@ Chili_Wango

Wealth "hoarders" don't get rich.
People who put their wealth to work get rich.

Difference
 

There is a difference between having a job and making a job.

Those who are self employed or who run a small - or not so small - business know it.

So for all those who bitch about how little you're paid - do you know your true worth to the company and why you get so little of it?

You will get out of life what you put into it, I had no fewer that 5 menial jobs the first two years after I left the service. Each job was better than the one before. The first really good paying job I had was a pipeline job it paid $9.04 an hr. and had free healthcare that was in November of 1980. I could not believe that anyone could make that kind of money. What struck me though was the old union guys who sat around and complained about not getting a big enough piece of the pie, their problem was that they had not been hungry in a long time and could not appreciate how good they had it.

I stayed 33 years before hanging it up in January of this year I was making over $32.00 an hour when I retired. I know my supervisor made probably 25% more than me but I did not care, he had all the headaches. Had I aspired to be a supervisor I could have, the only holding me back was me. That is the beauty of our system it's up to you how far you go.

The military is all about what you make of it, at least it used to be. I always thought it was the ultimate equal opportunity employer.

Getting rich can be done, if you're willing to make the sacrifices.

My best friend had dropped out of college and "bummed" for awhile.
He got a job at Target, around minimum wage, about his 22nd birthday.

Lived cheaply (extraordinarily so), eventually went in with his brother to buy a house, and took on renters.
Spent some years learning how to manage that money, and still lived cheaply and kept working his way up at Target.

Some years later, he bought out his brother's share of the house so his brother could go to grad school.
Still kept living cheaply and kept working at Target.

Learned the ins and outs of investing, and always put into his 401k up to the match.
Still kept living cheaply and kept working at Target.

Started a little side business, researched and took advantage of all the various fringe benefits of his job, and moved into an apartment because he could make more money renting every room in his house.
Still kept living cheaply and kept working at Target.

Eventually, he had accumulated a small bit of wealth, had stellar credit, was as high on the pay scale as hourly employees could go, and had few expenses.
Then the crash of 2009 happened.

All of his preparation, cheap living, and study of investing were ready pay dividends.
Bought like mad at the bottom, made a fortune that year.

Still carefully researches all of his investments, and makes good money at it.
Passed the $1 million net worth mark a little before his 40th birthday.

Still lives cheaply.
Still works as an hourly employee at Target.

Given a couple decades of discipline and courage, anybody can do it.

And that is what liberals will never get. Income mobility. People don't stay poor unless they choose to.

Perhaps I will have quite the illustrious career ahead of me.

I paid for my education through blood sweat and tears.
Averaged 18 credits a semester, swam collegiately, worked as a night janitor, and mentor. Couldn't afford internships on the summer; not enough to cover tuition. Worked at cannery instead, 12 hour shifts everyday until school started. Overtime is a godsend. I have a wonderful family that are a pillar of support, just not financially. While I was envious at first of my wealthy peers, I have come to learn that I have been made stronger by adversity.

The problems I have seen at my place of work stem from the pay. We pay the lowest and it shows with the production workers. You get what you pay for, and for me, I deal with the bottom of the barrel. I worked my butt off and it would have payed off, if not for my decision to enlist.

Hard work isn't enough.
You have to discard all forms of zero-sum thinking.

Zero-sum thinking is what trips up most people.
It can come in sneaky forms.

The biggest among hard workers: unwillingness to receive.
It's usually shrouded in pride and is accompanied by "I pay my own way/I pay my share/indebted to no man".

If someone can't freely "receive", then that means they don't really freely "give" either.
It's always a "trade" of some sort with a zero-sum, score-keeping account of prestige, favors, or something.

If you can, and it's appropriate, give freely with no thought of return.
Likewise, allow others to do the same for you.

This mindset allows high-trust win-win relationships.
If there are win-win deals out there where you divide the spoils 70-30 in favor of the other guy, pretty soon everyone wants to deal with you.

Your "30" shares coming from all directions add up quickly.

Good luck.

So, YOU chose to change jobs/careers to improve your _________{fill in the blank -job satisfaction, better pay, better working conditions, better benefits, better opportunities for advancement, better living conditions, etc.}

Interesting concept.

Let me see if I am following this correctly.

You worked hard to put yourself through school. Excellent.

You had a basic entry level managerial job watching laborers. OK, good start.

You felt the company sucks because the pay was low and you observed senior managers and executives getting bonuses because the company profits were good. Hmmmm....

This led you think that capitalism has failed and that the workers deserved a share of what the executives are earning....

So when you are offered a promotion, increased salary, and relocation, you are too disgusted to accept it and quit to pursue a career in the military, preferably SF.

And while expressing a preference for a government regulated economy with wage controls and greatly reduced individual liberties, you criticize the political entities that have implemented the government regulations you seem to support.

I may be having a hard time tracking the target through the rational clutter.....

They're putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound. And perhads tried to do chest compressions on top of that (Now we're finding employees without benefits, without OT, without tips).

I do not have an affinity to big government. I do not wish more government clutter (regulations). I want leaders with integrity who actually give a damn about their employees.

The point I was making about the bonuses was unrelated to the profit. No matter what the profit was, they would supress wages to increase theirs. Sounds like a good business model to me: swindle your employees as much as you can to inrease your profit margins.

I have limited faith in the leaders of our government. I have unwaivering faith in our Constitution. Ideas persist, people come and go.

This is why I asked how he funded his education. Instead of choosing a school that cost $45k/year, I chose one that was a little less expensive. While I graduated in 2000 from a university that cost me $32k (total), my return on investment seems to have worked out so far. I hate debt and wanted no part of it. I don't love money. I grew up in a very poor single parent home for most of my life. My mom worked a couple factory jobs. You get the idea. I wanted to better my self for my future family's sake and because I hated having to flee the home when tornados were on the way.

I am an engineer in my civilian life. My first job out of college did for me exactly as I had hoped it would - it gave me an opportunity to prove myself. That's it. After that ticket got punched, I moved on and busted my tail to learn, gain valuable knowledge from my peers and experience from my failures. And boy, were there many! All I really learned from college was how to research and study to solve problems. The real world was quite an eye opener, especially since I am in a highly technical field.

It took me a couple years to pay off my education, but I did it in the fall of 2002. I'm not saying that to boast. I'm saying that because hard work literally paid off for me. To this day it continues. In less than 5 years I went from being a college grad looking for work to a team leader working for a fortune 500 in three different countries managing 18 employees while also being expected to deliver better results than the previous quarter. There's something about generating revenue while out-performing your competition that upper management and shareholders seem to find fascinating.

Were there times that I felt that I had been passed over for a promotion or a raise? Hell yes. Did I bitch about it? Yep for about 5 minutes because that's when my wife looked at me and said, "Good is the enemy of better. Stop being good at what you do." She was right. I needed to improve myself, not get caught up in the "woe is me" stuff and work with the intensity of a paper dog trying to catch an asbestos cat running through hell.

When I view the $15/hr minimum wage BS I just want to throw rocks at trees. Especially when politicians such as Pelosi are hailing it as the greatest thing since welfare and want to push for a federal wage no less than the same as Seattle's. They might as well go ahead and run an IV into every low-wage earner's arm and give them more of the good stuff that we fund with our tax dollars because they're gonna be hooked on the entitlements when kiosks are taking the orders and robots are flipping the burgers or baking the pizzas while drones are delivering them.

By the way, that first job I was telling you about - I got my big break at that company when my small crew of three engineers and I developed a way to automate a manufacturing process (using GPS, IR and RFID tags, etc) to replace more than 120 workers. Those 120+ workers had gone on strike a couple years prior and demanded more wages, benefits and the like. Not saying I'm opposed to everyone getting their cut of the proverbial pie, but when a 29 year old man is bitching that he only makes $34/hr to drive a forklift in an air conditioned factory, then something is wrong.

Enjoy your job cuts, higher prices and lost employer sponsored benefits, Seattle.

I would not want you on my team.

Perhaps it's not meant to be, only time will tell.

"I May Not Agree With What You Have To Say, But I Will Defend Your Right To Say It"