Work motivation?

[Amethyst]

Summer of '73...I labored for 6 weeks as a telephone solicitor, cold-calling to try to generate leads for insurance salesmen. I was only 16 so of course my success rate was abominable--I sometimes wept at the way people treated me on the phone--and finally quit to avoid being fired. I did much better clerking in stores...chatting with people about things they actually *wanted* to buy!

Alan, 25 days a year is a darn good vacation...I worked for the Govt for 15 years before I qualified for 25 days.

-Amethyst

 

[Westernskies]

I worked my way thru college, starvation and the fear of failure were powerful motivators...

 

[Alan]

Hey Alan! that summer of ´73 I did a 10 day touring of South/Southeast England. It was a year after I finished my Law degree. By then I already knew that I wouldn´t like being a lawyer or anything to do with legal work. Which I did for 30 years..... So you can´t imagine how happy I was when my Company forcefully ERed me in 2005 with a very nice compensation and pension....

I don't suppose you went to the FA Cup final at Wembley that summer? My home town, Sunderland, beat Leeds to become the first team from outside the top division to win it since before WWII

 

[Walt34]

Husband says he was not motivated to go to college after high school. It did not occur to him not to work; he would have been ashamed to "sponge off" his mother. So, he lived with her and bounced from one low-level, awful job to another until he was almost 20, realized this really WAS all there was to look forward to, then asked his mom for money to go to the state U - which fortunately, she was able to provide. He loved college, got straight A's, and worked summers at a seaside hotel, which he also enjoyed. He says the keys to his motivation were a) despair at his job prospects without a degree and b) his brain just "grew up" between 18 and 20.

-Amethyst

That's about where I was. Not being sure of what to do I took a sort of "working sabbatical" unloading trucks at a department store, which was better than the gas station because it was inside. Decided to go to the community college and went back to gas station work during college. One of the great motivators to stay in school was that I was an evening shift supervisor at 19 and one of the people I supervised was 50 years old - ancient at the time.

I did NOT want to make a career of working in a gas station!

 

[vicente solano]

I don't suppose you went to the FA Cup final at Wembley that summer? My home town, Sunderland, beat Leeds to become the first team from outside the top division to win it since before WWII

No Alan, I didn´t. it was all walk walk walk ......and fish and chips.

 

[Westernskies]

That's about where I was. Not being sure of what to do I took a sort of "working sabbatical" unloading trucks at a department store, which was better than the gas station because it was inside. Decided to go to the community college and went back to gas station work during college. One of the great motivators to stay in school was that I was an evening shift supervisor at 19 and one of the people I supervised was 50 years old - ancient at the time.

I did NOT want to make a career of working in a gas station!

Walt, I paid for most of my college by working in a busy gas station in KC in the late 1970's- had a great boss who put me to work every summer, over college breaks, even when I was home from school and just wanted to work a weekend here and there. I pumped gas, did tire repairs, light mechanical, drove the tow truck, and handled service callouts. I enjoyed the hands-on work, learned a lot about running a business and dealing with people, but completely understand what you mean about looking at your co-workers and deciding you didn't want that as a career... When I graduated, my boss said that he'd "never had a nozzle jockey go to college before", gave me a really nice $$$ graduation gift, and then told me I needed to get a real job as as far away from the station as I could... I did and never went back.

Wouldn't trade the experience for a full ride scholarship...

 

[FUEGO]

I made a bunch doing hard labor 55-60 hrs a week during HS summer. Sun up to sun down. Rodman on a private land surveyor crew. Slogging through swamps, briers, creeks, poison ivy, up and down hills, cutting lines through the trees, bush, weeds, etc. Hauling the supply bag, metal detector, pick axe, etc. Frequent 95-100 degree days with humidity over 90%. Drink 3 gallons of water a day and still get dehydrated.

Received time and a half pay for the overtime, so I was making a fortune for a 16 year old. That gave me plenty of spending money for the summer and lots of cash in the bank for college. But no way would I want to do that type work forever.

 

[Nords]

But no way would I want to do that type work forever.

A lot of people join the military because they're tired of sitting in schools. But then they'd "learn" that sea duty is a great motivator to focus officers & sailors on getting their degree before their next sea duty...

 

[Buckeye]

They seem to have disappeared. (Does U of Cincinnati still do a EE co-op degree like my father got in 1956?) Maybe kids didn't want to go to them because they're "too hard"? Out of the thousands of pieces of college engineering e-mail that've come through our mailbox in the last few years, I only remember one or two.

I don't think you can graduate from UC with an engineering degree without doing several co-op stints.

 

[Amethyst]

That's about where I was. Not being sure of what to do I took a sort of "working sabbatical" unloading trucks at a department store, which was better than the gas station because it was inside. Decided to go to the community college and went back to gas station work during college. One of the great motivators to stay in school was that I was an evening shift supervisor at 19 and one of the people I supervised was 50 years old - ancient at the time.

I did NOT want to make a career of working in a gas station!

Sounds like my husband...his longest-lasting job (before the Fed career that he landed after college) was working in a warehouse, loading crates of linoleum and glass - incredibly heavy stuff - on and off trucks. The warehouse manager wanted to "groom" him to take over after the manager retired. Husband was smart enough not to say what he thought of that idea

If I'd been around, though, I would've given something to see Mr. Amethyst, stripped, after a few weeks of hauling those crates of lino and windows around Also, the job did teach him proper lifting/carrying technique.

Amethyst