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  #1  
Old 05-11-2007, 12:04 AM
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Had an odd thought today

I haven't worked a regular 8-5 kind of job for over 30 years. While I've worked long hours, the time and effort has almost always been under my control. Due to some unusual circumstances, I'm having to work 8-5 for a couple of weeks which I started doing yesterday.
This morning as I opened the door and walked out of the house, I was struck with a clear and distinct idea. If I had to face a future of a daily 8-5 grind, I would commit suicide. It wasn't a speculative thought or a wondering of how I would deal it with. It was the kind of decisive view of things that I rarely experience in life. In that moment, I knew exactly what people felt like when faced with the prospect of slavery, they committed suicide. It was as if a primitive drive for freedom broke thru the discipline of modern life, and forced itself upon my consciousness. Very interesting.

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  #2  
Old 05-11-2007, 05:46 AM
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It is a good thing everyone doesn't feel the way you do. I would say a majority of people look forward to the security of a 8 to 5 job. You call it slavery, but most people look at it as getting paid for what they do. To commit suicide because you have a steady job ? Yikes !!!
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  #3  
Old 05-11-2007, 08:05 AM
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That's why I found the thought odd and interesting. It wasn't so much that I would have a steady job (I have one, but what I do each hour of the day is typically up to me except for a few hours a week), as that each hour of the working day had now passed out of my control.
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  #4  
Old 05-11-2007, 08:27 AM
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It all depends on whether you like your job or not. I know several people who would be better off mental-healthwise if they would just quit their 9-5 and do something else. I figure some day I will decide my own hours - when the kids are out of college and I'm selling trinkets to tourists at the beach.
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  #5  
Old 05-11-2007, 08:34 AM
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I have been doing the 8-5 or so thing for 25 years. I make good money for what I do and its not too stressful (buyer for an aerospace co.) But- I work in a 4x9 ft cubicle and I can't see any daylight for 8 + hours. It sucks. And the rules are assinine. I am dreaming of retirement in a few years ( less than 1000 work days That basically means I'll take what they give me and I'll go get a job outdoors that I like for a while....

Rick
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  #6  
Old 05-11-2007, 09:09 AM
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I also haven't had a 9-5 job for the past 18 years. I don't think the actual 9-5 would bother me all that much..........but the avoidance of working for people who are incompetant...........is simply priceless.

I'm positive that I wouldn't need to commit suicide if I worked the previous job. The stress of dealing with a company that was cluless would have killed me by now.

I also don't see how people do the 3 hour daily round trip commute to the city every day..........that might contemplate thoughts of suicide. I do a 5 hour round trip commute..........but I only do it once per week.
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  #7  
Old 05-11-2007, 09:16 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Carlton View Post

I also don't see how people do the 3 hour daily round trip commute to the city every day..........that might contemplate thoughts of suicide. I do a 5 hour round trip commute..........but I only do it once per week.
Ah,,, the commute. Now there is another issue. Driving 3 or more hours a day to get to work and back would make me contemplate ending it all. I get upset when I have to sit through more than one light cycle. My commute is all of 15 minutes or so and gives me just enough time to enjoy the opening remarks of The Morning Drive on Sirius NASCAR radio.
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  #8  
Old 05-11-2007, 09:17 AM
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I'm with you guys... the thought of getting up and driving into a hive only to make another person rich disgusts me. More-so the thought that if my boss's wife *****es at him and puts him in a bad mood, I may be on the receiving end of it. No thanks!

Everything I have done right or wrong in life can only be blamed on one person and one person alone. Me. And I wake up each day (some times sore, from the hard work) -- and thank God for that fact. I could *never* put my life in another person's hands.

I grew up in an environment surrounded by wage-earners. People that went to a hive, hated it, complained and lashed out at others because of it. That's a fate I will not repeat.

I can't tell you how many people I have stopped speaking to simply because I can't bare to hear about how much they hate their job, etc. My answer was always the same. if you hate it, do something about it. If you don't do anything about it, Shut the f{_}ck up.

I have one buddy in particular. This fella worked for a company for about 5 years as a contractor. They then hired him full-time... he then lived with the constant threat of being fired (laid off, whatever the BS term is today) -- so now he finally gets canned.

What does this fool do? He sits and waits, and begs for his old job back. They do hire him back, at 30% less. What is he doing now? Sitting on pins because another round of fat-cutting (firing) is going down.

Sorry, but you want "security" and you think you're going to find that working for somebody else?

Uhhh... No.
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  #9  
Old 05-11-2007, 09:40 AM
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Office Space

Quote:
Originally Posted by rs899 View Post
I have been doing the 8-5 or so thing for 25 years. I make good money for what I do and its not too stressful (buyer for an aerospace co.) But- I work in a 4x9 ft cubicle and I can't see any daylight for 8 + hours. It sucks. And the rules are assinine. I am dreaming of retirement in a few years ( less than 1000 work days That basically means I'll take what they give me and I'll go get a job outdoors that I like for a while....

Rick
OMG, that's me you're talking about.

I'm 51, have a decent work ethic, am in Austin (the laid-back capital of the world) and I got called on the carpet this week for wearing jeans two days in a row (sometimes we have to move our audio/video equipment and I don't want to screw-up a good pair of slacks doing heavy lifting).

It was like being sent to the friggin' principal's office for throwing spitballs in class or writing on the wall. The myopic, dysfunctional waste of protoplasm that is my manager has no frame of reference to what my job requires or the fact that we sit in our cubes with ZERO interaction from anybody outside the company for weeks on end.

At this point, I'm so damned fed up with chicken**** office politics that I am currently working on a business plan to start a small excavation and dirt moving outfit and, if all goes as planned, I'll tell them to kiss off shortly they hand out the summer that bonus that our management just announced.


Quote:
Sorry, but you want "security" and you think you're going to find that working for somebody else?

Uhhh... No.
My old pal James has been self-employed for years in the appliance service business and what he says is that he has lots of bosses but not a one that can fire him.
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  #10  
Old 05-11-2007, 09:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kerry edwards View Post
I haven't worked a regular 8-5 kind of job for over 30 years....
I enjoy and appreciate your clarity; thanks for starting this thread.
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  #11  
Old 05-11-2007, 10:35 AM
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Hmmm- shuffling dirt instead of paper or electons . I wish I was creative enough to come with a Plan B. It would need to be something non-capital intensive with flexible hours.

Unfortunately 25 years with the world's largest aerospace company has stifled my creativity and rendered the contents of my skull into mush.

Rick
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  #12  
Old 05-11-2007, 11:35 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by R Leo View Post
My old pal James has been self-employed for years in the appliance service business and what he says is that he has lots of bosses but not a one that can fire him.
Your friend James is 100% correct.
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  #13  
Old 05-11-2007, 11:45 AM
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My latest gripe is with the physical working conditions here at the world's largest defense contractor ( I was going to say "in the FREE world", but I don't feel especially free..).

I'm sitting in this 4 x 9 ugly cube that was purchased about the same time I was hired here (25 years ago). Now they finally are thinking about replacing this trash with decent upscale furniture. If they do -there goes any shred of privacy I have- I may as well come in naked. Plus the furniture, although decent looking by itself, is completely out of place in this relatively old ,closed in, almost windowless mushroom farm.

Serenity now. Retire early....

Rick
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Last edited by rs899; 05-11-2007 at 12:19 PM.
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  #14  
Old 05-11-2007, 12:09 PM
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I was in "outside" sales/sales mgmt for over 40 years. I was so thankful to be able to set my own hours and be my own boss with no schedules, CS, or BS. Straight commission, so I was paid for what I actually earned, not what someone thought my value to the company was. I would have gone nuts in an office environment.
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  #15  
Old 05-11-2007, 02:11 PM
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I have never had a real job and likely never will. Sometimes I work 20 hours a day and sometimes I won't work for six months.

That said, I really and truly hope you don't share this revelation you had with your students. Whatever freedom you have created within the confines of your job is just swell (hopefully for not only you but also for those you are supposed to help), but you still are an employee and the public or your students pay your wages and should be able to dictate when and where you need to be, as your contract likely states. I can't imagine that knowing when you got your job you didn't comprehend someday you might have a schedule, to the point that this thought has now caused you to have these dramatic thoughts of suicide should the slavery continue.

I have some very strong feelings about the issue of suicide and some real life experience which I have shared here before. For someone to say it popped into their head over having to do their job that has a family including children and possibly grandchidren is disturbing to me.

I wouldn't want my 17-20 year old daughter driving around thinking about it after getting out of her 9 am philosophy 01 class all day.

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