A dose of the real world..

[rayinpenn]

Disclosure: You might only appreciate this if you are a parent or if the things adolescents do makes you chuckle.

So the daughter landed an interesting internship with the Navy and it started this Monday. Unfortunately it is 3 hours away and the permanent housing wouldn't be ready for a couple of days... Her adventure begins: (Keep in mind she talks to wife often so I her the running commentary- No complaints mind you because were it my son we wouldn't her anything until he pulled back in the driveway weeks later)
- She left promptly at 3 on Sunday and of course took a ten minute detour because of the wrong turn. Easy to happen because the Nav hasn't keep up with the roads..
- At 6PM when the Nav said she 6 minutes away from her destination she got stuck behind an accident and bottleneck for 1.5 hours..
- finally she called and said she made it to the hotel.
- At 11:00PM I was in bed for an hour when she told my wife "I found a bug on the bed." I thought Sweet Moses her we go.. then I hear the wife say "Talk to your father..". I give her a five minute dissertation on bed bugs... I have been a bit of an business traveler in years past.

Now the fun begins (at least in my eyes) she received an email the week before that she needed to be at the job at 7:05 AM for check in. Remember many of these college kids think a 9AM class is a sacrifice.

The internship has been pretty impressive so far - "the people have been super nice" my daughters only complaint getting up early to be at the job at 8AM. I had a belly laugh and thought To myself:

Don't worry baby you get used to it over the next 30 years. If you LBYM it could be as little as 20 years..


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[ls99]

She is getting a good "character building" practice. Maybe they will let her practice graveyard shift too for extra credit.

 

[JoeWras]

The internship has been pretty impressive so far - "the people have been super nice" my daughters only complaint getting up early to be at the job at 8AM. I had a belly laugh and thought To myself:

Don't worry baby you get used to it over the next 30 years. If you LBYM it could be as little as 20 years..

The young 'uns at Megacorp seem to work college hours. It ticks me off, but they just roll them eyes.

OMY, OMY, OMY.

 

[FUEGO]

Not gonna lie, showing up to work at 8 am would suck. Glad I had employers that were okay with me showing up at 9 ish. Okay, it was supposed to be 8:30 at the government job but tended to be more like 9 am some days if I had kid stuff going on before work.

And I'm glad I only had to work for 10 years instead of the more traditional 30+ year career. I still have to get up early-ish to get the kids to school by 8:30 but the commute is 10 minutes on foot and 90% of the year the weather is decent.

 

[JoeWras]

Part of it is cultural habits from college. The kids put in a lot of time -- at 1AM.

I'm not a 1AM person. And I believe it is unreasonable to stay up until 11PM or midnight to wait to answer an email. They consider it normal because, "I was watching <Insert Late Nite Comic Here> anyway."

So, they work until 1AM, then can't get to work until 11AM.

But those are not my hours! Get off my lawn!

 

[Walt34]

Isn't the Navy a pretty much 24/7 operation? Wait 'till they want her to show up at 10:00 PM and stay until 2:00 PM the next day.

That will be a reality check.

 

[Gumby]

When I went to law school, I was 30 years old and a Navy veteran. I commuted to school from several towns away and always went in at 7:00 am. Most of my classmates were 21 or 22 years old and fresh out of college. They lived in the dorm, which was literally the same building as the classrooms. Many of them could not possibly take an 8:45 am class, because they could not get out of bed and walk 500 feet to get there in time.

 

[gayl]

LOL the only one with an issue is 36? Yeah. Worked for gov't and expected to start at 7 and go until 4:30 on call 24/7

 

[FUEGO]

LOL the only one with an issue is 36? Yeah. Worked for gov't and expected to start at 7 and go until 4:30 on call 24/7

I mean I have zero problems working 24 hours straight, answering emails on weekends, being on call, showing up at a construction site at midnight because that's the only time I let the contractors shut the road down, or any other crazy demand.

The "hey, show up at 8 am because once a year the boss's boss might do a quick walk through and it makes the boss look bad when half the offices are empty at 8:15". Verbatim from my former manager. Uhhh, no thanks, I don't feel like rearranging my daily schedule by 30 minutes and introducing very significant expense and headaches (not to mention deal with way worse traffic 30 minutes earlier).

Of course my attitude might explain why I was eventually fired. And FIREd!

I guess I'm more comfortable being responsible for completing actual projects and important objectives instead of sitting mindlessly in a seat at 8:15 am. Many government coworkers excelled at sitting mindlessly in a seat at 8:15 am but that was the extent of their excellence.

 

[gayl]

Hey, no offense meant. I was a director and always had more complaint cases then I could handle. My son (also 30s) can't see the logic in showing up at 7 either

 

[HFWR]

The "real world" is highly overrated...

 

[FUEGO]

Hey, no offense meant. I was a director and always had more complaint cases then I could handle. My son (also 30s) can't see the logic in showing up at 7 either

Show up at 7? Who even wakes up that early?

 

[SumDay]

As a parent, I can totally relate. My youngest "consults" us on everything, and I do mean everything. He tells us stuff we'd never have shared with our parents. The oldest checks in about every other month. Your girl will get the hang of it - it's good she's got sensible, level-headed folks to turn to. Hopefully, not for everything.

 

[Dash man]

Everyone should serve in the military so they can learn how to show up on time for your job. Those 4:00 am report times training flights one week followed by 6:00 pm report times the next week would really mess with your body. But fail to show and meeting with your commander to explain is a priceless lesson!


Enjoying life!

 

[REWahoo]

Everyone should serve in the military so they can learn how to show up on time for your job. Those 4:00 am report times training flights one week followed by 6:00 pm report times the next week would really mess with your body. But fail to show and meeting with your commander to explain is a priceless lesson!

+1

I'll always remember when I was a young 1Lt being [-]asked[/-] told to sub in at the last minute for a late-night flight from FL to NY and back after flying a desk all day. We returned just prior to dawn and I went home (base housing) to shower and change my uniform. I made the big mistake of sitting down to rest for a minute before heading back to work.

By the time I woke up and made it in to the HQ building I was almost an hour late. My 'old school' commanding officer ripped me a new one.