My husband always has subs working for him, but none of them seem to have much money.
Right now he has a framing crew of four guys. Of course,they are all younger than dh, but 3 of them are in their 30's.
They just all seem to live from paycheck to paycheck, but envy the fact that we live in a nice, big house and drive expensive cars.
These guys come to work every day at 8 am. They take off an hour for lunch to go into town and eat lunch. Then they knock off at 4 pm. Sometimes, they knock off at 3 pm. Or sometimes, they just decided they don't want to work. They take off every holiday and the day before it to. They won't work weekends even tho they might have been rained out for 3 days before. (they work outside, so no work in rain or snow)
On payday, they complain that they have no money to pay their bills and how are they going to get by. One guy is really worried about his mortgage at the bank.
Why don't they look to my dh for an example? They have all know him quite a few years.
Until a few years ago, he went to work about 7 am and came home at 9 pm. I have seen him work til midnight. He normally works on weekends too and on most holidays except christmas.
We take that money and save it, so we can afford nice houses, nice cars and nice vacations. My dh wants nice things, so he works hard for them.
He is finally slowing down and coming home at 6 pm now!
But he will always be a worker, that is just the kind of guy he is!
You can't really expect to live well if you only work 20 hours a week and waste an hours pay and $10 bucks a day to eat out. Dh has always made his lunch and he eats it in 10 minutes and goes back to work. Eating out every day is costing these guys over $100 a week at least, more for the head guy!
Why don't they get it??
January 12th, 2008 at 08:55 pm
January 12th, 2008 at 09:11 pm 1200172272
January 12th, 2008 at 09:20 pm 1200172857
Here is a link which describes the values of the various American generations in today's workforce.
It describes the work ethic of Boomers as "driven" and that of GenX'ers as "balanced." Of course, these are huge generalizations.
There seem to be a lot of GenX'ers and millenials on this site, so it would be interesting to see if they think this fits.
http://www.aia.org/nwsltr_pm.cfm?pagename=pm_a_20030801_genx
January 12th, 2008 at 09:57 pm 1200175020
Some people live to work. Some people work to live. Others....
It sounds to me like your workers might be fairly satisfied with how they are doing materially. Maybe they really do not want more stuff enough to work more. Maybe those $10 lunches and lunch hours together with their buds in the middle of the day represents the good life to them. Maybe they enjoy thinking about having more, but know that they don't want to trade off the TIME and EFFORT for the STUFF. Read Thoreau. Or sing the old beer commercial-- "Weekends were made for Michelobe."
January 12th, 2008 at 10:13 pm 1200176023
January 12th, 2008 at 10:43 pm 1200177787
January 12th, 2008 at 10:57 pm 1200178675
Workers after Baby Boomers very likely grew up as "latchkey kids", with less family involvement from either a single parent or a two-working parent household. And they don't expect (or get) job security, after seeing their parents go through massive layoffs, or not being replaced by younger, less paid workers. And, they grew up in a culture that emphasizes spending -- not like the Baby Boomers, who grew up with in families that survived the Great Depression, and so saving for a rainy day was probably drilled into them (as a generation).
So there's less confidence that sacrificing the long hours will have any kind of long term personal or career payoff. Not that working hard isn't important, but when I see people working super-long hours it's because 1) they're salaried, and can't avoid it 2) they desperately need the cash (which is why I agree w/you, Ima) or 3) it's their own business. But you don't see it across the board. I think just the sacrifice of family time makes people think twice about it.
But I think the guys you mention just don't get it. I wouldn't want a guy to have to work 16 hour days every day for his career...that would be a dealbreaker for me. But I'd like to know that if the family needed it, he could.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:41 am 1200184912
They would eat $5.00 breakfasts, $7.50 lunches,drink $2.75 lattes and wonder why they had no money. These were also the very first to decline O.T.
January 13th, 2008 at 03:16 am 1200194169
Recession = when your friend loses his job.
Depression = when you do.
It might be a generational personality, but I think its people's memory of bad times. The last time the US had a serious recession with a fair amount of unemployment (7-8% range) was 1991. (2001, 2002, 2003 was a slow down, but not a recession). Before that, the mid 70s - 1983 or so we had stagflation and high interest rates. I remember graduating from college in 1984 happy to have any sort of job. Easy times keep up the illusion that the paycheck will keep coming; hard times really force you to think "what if?"
I'd do the math. 2008 - 1991 = 17 years. Your 20 year olds were carrying crayons, your 30 year olds were in high school begging their parents for gas money, while in the mid 70s your DH probably got out of high school just about the time of "WIN" buttons and 18% interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.
January 13th, 2008 at 03:19 am 1200194399
Recession = when your friend loses his job.
Depression = when you do.
It might be a generational personality, but I think its people's memory of bad times. The last time the US had a serious recession with a fair amount of unemployment (7-8% range) was 1991. (2001, 2002, 2003 was a slow down, but not a recession). Before that, the mid 70s - 1983 or so we had stagflation and high interest rates. I remember graduating from college in 1984 happy to have any sort of job. Easy times keep up the illusion that the paycheck will keep coming; hard times really force you to think "what if?"
I'd do the math. 2008 - 1991 = 17 years. Your 20 year olds were carrying crayons, your 30 year olds were in high school begging their parents for gas money, your DH got out of high school just about the time of "WIN" buttons and 18% interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.
January 13th, 2008 at 05:42 am 1200202960
January 13th, 2008 at 06:18 am 1200205108
1. Most of us men work. Therefore, if need more money, we can simply work more to make more.
2. Although we can live below our means and save, we don't really want to do that. That's not fun. We'd rather do #1.
Of course, we need to do both, and as aggressively and as early as possible. But... sadly, I think that's why most of us men don't get it. Hopefully, that will change.
January 13th, 2008 at 01:28 pm 1200230915
Where there are great expectations, there will be great dissapointments.
I have learned not to have to high of expectations for certain people. I certainly don't need any more dissapointments in my life. If you feel they are not doing the job that you and your husband are expecting, then get rid of them and hire someone with your work ethic.
I wonder how many of them are married?
Enjoy your life Julie and be thankful for your hard-working and commited husband. Have a good day.
January 13th, 2008 at 03:23 pm 1200237831
We used to take on 5 houses at once, but my husband had to work day and night because none of his workers would ever help him out by working overtime.
We finally got to the point that he hires a framing crew, then he does all the rest of the work completely by himself. One house at a time!
January 13th, 2008 at 05:03 pm 1200243792
January 13th, 2008 at 06:18 pm 1200248338
And, it is crazy that they are all married with such horrible work ethics. I wonder what their wives think or say to them, or do their wives have to work to pick up the slack. Hmmm.
January 13th, 2008 at 07:29 pm 1200252577
January 14th, 2008 at 02:21 am 1200277314