Working Hard?

[aksteelhead]

I am FIREing in October 2018 on my 50th birthday. Nine years in the military and twenty years as an Air Traffic Controller. The military required very hard work and long days, but they were few and far between, most of the time we just goofed off. There were a few months after leaving the military when I tried over the road truck driving. That was a miserable mind numbing job so I quit. Controlling air traffic has been easy considering my location, so I've only worked hard for maybe a year. It seems to me that the harder I worked the less salary I received.

[H2ODude]

Left "physically hard" work behind at 21 after working unloading boxcars at a grocery warehouse in New Orleans. Wouldn't call it "hard" work but later career included such joy as permitting a landfill, a 10 year construction lawsuit, and managing dwindling water supplies during a drought, knowing failure was greater than a 10% probability. Hard? No. Terribly unpleasant? Absolutely.

[redduck]

Quote:

Originally Posted by H2ODude ... Wouldn't call it "hard" work but later career included such joy as permitting a landfill, a 10 year construction lawsuit, and managing dwindling water supplies during a drought, knowing failure was greater than a 10% probability. Hard? No. Terribly unpleasant? Absolutely.

Yes. When I hear (or read) about jobs being hard or phrases like "my hard-earned money" I wonder, "what's so hard about that?" it sounds more like the job can be at times unpleasant or terribly unpleasant--unless we are talking about strenuous physical labor often under terribly unpleasant conditions. There was nothing hard about my job (and, I was well-paid), but it certainly had its unpleasant aspects. But, even when I was dealing with the unpleasant aspects, I was always sitting in a comfortable chair.

[Luck_Club]

Reading this list reminds me I've been working hard since a very young age.

Getting up at 5:00 AM to deliver morning papers in the middle of a frigid Cleveland winter was extremely tough given I was in the 7th grade. Unloading fishing boats with the prison work release candidates was also extremely harsh in cold New England weather. Only 1 time did someone back me against a wall and put a knife to my throat. Working as a door to door salesman and various telemarketing jobs on straight commission in South Florida while fully supporting myself and funding an education, was the beginning of stress induced hard work, and a live below your means attitude.

For the last 20+ years and until the fall of 2019, being a self employed straight commission manufacturers rep, has left me oblivious to office politics, so that is easy. However, living with the knowledge that for any reason, and it has happened a few times, 30 days from now my earnings can go to zero, is like eating railroad spikes hard.

[ikubak]

I used to have a hard job, along with chest pains, headaches, and a short temper. Almost 4 years ago I downsized my job and have felt much better with the easy job.

I was just thinking on the way back from lunch, when I retire, the start of my day will be very similar to what it is now....get a cup of coffee, read the news for a couple of hours and then think about getting something done for the day.

[Scuba]

I always found office politics to be the most draining aspect of my C-level corporate job. Long hours, commute, travel also hard but it was certainly much easier than a physically demanding job or a job where lives are at stake such as an ER doctor, police officer or air traffic controller.

[tn3sport]

Worked my way through college as kitchen crew for a restaurant chain was hard. Usually finished at 1am to 2am and headed for the bars and bottle clubs. Getting up the next days for class was hard, but somehow I managed to get a degree.
Benefits in that job were the people I got to know. Restaurants are a transient business in big cities. I must of seen a 1,000 peers come and go in that period of my life. People I'll likely never see again. Benefits were banging the occasional waitress or hostess. Or, where they using me for the same reason Who knows, who cares. It was 30 years ago. One observation I made is that I never met a single, not a single couple that stayed married in that business. You put that many young people into a close-knit environment and things happen... I'll say it again, I've never met a restaurant manager that stayed married. I know everyone can site the exception of the corner bistro where the little old couple has been married for decades, but not what I observed. This was big business institutional restaurants (Pillsbury owned restaurants).

It was long hours on your feet and often working hung over next to a person you had a 24 hour relationship with. There was no internship at daddy's lawfirm option for me.

The hard work was a motivator to finish school. Engineering degree and job offer before graduation. Took it, and never looked back.

In hindsight, I wouldn't change anything about it.

[Steve40th]

Military, submarine lifestyle was very demanding work. Didnt realize till I got out after 20 plus years. I am now contracting for work on submarines, ships etc... This job is more physically demanding due being a little older and more labor.
So, what is becoming Hard in working is looking for work, that isnt so physically demanding at almost 50.. Still need to pay a little portion of my bills retirement doesnt pay...

[GravitySucks]

It was cushy as hell at the end.
The start not so much. Four days a week during summers from 7 th grade to high school grade hanging and sanding Sheetrock. Then one year hanging Sheetrock got me an idea that college might be a good idea as the rust belt factories were all closing down here.
Got a evening and night job as a building maintenance guy in a nursing home. Emotionally draining as you watch so many suffer and die, but it let me go to Community College in the days and some down hours for homework.
Then I picked up a job with a telecom interconnect, that was interesting most of the time, but often involved pulling cables in crawl spaces with snakes and dead rodents. Could be a bit disgusting.
Then at 30 I got the megacorp Union gig. Easy Peasey but lots of hours as I was an overtime whore. They payed for the rest of my bachelors and masters degrees and that lead to some nice promotions. Stressful and lots of night and weekend on calls but really a sweet gig at the end.
Would have stayed longer if life didn't decide to show me what mortality was all about.

[Blue Collar Guy]

2 years in the army, i considered it hard work and long days, 26 years as a cop walking a beat , the bad guys got faster, punched harder, and seemed to get meaner as i got older, yeah it was hard for me, , my son works on wall street makes mid 6 figures(only in my dreams can people make that), tells me at 35 maybe 36 he will retire 2 years from now,he says he works hard, we have different definitions of hard work