fingernail art but all of these folks had W2 income and were doing the best they could under some dire circumstances.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Galt III OP, I think it's been that way since the 70's. Welfare participant driving the brand new SUV, etc. Disability scams all over the place. Running up credit card debt and defaulting, preplanned. And on and on and on. ...sigh....

Not sure, from what I see my neighbors at 1 house think the disability scam is a much better way to live, or at least easier.

They have been disabled for at least 17 years, yet I would see them go off biking, and the wife has a beautiful flower garden, plus she mows the lawn more than I do. Both used to work for USPS but now just collect their disability checks.

They are down to 1 vehicle as I guess a problem with disability scams or welfare, is unless you are also willing to work, you won't get rich.

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rayinpenn ....... A 40 year old colleague of mine came into a modest inheritance and asked for advise on how to invest. I sit next to him and he’s heard my vocal enthusiasm for investing. I took him through the process of opening a brokerage account then I reluctantly picked some low cost dividend ETFs. He told me a few days ago “I told my wife its up $18,000... can that be right?” “Yes Joe it is right.” We’ve had the whole conversation about long term money and inevitable market dips .. My hope is it registered. But for a guy with a business degree I have to ask myself how do you know so little? Im pretty sure my ‘bring my lunch’ daughter’s got it. I helped her do her first electronic trade into a short term fund on Friday. I bought her a couple of books on investing that posters on this forum suggested. ......

What a gem you are !

I'm going to borrow this idea for our daughter, as I have talked with her about $$, but if I actually sit down with her, and help her set up a brokerage account, that will overcome some hesitations she may have.

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maenad I have found no method to turn a slacker into a hard worker if they don't want to...........

You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.

[aja8888]

Quote:

Originally Posted by calmloki I rent inexpensive housing and have for decades. Was renting 53 units at the top. I have yet to rent to the mythical Lexus driving welfare recipient. They just don't seem to be among the applicants for our places. I have never felt any jealousy for the lives of my tenants.

'They are all in Section 8 Housing complexes. My DW fee managed a few hundred units at one time. Free rent, and if you don't use up your utility allotment in dollars, you were cut a check for the difference.

[brett]

I see lots of young people working hard, striving to make it and move forward. There are always be some who have no ambition and will be takers for most of their lives. Same with my generation.

I think that every generation looks back and thinks the younger ones do not work as hard.

Alas, working hard is not enough any more. You have to work smart and work hard.

[Cobra9777]

This thread reminds me of a coworker/friend from my college days. She was a very hard worker and so I enjoyed working with her and we became friends. But she had obvious issues (anger, anxiety, self-esteem, depression, people issues). She never finished high school because she ran away from home at 16 to escape her father who had sexually abused her for many years. Confirmed later by her brother.

We stayed friends for probably 20 years after that, but she was slowly going down a self-destructive path with alcohol and drugs. Despite being a hard worker, she never held a job for very long. Had a few short-term relationships that never went anywhere.

After many years of trying, she finally found a doctor who signed off that she was unable to work due to mental disability. She gets something like $1100/mo and lives alone in a crap apartment. What she doesn't spend on rent mostly goes toward pills that the same doctor prescribes.

I permanently cut off the relationship 10 years ago when she started repeatedly asking for money. I felt bad about it but I knew it was for drugs. She is fundamentally a good, caring person. I honestly think she had been irreparably harmed as a child by what her father did... to the point she was never able to relate to people or learn how to function normally in society. I watched her try for decades but it was never going to work. I guess she is why we have safety nets.

I make a point not to judge people too harshly. You can never really know their circumstances. Usually we just see the surface and maybe a couple layers below that and then make assumptions. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite certain there are lazy people who game the system. People see my old friend and can assume whatever they want. That's fine. I see people like her and try my best to make no judgment at all.

[kcowan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rayinpenn Remember I said you have to learn it from someone. I told the son 3.2 GPA or I yank him from college and he can go to the Local Penn State. I explained lower than that and you wont even get an interview. It is a hard cruel world out there...

I took a different approach. Get the GPA and graduate and you get $5k towards the purchase of your first car. Then I helped them get the best value out of the $5K for another lesson.

[GravitySucks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumby I am wryly amused by rants about others not working hard on a forum devoted to the prospect of not working at all.

And a site where millionaires constantly discuss ACA assistance schemes also complain about food stamps and rental assistance programs.