quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

Yeah, but I think you have to open that type of business really knowing what you are getting into (that you will be living there, unless you can find super trustworthy people to help you run it).

there are exceptions to everything, and some people do enjoy the grind of owning a cafe. we are mostly lolling at the conceptions of these white collar folks that running a business would be an airy and pleasant daydream.

Every time I think it would be fun to join the Food Truck Revolution® I remember that I hate work.

"Former white-collar workers are also surprised by the demands of money laundering."

Flower shops are another potential vanity business. I've seen burnt out two corporate types open a shop, thinking it will be all playing with posies and balloons and making people happy on their weddings and birthdays. But again, you have to manage perishables, try to make the public happy, do a lot of dirty manual labor, and in this case having to have some knowledge or skills that are more obscure than the basics of food. I mean, does some former insurance subrogationist know if a designer improperly wrapped boutonnieres so that they wind up falling apart right before a wedding? When they do fall apart after her designer has gone home, can she fix them? Since this example is ripped from the headlines of my real life, I can tell you: No, she doesn't know, and all she can do is stab at them with pins to try to voodoo them into functionality.

you guys have me daydreaming about money laundering fronts now

thread making me feel p smug about quitting my cushy overpaid corporate job to get my doctorate

lol ditto

I never have had an "overpaid" cushy corporate jobs but I've had enough shitty office jobs to know that working in an office can be totally shitty and manual labor is... Not always a bad thing at all? It does make you physically exhausted in a different way

I do lol at these ppl but I don't rlly think in the abstract an office job is preferential. I've had dece service industry work and horrible office gigs

I realize this isn't what the article is talking about but I thought id mention

best jobs ive ever had involved manual labor

Cushy corp jobs can certainly be overrated. There's a different kind of misery to long hours of monotonous, meaningless sit-on-your-ass work. In my new job I make more than most of my friends but not enough that I'm going to enjoy some kind of luxury that makes it all worth while, and in fact IME luxuries DON'T tend to make it all worthwhile. It's really only the stability/security/relative lack of financial worry that make these jobs worth it, and maybe also the defined boundaries between work and leisure, as opposed to a small business which seems more like taking care of a baby.

best jobs ive ever had involved manual labor
Probably because you knew it wasn't forever. It's easier to enjoy those jobs when you know you've got an out.

eh manual labor can be rewarding, theres obvs lots of other variables than the blue/white collar binary

I always took my vision of what the service industry is like from Fawlty Towers.

Probably because you knew it wasn't forever. It's easier to enjoy those jobs when you know you've got an out.

― kate78, Monday, August 15, 2011 8:14 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this is mostly true, i guess. still think longingly of ski patrolling though

Obv there are a lot of variables, but I've found a lot of it to be psychological. My cushy full-time office jobs have all left me feeling terrible. Sitting in a chair in front of a computer all day, getting yelled out, yelling at people, making people cry. It can also be more monotonous and tedious than many lower paid jobs, manual or not. Meanwhile when I've done manual labor, working in a printshop or working on my own printshop, some of those repetitive tasks don't bother me so much because of the stake you have in it. I can spend 4 hours cutting paper because I know I'm making something that I'm involved in and I'll be responsible for the final product. But there's no personal stake at the office job.

there are all different sorts of manual labor too - if you are pushing around carts loaded with cartons of coca cola all day that's no fun

and c'mon "ski patroller" sounds like "baywatch life guard" on the list of manual labor jobs

What worries me about manual labor jobs is that once the job wears your body out or you sustain an injury, you're fucked unless you have some transferrable skills. I have a biased view in that I only see the injured people and not those that happily retire after 45 years as a brick layer, but it's heartbreaking when someone who has been an active manual laborer can't work anymore.

unless ski patroller was tongue in cheek

I have found splitting it 50/50 ideal. After years of computering I'd daydream of manual labor involved jobs. Then I started printing and would suddenly be on my feet all day. By mid afternoon I'd be like "can I sit down please?" But it's been proven that sitting all day is super bad for you. Anyway, if/when I transition to my own thing it'll involve sitting at the computer for an hour or two, standing and working with my hands for an hour or two and so on...

some people prefer manual labor and some people prefer office jobs! and sometimes the demands of your life require you to work one or the other! the hilarious thing about the nyt article was all the lawyers and marketing execs who quit their jobs apparently without giving one iota of thought to the amount of work that it takes to start and run your own business

we can't all be peter at the end of office space

Peter's collecting SSDI now thanks to two failed lumbar fusion surgeries.

i know someone who's thinking about throwing her job overboard in favor of taking over a small flower shop. she has never gardened in her life nor run a small business. she is 40. and obviously, insane.

could be worse, could be cupcakes

lol otm

yeah idk there is a huge variation in "manual labor" which scales from intensely focused detail work to loading boxes to heavy constriction. but dan selzer otm, there are definitely rewards to *making stuff* that are very different from managing your inbox and moving information around or whatever. i made candles my first year out of college and the manufacturing process was pretty great -- i could get stoned and play with wax all day and look at the amount of inventory i'd produced at the end of each day as proof of my productivity. it's easy to romanticize labor, but it's still work and the you cannot take it for granted!

the hilarious thing about the nyt article was all the lawyers and marketing execs who quit their jobs apparently without giving one iota of thought to the amount of work that it takes to start and run your own business

this is something to which i can testify from first-hand experience.

also, i've never been big on manual labor ... either as a way to make a living or in the handyman-around-the-house sense. so i guess i'm not the ideal reader for these sorts of articles.

and c'mon "ski patroller" sounds like "baywatch life guard" on the list of manual labor jobs

― dayo, Monday, August 15, 2011 9:22 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

not really

most of the day is spent doing chores (fixing rope lines, shoveling, carrying shit from point a to point b...the pros/old-timers go out on dawn patrol (like, wake up at 3am) and get to throw bombs for avalanche control)

then when you actually do your job you have to load an entire other person into a toboggan and then ski down with the thing behind you. it's really hard work!

throwing her job overboard in favor of taking over a small flower shop

i have an acquaintance who has done this (although she did have some experience). she has been quite successful in getting business and publicity, but -- it appears to be a *tremendous* amount of work, i'm not sure how much money she actually makes from it, and constantly dealing with weddings and the stresses thereof seems kind of hellish

then when you actually do your job you have to load an entire other person into a toboggan and then ski down with the thing behind you. it's really hard work!

― remembrance of schwings past (gbx), Monday, August 15, 2011 11:05 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah but you work at a ski lodge

as someone who spent a spell as a "professional" part-time wedding DJ as well as a letterpress printer, I have to say that a) there is money in weddings and b) there is worlds of pain

my dad entered his 60s and works at a low level manual labor job. it's been tough watching his body break down on him in the past few years, and knowing that he still has at least 5 more to go before he can retire and collect his benefits. especially because all of his hobbies (woodworking, gardening, renovations) all depend on him having a relatively healthy and functioning body. he talks longingly with me about looking forward to the days when he can spend all his time in the garden and I hope he'll make it through to that day in a functioning way.

yeah but you work at a ski lodge

I wonder if there are any other jobs consisting of manual labor where the training is going on ski holidays as a child?

lesson from all this: work in general sucks!

dayo - that's exactly what I'm talking about. I hope your dad can retire and enjoy his garden in good health!

thanks Jenny! I'm pullin' for him.

as someone who spent a spell as a "professional" part-time wedding DJ as well as a letterpress printer, I have to say that a) there is money in weddings and b) there is worlds of pain

― dan selzer, Monday, August 15, 2011 5:11 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

this is so OTM

When my parents decided they wanted to open a coffee shop as a pleasant retirement business, I had a fit because they barely drank coffee, didn't go to coffee shops and had no clue what it entailed to run a business. They also didn't think it would be necessary to hire a manager for the store. Then they realized they would have to be at the store at all times to open, do orders, receive deliveries, schedule workers, do payroll, deal with health inspectors, etc. etc. They actually seemed shocked that the high schoolers they hired gave away free stuff to friends. They got super lucky when the previous owners of the shop for some reason decided not to close on the sale and they only lost a little money.

this made me lol because i'm pretty sure i've been to coffee shops that started this way

a) there is money in weddings and b) there is worlds of pain

yeah you gotta be hardcore as a vendor. every customer thinks they're special because they're only doing this the one time while the vendor is dealing with the same crazy shit every week

yeah you gotta be hardcore as a vendor. every customer thinks they're special because they're only doing this the one time while the vendor is dealing with the same crazy shit every week

this is true for a lot of service industries when you deal with the general public (as opposed to other businesses). it's definitely true if you're running a law firm or a doctor's office.

This is actually from May, but I didn't see it at the time and it's sort of fascinating:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/nyregion/brooklyn-neighbors-share-landlord-but-not-amenities.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

And as is often the case in both real estate and human nature, one condo owner said she too felt envy — for the people who lived on the affordable side. The woman, a 32-year-old mother-to-be who did not want to have her name published, said she and her husband poured their life savings into their one-bedroom condo at Northside Piers. (She also said that if everyone used the gym and pool, “it’s going to be a mess.”)

The rentals, by comparison, were a sweet deal, she said.

“Sometimes we feel they are luckier,” she said. “We are not that rich.”

id totally take the below market rent over the gym pool etc

one bedroom with a kid on the way? no wonder this lady's having second thoughts

Oh good

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2011/08/rich_people_feel_comfortable_b.html

Is Mark Zandi seriously suggesting that the recession happened because rich people stopped spending money? Jesus. Time to revive the oligarchy thread.

omg this earthquake is gonna create such great material for this thread

PTSD alert