I write a lot at Get Rich Slowly about Financial Independence, by which I essentially mean early retirement (or semi-retirement). That is, accumulating enough money that I no longer have to work. To me, escape from work has always seemed like the ultimate goal.
This is probably because my father held out retirement as a sort of Promised Land. He worked hard — if not always effectively — and he always made retirement and the end of work seem like the goal of life. And the sooner one reached retirement, the better.
But whenever I write about early retirement or Financial Independence, I get e-mail and comments from readers who never want to stop working. They love their jobs. Others write to say that we’re not supposed like the work that we do, but we’re supposed to do it anyhow. It builds character, and helps us pay the bills.
I’ve never found these arguments convincing. To me, early retirement has remained the goal.
Dirty jobs
Last week, Eileen e-mailed a link to a video with a one-line explanation. “This video is WEIRD and COOL and speaks to many GRS ideas like working and satisfaction,” she wrote. Yesterday, I finally had a chance to watch it. This video made me pause to reconsider my notion of work:
I didn’t know what to think at first. Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs and the voice of Deadliest Catch, starts by relating an anecdote about castrating lambs with his teeth. “What does this have to do with Get Rich Slowly?” I wondered — but because his story was so compelling, I kept watching for all 20 minutes, 34 seconds. Turns out there is a connection.
It takes about half the presentation for Rowe to make his point, but eventually he does. “People with dirty jobs are happier than you think,” he says. “As a group, they’re the happiest people I know.” And his work on Dirty Jobs has led him to realize that there are a lot of misconceptions about work in the United States.
We hear these messages over and over and over again so that we, too, come to believe that work is something to be fought against. It’s something to be avoided or escaped. Work has been marginalized. It’s looked down upon. In essence, there’s a war on work.
The War on Work
“We’ve declared war on work. As a society. All of us,” Rowe says. “We didn’t set out to do it [...] but we’ve done it. And we’ve waged this war on at least four fronts.” The war on work is being fought:
- In Hollywood. “The way we portray working people on TV — it’s laughable,” Rowe says. “We turn them into heroes, or we turn them into punch-lines.” Television and movies don’t do a good job of making work complex and three-dimensional.
- On Madison Avenue. The central message of so many commercials is, “your life would be better if you could work a little less, if you didn’t have to work so hard, if you could get home a little earlier, if you could retire a little faster, if you could punch out a little sooner.”
- In Washington. Lawmakers use work as a political tool, exploiting our notions of work for their own gain. And the policies they implement shape the way we view work.
- In Silicon Valley. New technology changes the way we think about work, and changes the way we actually do our work. Not all of these changes are bad, Rowe says, but overall technological advancement contributes to the war on work.
“The collective effect of all of that has been this marginalization of lots and lots of jobs,” Rowe says. “Somebody needs to be out there talking about the forgotten benefits [of work].” He believes that what’s needed is a PR campaign for work.
Rowe says that the war on work has casualties, just like any other war. For one, the U.S. infrastructure is a shambles. To make matters worse, trade school enrollment is dropping fast, meaning we won’t have enough workers to rebuild that infrastructure. In order for this to change, we have to stop marginalizing work and start talking about the benefits.
The forgotten benefits of work
I’m disappointed that Rowe’s presentation ends before he can explore this topic further. I’d like to know more about what he thinks are the hidden benefits of work. After thinking about it most of the day, I have a short list of my own:
- Work gives us meaning. I know plenty of people who hate their jobs. I’ve had shitty jobs too — jobs I’ve hated and wanted desperately to leave. But almost without exception, the folks I know who are happiest are those who work hard, even if they don’t have jobs they love. And those who are unhappiest? They’re the ones without jobs for one reason or another. Does the unhappiness lead to the lack of work? Or does the lack of work make people unhappy? I’m not sure, but they seem to be connected.
- Work gives us money. For most people, their career will be the single largest source of income they have in their life. Your health is your most important asset, but your career is a close second. Your career is your cash machine, which is why I stress the importance of networking and learning how to negotiate your salary. Without work, you probably don’t have the resources for anything else either.
- Work builds relationships. Again, for most people, their jobs are their primary social activity. I’m not saying this is good or bad, but it’s true. When you spend 40 hours a week with a group of people, you come to know them. In many cases, your co-workers become your friends. And work also teaches you how to build other relationships, especially through networking.
- Work builds skills. And, of course, work teaches us to do stuff. I wasn’t born knowing how to write. Sure, I learned some theoretical stuff about writing in all of the classes I’ve taken, but most of what I know (which still isn’t much) is a result of tens of thousands of hours of actual writing. By doing the work, I’ve built the skills. The same is true of any work we do.
Though I found Rowe’s presentation entertaining and thought-provoking, I don’t agree with him completely. (I rarely agree with anyone completely.) For one, I still think that you ought to follow your passions, if it’s feasible. Yes, people can get into trouble if they’re slavish to this advice, but I truly believe that work you love can be tremendously fulfilling.
Still, I may have to re-evaluate my dogged pursuit of Financial Independence. I’ve already been shifting my aim from an ideal of early retirement to one of simply semi-retirement (in which I’d continue to work in some fashion). Maybe work isn’t the enemy. Maybe there are reasons to keep doing something I love.
What do you think about work? Is it marginalized in our society? Do you think there’s a war on work? If so, what should we do about it? What sorts of benefits does work provide? Do you love your work, or do you hope to retire as soon as possible? Or both?
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Great post. I want to be able to choose where, when, and how long I’m going to work or if I even want to. I guess work is not the enemy but HAVING to work is (at least for me).
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You have an amazing strength re writing about complicated topics in a balanced way, J.D. This is a fine piece of writing on a highly important topic. And I ain’t no flatterer.
Amy Dacycion (I probably have the spelling of the name wrong) is one of my heroes. She taught me more about how to save money than anyone else (she wrote the “Tightwad Gazette” books) at a time when I very much wanted to learn a lot about that topic. I remember her writing an article about a trip she took to the beach. She was bored after one day and came home to paint the barn, which she found to be a lot more fun.
I love the beach. But there is no question that the happiest days of my life have been days when I have knocked myself out on some project and done an outstanding job. That feeling of self-fulfillment just cannot be topped.
Financial freedom is wonderful. And work is wonderful. They are both great joys of life. They should not be seen as being in conflict. Financial freedom just gives you more choice over what kind of work you will be doing. And in today’s world, where you could be handed The Boss from Hell next week, that’s something we all need.
Dylan turns 70 in May. He’s still working it hard. I have a funny hunch that he obtained financial freedom a long, long time ago.
Rob
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I think the biggest problem with “work” is that most people are entirely replaceable, and they know it. From the top down, with the CEOs to the everyday lunch-box workers, everyone is entirely replaceable. And from that, there arises a tension that everybody is only as good as their last performance and that there are an abundance of rules that must be followed to stay in good standing.
It’s tough to be emotionally invested in something where you know that you are on the chopping block at all times. If you are self-employed or retired, it’s easier to be emotionally invested with your daily activities, but you may be much more isolated in your ups and downs, and it may be difficult to maintain perspective.
The important thing for workers, it seems to me, is to focus on making yourself very expensive to replace. If you bring a lot to the table, and you take less in salary than you bring to the business, then you are an asset. But how many people want to ask themselves how valuable their skills really are, relative to their salary? How many people out there could do your job equally well, and do it for substantially less salary? Taking less vacation? Requiring fewer benefits? Working later nights?
Think of all of the goods and services you buy each month and whether you’d even notice if someone different was behind the counter, or if you’d care? That’s what I think bothers people. We are a society of bean counters, and sometimes people are just beans (not unique snowflakes).
I like reading GRS, but if there were a better blog out there on the same subject(s), I’d probably stop reading GRS because there is only so much time in the day.
I save for retirement, but don’t worry too much about actually getting there, because I like to be part of the daily grind and having deadlines and stuff to get done. I like being an asset, or at least doing my best to be an asset. The only way I’d likely want to retire is if I were physically unable to work anymore. In short, I like having challenges to overcome and think that the beauty is in the details — the details of my work, the details of my conversations, and the details of my relationships.
And as the saying goes, “if you want something done, give it to a busy person.”
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For me it’s about getting up in the morning, going to bed at night and in between doing what I want to do. Could be work, could be travel, time with family, etc. I am not really hell bent on trying to not do things (i.e work) as much as I am more geared toward doing what I want to do and when I want to do it.
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Even if you retire (don’t need to work for financial reasons) You need to be active in some other way. Work / Job builds so many things, a daily routine, friendships, drive etc. Once you leave that you need to fill that void with others things, hobbies, new interest, etc. or I thing there will be a big gap left in your life.
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This is my favorite site to read due to the fact JD shows both sides of the argument. He’s also very unbiased in defining those sides.
I’m one of those people who opted to work a blue collar job instead of going to a university. Was it a bad decision considering I did well in school? I do make less money but I like my job.
I just enjoy going to my job, making the best choices I can with the money I make, then do what I love to do. Which for me is hiking and photography. I’m only young yet but I work a blue collar job and have the time to do what I am passionate about. Why would I want anything else?
Personally physical work is a lot more entertaining for me. I do however manage my money as best as I can and oddly enough am in better shape than some of my friends who do have much higher paying jobs.
A side note on the subject is some blue collar workers have their own stereotypes for the managers or bosses. A large majority of the guys (and girls) who I work with view all the managers as lazy and greedy.
In some cases it’s true but for the most part is a misunderstanding of what another person’s job is like. The managers not only have to worry about their jobs but what the whole corporation is doing as a whole.
The idea of doing your own job plus making sure 100+ others do theirs as well is way too much of a headache for me. Sometimes my other blue collar coworkers have a hard time realizing other people deserve to make the extra money.
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My grandfather used to say that we retire at the wrong end of life–by old age, we’re already “broken to the yoke.” According to my mother, that is–my grandfather died in his mid-50s after working very hard all his life and I never knew him.
I’m where JD has been. Can’t wait to retire, in spite of all attempts to find “meaningful” work. Too bad I probably won’t be able to retire, since I’m coming up behind the Boomers. I’m beginning to think that retirement is a historical anomaly that a couple of late 20th Century generations will enjoy.
The realization I’ve had about work is that there is nothing in the world I want to do for 40 hours a week. I always feel that my job is stealing time from my actual life. I am not interested in sitting on my butt, watching TV, or playing golf. I would like to learn, create, contribute, participate, etc. I have a lot of interests, skills, projects to pursue but have this annoying need to earn money. I resent that all the things I enjoy and even the basic needs of life–cooking a meal or getting a night’s sleep–are crowded by work.
I am baffled by people who say they will never stop working and would be “bored” in retirement. Huh? What could be more boring than doing what somebody else tells you to do, on their schedule, 5 days a week?
The reason we get paid for our work is because no one would do it for free. It’s that simple, isn’t it?
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JD, if you want more of Mike Rowe’s thoughts on this subject, visit his web site www dot mikeroweworks dot com.
He also incorporated several ideas from his talk into a -Dirty Jobs- episode earlier this year entitled “The Dirty Truth.”
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Admittedly, I have not read the other comments, so I’m sorry if others have brought this up, but…
What, exactly, is meant by “retirement”? I know this varies from person to person, but when a friend of mine envisions retirement, for example, he pictures endless trips and games of golf. (And, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with this if you can afford to do it and you enjoy it). What is my, and my husband’s, idea of retirement? If we could retire today (not going to happen – we’re 30 and 32, but it’s a nice dream…), we would spend our time raising our children, tend to vegetable and flower gardens, make soap, sew, cook, etc. While we enjoy each of these things, they are decidedly work (we would also spend a lot of time enjoying family, reading and doing other things less like work) . So does that mean that whenever the day comes that he and I no longer have to punch the clock, we consider ourselves “semi-retired”? Personally, I just see it as being self-employed, hearkening back to a sort-of pioneer, fend for yourself way of life. We don’t want anything fancy, and we certainly don’t shun hard work. We just want to be able to call the shots of what we do all the time, not just between the hours of 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. We are currently living a very simple life (especially in comparison to some of our friends) in order to save so that we can reach this state of ‘self-employment’ as early as possible.
So where does that fall into the grand scheme of this conversation? Would people have an easier time with the concept of “retirement” if it were less about being employed or not, and more about having real power to choose how you spend your time? Because I can tell you one thing – if we had the right amount of money in our accounts, there’s no way in hell I’d show up at this office for even one more day. I like my job well enough, but I’d give it up in a heartbeat.
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If you’re at a job you hate then you need to find another type of job, because a job that you hate is going to make your life miserable. I know because I’m at a job that I hate right now.
The people who say work isn’t fun, shouldn’t be enjoyable are people who seem miserable and want others to be miserable because they can’t escape. I’m trying to stay positive despite the fact that I hate my job.
I think we should aim to find jobs we like, to be financial independent,if you never want to retire that’s fine, but diff things make diff people happy. I would like to be financially independent and choose to work if I want to.
I’m going to college because I don’t want to stay at the job I hate for the rest of my life. I mean, really customer service for $8.50/hour, I don’t want to stay at this job forever, this is a job where customers yell at you and you have to put up with it.
It seems to me that most people escape jobs they hate when they get the chance to do so. As for following your passion, it depends if you can make a living from it,if you can then more power to you.
I also believe that retirement is whatever you want to make it out to be,if you want to watch tv shows all week, then go ahead, if you want to be active then go ahead and do that.
The problem with work is that you’re so expendable to your managers,they micromanage you to death,office politics, etc…Is it any wonder that people escape corporate america when they have the chance to do so?
I’m all for financial independence and for retirement, and for finding work that a person likes. I’m tired of working for minimum wage, and I want a better life for myself.
EDIT: Btw I don’t hate work, I would like to find a job that I liked, look it doesn’t have to pay $100k a year, we’re a childless couple, so our money goes farther than most peoples, but I don’t want to stay at a job that I’m miserable. I know not every moment needs to be exciting but I’m tired of having a job that I hate.
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Hi J.D.,
I have a 16 yr old with his first job, so I’m going to have him read what you wrote about the hidden benefits of work.
And I had a thought about work that comes from my 77 yr old father.
He retired this year after a long career as a psychiatrist. He misses work. What he misses is that in our culture, having a job makes you visible. When you retire you lose visibility and meaning in this culture.
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Working is definitely a different topic for everyone. Some people want to work for the rest of their lives, and some don’t. My grandparents retired around the same time, and they love it; they jet set all the time whenever they want. I have always thought about retiring, but I think I’ll get pretty bored, especially since I’m in the technology field. I think it depends on your passion, and what you plan on doing. If you want to travel a lot, you’ll probably want to retire so you have the time to do it. Then again, if you love your job, you’ll want to do it forever. Now I’m wondering if I really DO want to retire.
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This article really has generated some great thought-provoking discussion. Bravo everyone!
While reading all of them, Jimmy Buffet’s song, “It’s My Job” kept running through my head. In his own quirky & rythmic style, he lauds the fact that no matter what we do for a living, if we perform that job with integrity & pride of excellence, at the end of the day, we can then feel a genuine sense of worth about what we do. The only times that hasn’t held true for me is when I’ve had a supervisor or co-worker who believes their job is to make everyone around them miserable. Funny, I’ve never seen that in writing for anyone’s job description, but there sure are a lot of people who live it.
What I do for a living isn’t nearly as important as who I work with or for.
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I like work.
And people give me the hardest time about that, “why don’t you enjoy your time off more!,” “there’s something wrong with you…, you aren’t well-balanced!”.
I get kudos at work that I never get at home. No one gives me a raise for doing a really great job for taking out the trash.
There is a support structure and teamwork at the office.
The office provides free coffee and a sense of comraderie.
Pay checks come every two weeks — health insurance, dental and disability too.
Some of the people at work I like, a lot of them I avoid (I’m lucky enough to have a door.)
I’m very lucky to have a job. And someday, with JD and the gang’s help, I’ll be very lucky to work anywhere I want, anytime I want. Yeah!
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Someone remind me but don’t you die faster if you don’t have work?
So even in retirement you need to be doing something that challenges your brain or it just stops working. Right? I can’t find where I read about this study. But just having hobbies didn’t cut it. You had to be around other people as well doing stuff.
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These ideas are interesting to me because I have just decided to turn away from 10 years of education and experience in corporate culture to build a career in a field that links plants and wellness. But that new field means, effectively, working with plants, dirt and people at their most vulnerable and often, unattractive. I walked through wet mud drenched in horse urine this very morning. Yet I am drawn to it with strength that was lacking in my original corporate inspiration.
The questions of stigma of work are interesting to me too. I have found a way to make money and time to pursue the things I truly wanted to do by working in the sex industry. And in fact, I didn’t mind the job either. But imagine the stigma and uproar if I were to share that with most people in my life. Some studies showing that 95% of prostitutes want to leave their work are, apparently, a big reason to eliminate the sex trade altogether (methodologically flawed studies at that – representative numbers are lower). Yet interestingly enough, all the tons of people on early retirement sites hating their perfectly respectable jobs don’t make anyone think that 9 to 5 needs to be erased as an option in life…
And my personal position echoes many others: I want to do the work I like and be financially independent enough to have the time and money for non-work pursuits and not having to do jobs I hate.
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Haven’t read through the comments because I’m, err, at work…
But, Mike Rowe did follow up his TED speech with a website: http://www.mikeroweworks.com/
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I am in some agreement, because I recently had an epiphany.
There are so many people who pursue a career in acting, and some manage to make a living out of it, and a minute fraction of them become stars. Nothing wrong with that, but the people in the movie business who go to bed with a full belly every day are the film crews, and they work _all the time_, not only when they are cast. The work is as exacting as that of the actors, if not more so, and highly skilled.
Yet schools teach drama classes, but not stage lighting classes.
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Work makes the world go ’round.
We all want houses to live in. They exist because *workers* built them. We want cars to drive and roads to drive them on. People did a lot of work to make those things. We want food to eat and clothes to wear. People made and grew these things for us.
All the things that we have and all the benefits of our modern lifestyle are the result of many, many years of work done by lots productive of people.
Escaping work means no longer contributing to society. I think this is fine, if you’ve already done enough contribution that you’ve covered your consumption for a lifetime. There’s a balance there — we all consume food, clothing, shelter, etc, (blog posts). We have to produce in equal quantities to this consumption so that we are not a net burden on society. If you can do all your producing to cover a lifetime of consumption by the time you’re 50, then great, more power to you, feel free to retire, you’ve quite literally earned it. Still, you could keep doing some sort of work and make the world a little bit of a better place even after “retirement”, if you’re inclined.
I have done plenty of work that wasn’t for a “job”. Lots of it isn’t fun. I’ve climbed into the cobweb-filled crawlspace under a house to work on plumbing. It’s not fun, but at the end of the day, you have working plumbing. I’ve hacked at a stump in the dirt until my hands were blistered. It’s not fun either, but at the end of the day, you have a space for a garden. I’ve hoisted cast iron cylinder heads onto a an engine block with bleeding hands and aching back, but at the end of the day the car ran.
I could do without this work, and without all the things it produces, but eventually I’d end up a hunter-gather living in a cave. I’d rather push my standard of living in the opposite direction, even if that means sometimes my back is sore or my hands are dirty.
You don’t do work to enjoy the process, you do work to enjoy the product. This differentiates it from recreation, where the doesn’t have to be a product, just an enjoyable activity. If you can enjoy the process of work, then great, but that’s not really why you do it.
I’ll stop working the day I die. There are too many ways I can improve the world around me in the meantime, even if sometimes they’re uncomfortable. Also, I realize some people are reading ‘work’ in the article as ‘employment’, and I’m interpreting it differently. This is because I think that the two are equivalent, except that employment is more structured and specialized than doing useful work in general.
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I have had a lot of blue collar jobs, and trained in two complementary trade skills. I did this so that in my 30s I could use my trade to pay for my enterprise ideas.
It’s not exactly semi-retired; I want to start a couple ‘low-impact’ businesses, both combining my trade skills and passion.
I believe that media, technology and advertising are influencing a poor white collar work ethic. The amount of whining I hear from friends and family is more than I hear from my mates in the trades. Maybe white collar workers need to harden up a little.
Loved the article, JD.
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My job is perfectly fine, I feel lucky to be where I am and feel appreciated. Is it my passion? No, but then, I don’t have a passion, so this is a good way for me to be productive and fund my life. I work from 9 to 5 and don’t think about my job when I’m not there. Once I feel like I’ve got my retirement savings taken care of, I plan to see what else out there I might enjoy more, but I have no illusions that there is a dream job that will be fun every day.
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Financial independence- the wherewithal to choose one’s activities regardless of whether they make money or not – is an admirable and healthy goal. Early retirement I think is just one option for what can be done if you achieve financial independence. And so very many of those whom I see retire take a few months off and then get restless and start looking for “work”. Paid work, volunteer work, doesn’t matter really. Just work.
Which makes sense to me. We need to be productive, to contribute to our communities and to feel like we did something useful and worthwhile each day. It’s a basic human need. If we don’t find a way to fill that need, through paid work or otherwise, we go a bit crazy- depressed, restless, anxious, etc.
I don’t know if I’d say that we have a war on work, although some sectors certainly seem to be painting rather black and white pictures of it. I do think we at least have an identity crisis about work. What does it mean for us? Why do we do it? What can we expect from it? What is good/bad work? What role does it play in our lives, our time, our identity? Should it be years of meaningless drudgery resulting in a brief period of workless happiness followed by death? Or a personal journey following a passion that we believe in with fervor and commit to wholeheartedly regardless of the consequences? And why does it have to be either extreme, especially when most of life is lived somewhere in the middle?
To be happy I think we need to see the purpose of and find satisfaction in our work- and I think being aware of and invested in the purpose of our work helps a great deal in finding that satisfaction. There can be great meaning in menial work, if you can see where it fits into the bigger picture. And even if it doesn’t seem to have a greater purpose, at the end of the day if you’ve done it- if you’ve dug the ditch or cleaned the whatever- there’s a concrete result, and that’s a potential source of satisfaction. If you’re willing to take that satisfaction and not minimize it.
Check this out for more on this idea:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/neuronarrative/201009/sick-your-job-follow-your-effect
I’m still figuring this out for myself. Thanks for sharing your own developing beliefs.
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@ Tyler, #69: Sometimes you annoy me, but other times you are just too awesome for words. Very well said sir.
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I don’t know that there’s a “war on work” per se. I would say that mainstream media have increasingly glorified the trivial and scandalous, but just as politicians don’t come up with ideas on how to spend tax dollars on their own (they get their ideas from voters!), media types don’t pursue programming that people don’t buy.
If fewer people watched “The Real Housewives of Poughkeepsie” and more people watched “Dirty Jobs” it might make a difference, sure. But ultimately … you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, as the old-timers used to say.
Oh, and Carla #47 and Lindsay #18 are missing a big point. It’s not that infrastructure jobs don’t have plenty of applicants. It’s that those applicants overwhelmingly don’t have the skills that are needed.
There’s more to building a road or a bridge than just showing up with a hard hat on. I’m well educated, physically fit, and pretty smart, but I wouldn’t be able to do one of those jobs.
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p.s. yes, excellent comment from Tyler K!
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Absolutely, Chacha. There is already a shortage of skilled labor in the United States and it’s bound to get worse. This is the product of long-term undervaluing of the trades and skilled-labor, as well as the ongoing retirement of baby-boomers – 40% of whom have made careers as skilled laborers.
Butchers, electricians, welders, and many more professions in this arena are in need of people to do these jobs, but there simply aren’t enough people with the required skill set and training.
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Work has been not been de-valued, but our free time has increased in value!
As it should be.
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I haven’t read all the comments but I truly believe that the rise of large corporations has changed our definition of work… and thus has killed the notion of “work” for a lot of people. A corporate job doesn’t necessarily equate work… after all, in many cases all you have to do is show up and meet the bare minimum requirements. This gets demoralizing after a while. But somehow our society has come to recognized supposedly “higher-skilled,” corporate jobs as the only kind of meaningful work there is. That makes a lot of people resentful.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I know that the bureaucracy and “cog-in-the-wheel” type of many workplaces with 1,000+ employees makes me want to run screaming for the hills… and I believe each coming generation will (rightfully) get less and less tolerant of it. I don’t believe that people want to be lazy or entitled, but there definitely is something inherently unnatural about working for large companies like this.
As I get older, I realize that I appreciate “hands-on” types of work or activities more and more. The time goes by faster when you’re doing it and there are more tangible results… something that is lacking in most corporate jobs these days. So, I get the appeal to labor-type jobs.
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This conversation reminds me of Dan Pink’s book “Drive”. Great animated lecture inspired by the book available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
Takeaways (for me) is that a job should foster Autonomy, allow one to develop Mastery, and provide a sense of Purpose. These are essential.
Excellent post JD and thanks to Eileen for sharing the video. Wow!
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I’m one the people who wants to reach financial independence as soon as possible, but I’ll probably still work. My ideal life would be hanging with friends and family as often as possible, volunteering at least a few days a week, and blogging. That’s what I’m aiming for by 52.
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Excellent conversation, folks. I was going to go through and mark “great comments”, but then I realized they’re all great. Thanks.
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Well, JD, I’m glad someone finally said it in a way that you could hear what people have been saying to you all along: early retirement isn’t the be-all, end-all for everyone. In fact, most of the people I know who retired early did so in order to spend MORE time “working.” My mom started a B&B; my friends started an organic garlic farm. Endless travel and mai tais on the beach? What a drag!
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Best post EVER! And Tyler K @#69, you’ve hit the nail on the head. (Again).
PS. Not sure where you got your info on trade schools falling attendance – the vo-tech type of schools here are absolutely bursting at the seams.
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Having my own air conditioning business, when I install a new system is when I’m happiest.
I’m dirty, sweaty and tired. I come home, clean and organize the truck, take a shower than I’m off to the golf course to drink a few beers, watching the golfers come in on 18.
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remember you have to wait til you’re 59 1/2 to tap that 401k… age of “retirement” encouraged by the government much?
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I work in IT and I much prefer the physical days of reorganizing a server rack to days full of showing some corporate paperpusher how to customize his Blackberry. When you can stand back and look at your work, when you can see how much you were able to accomplish, you finally feel necessary. I think the problem is, as some have mentioned above, people just don’t feel all that necessary in their jobs. If we’re not necessary, what’s the point?
Retirement is false; believing in retirement is saying the ends justify the means, it’s saying that if one works hard enough and long enough they get to achieve some sort of not-work in which they can lay around all day. I don’t know about any of you, but after I spend a day just laying around I feel pathetic. I think the means should be able to justify itself. Why are you alive if your life is spent doing something you hate as a gamble for an end that may or may not come? Do everything you want right now because you may not get another chance.
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My school aged kids understand the notion of financial independence (greater freedom of choice in what one does) but are totally perplexed by “retirement.” FI is a much better goal and they seem to “get” the notion that they want to start now at working their way to that goal.
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My grandmother took early retirement at 60 because her mother pushed back her own retirement twice and died before she retired. My grandmother referred to it as my great-grandmother “never let the rocking chair catch up to her” and didn’t want the same to happen to her.
However, she found out that she really wasn’t made for retirement. My grandfather, who has retired 4 times now, is the same way. My grandmother wound up becoming a Jehovah’s Witness because it gave her a reason to wake up and get dressed each morning.
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Thank you to Ami #12 and Shalom #20. I’m in the middle of re-evaluating my career and every piece of advice I read seems to be follow your passion, and I sometimes feel like I’m the only person on the planet that doesn’t have a “driving passion.” Honestly, I like my job and find a great sense of fulfillment, but I don’t consider it my life’s meaning. I often think of finding the “dream job” that encompasses my “life’s passion” like marrying Prince Charming – your marriage will be full of great communication, warmth, love, respect, physical intimacy, and you won’t ever want to leave each other for a minute. In real life, even great marriages aren’t like that. Yet we build up the ideal job as one that we just can’t wait to get out of bed for in the morning, we’d gladly work 100 hour weeks for, just because of the pure passion and joy we get – how unrealistic is that?
I think part of this movement has to do with the role of work in one’s life. Once it was just a mundane portion of your life, like cooking, cleaning, sleeping, etc. and now we’ve elevated it to be so much more. Like another commenter said about being retired just marginalizes you – you lose your identity to society (and maybe to yourself) without a job.
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In a strange way, this makes me think of knitting.
There’s a lot of talk among some fiber hobbyists about two categories of knitter: Process knitters and product knitters.
Process knitters embrace the act of creating a garment. They love planning, picking out patterns, testing different yarns, etc., and are sometimes almost sad when they project is finished.
Product knitters suffer through the planning phase, and get their true satisfaction out of the finished product. They love seeing the final work in their hands.
Maybe there are process and product workers, too. Maybe some folks enjoy the process most of all – the actual 9-to-5, participate in daily activities side of it. Others are product workers, who get the most satisfaction out of the things they create during their workday, or simply out of the paycheck they take home.
If that’s the case, then retirement will definitely mean different things for each group. The process folks probably wouldn’t be happy if they simply stopped working, and the product folks might be miserable unless they were able to move to something that put them more in touch with the fruits of their labors.
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Great post. Great comments. And a very important topic.
If you took happiness surveys of millions of blue collar workers vs. millions of white collar workers, I’m guessing that the blue collar workers would come out ahead significantly in overall happiness. There is something to be said for losing yourself in the work, the lack of mental stress, the physical exertion, and the sense of accomplishment at the end of the day in being able to see or actually measure the work that you did. You just don’t get any of that in white collar work environments.
Another factor here is that a large percentage of blue collar workers have added security provided from being part of a union and also having actual pension plans to work towards. White collar have to live with the fear that they could be fired at any time for absolutely no reason, and without that security or a pension to keep us committed, our loyalty has gone out the window.
War on work? No. War on employers who have waged war on the lifeblood of their organization – the employee? Yes.
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After I retired I didn’t have to work (for money) so I found a volunteer job that fulfills me more than any high-paying job with benefits ever did. It isn’t all roses but I am doing a valuable thing and I believe in it. I know there are people in the community who do and those who don’t value my work but I am not concerned with anything but the good I know I do.
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@91 Really? My blue collar relatives are generally stressed out and miserable. Granted, most of them work in the auto industry (and the ones that don’t are overworked in construction)… but I’m not sure where this rosy picture everybody has about blue collar work is coming from. I certainly don’t see it in my family.
Yes, my FIL probably enjoyed the daily work of being a carpenter more than he enjoys being an accountant. But he broke his back and couldn’t be a carpenter anymore. Back problems won’t keep him from accounting. And he is much happier being financially stable. There’s a reason he wanted his kids to have white collar jobs.
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Sara (@89), that’s funny – my friends and I have often talked about how there’s no such thing as Job Charming. (Or House Charming, or Spouse Charming, for that matter.) But as long as “follow your passion” is the prevailing job advice, many people are going to be unhappy in good, rewarding jobs simply because the job isn’t absolutely perfect.
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Tyler K- a lot of your comments contain content on why its impossible to achieve anything in life. I have a problem with this because you just seem to be a very discouraging person in your comments. If my perception is wrong then I do apologize but that is what I get when I read your posts.
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I also think that people shouldn’t define themselves by a job. Even if its a job that you like, because we are more than our jobs, we are complete human beings full of experiences, talents, compassion, etc.
That’s why even if I find a job that I like, I won’t be one of those people who says they don’t want to stop working.Sometimes you don’t have a choice, life happens, disability happens, accidents happen, what then? It helps to have a plan like a retirement fund.
I really think that its important to define yourself outside of work. To have hobbies, interests, friends, relationships, etc.
In the end you don’t take your job & your money with you, but you take your character, your experiences, how you lived your life with you, your talents, what you learned, your journey in life, etc.
And that’s something that no one can take away from you. Your job, boss, co-workers can’t take that away when you retire from a job or if a person gets fired or whatnot.
Sometimes I think its dangerous when people say they never want to retire because what are they going to do when they can’t work either by chance or by choice? Do these people even know who they are without a job?
Also there are so many ways to contribute to the world, a person who was a dr. or a nurse can find a way to be compassionate and care for others without having to work in the health care field.
Maybe this person volunteers for a charity, or helps run a nonprofit as a senior, etc. There are so many other ways to contribute the talents that we used at work. People don’t have to be depressed once they leave work.
I may be young, but I don’t understand why people have this strange attachment to work. I guess I also don’t want to have an attachment to anything that a boss could take away from me.
btw..I wanted to post this quote by Ava Gardner
I don’t understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of —- duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.
EDIT: I’m not anti-work, but I did want to point out that not everyone enjoys working and we should do more for ourselves than define ourselves through our jobs even if we have jobs that we like.
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Thanks for your post. I’m nearing retirement and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to have a sense of purpose when I leave the world of paid work.
Even if you love your job/work and plan to stay in it til they drag you away there are plenty of reasons to have the option of leaving it.
Most importantly, you may not have a choice. Economies change, bosses and jobs change, health changes, priorities change. If you have enough to live on, you can roll with these punches. If not, a layoff in your mid-50s can throw you into poverty for the rest of your life.
That said, I learned a long time ago that doing your best at whatever work you have is way more satisfying than watching a clock and yearning for the end of the day.
I can see why physical jobs sometimes feel more rewarding than office jobs. The point is obvious – building something, painting something, fixing something, growing something. It is easy to see why what you are doing needs to be done. And it is easy to see if it has been done well. Though, like several of the other posters, I suspect that those of us working in offices are romanticizing a bit.
Days spent at unorganised meetings, writing reports that aren’t read, etc. can leave a person with less of a sense of purpose. I’ve seen it happen in small organizations as well as large. Still, the best thing to do in that situation is to focus on the ultimate goal and do your best – even if no one else is.
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I definitely believe there is a war on work. Having spent most of my career working for large corporations, I have witnessed companies indiscriminately cut many talented employees. Instead of looking at the people in the positions, beancounters eliminate positions like they are merely Xs and Os. Happy, valuable people who work their way from entry level to middle management positions get punished when their jobs are the first to go with any sign of financial weakness. Meanwhile, less talented and unmotivated rank and file workers linger in low-level positions fostering a less-productive work environment.
Anyone who has read the book Atlas Shrugged knows that we are living out that story.
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@Jaime:
I know I’m cynical sometimes but it’s strange that you mention it today, when everyone else seemed to like my comment, which was essentially about the value of hard work. Even someone else who said they often don’t like my cynical attitude liked my comment today. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in the past, but I have no idea how I’ve offended you today.
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I think once you ‘declare’ war on anything you are already well on your way to losing. You are standing in a place of fear and by ‘going to war’ you effectively make that person, issue etc your enemy and feelings of dislike/hatred or superiority take over your mind view. From there, communication shuts down in your ‘battle’ to win, usually at any cost. You don’t see any other point than your own and fight with all you have to ‘win’. That kind of singlemindedness can’t be good, even if what you are trying to ‘fight’ towards is something you look upon as a good thing. Such a narrow point of view makes it difficult to see the issue from any other perspective.
Maybe is it time to look at why you are ‘fighting’ so hard to retire early. What it is about work (or working as you get closer to retirement age) that has you running so scared, or, what makes you think you are too good to continue working?
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Tyler, I’m sorry I snapped at you. Yes your comments have bothered me in the past, and I’ve wanted to address you before, but the moment I was writing it, I was having a very bad day and just snapped at you.
I’m sorry for snapping at you but I do wish you could see life isn’t all that bad. However judging from today’s post, I do think that you can be a positive person.
I don’t think you’re a bad person or anything like that, and I do think you do have the ability to be positive. I guess I wish I could see more of those type of posts coming from you. And judging from what you wrote today, it seems you have a lot to offer to people. So I think that’s why people liked your post today.
@Emma-most companies don’t care about their employees,that’s why many seek to retire early. People aren’t running from anything except thankless jobs. That’s why popular books like “escape from cubicle nation” get published. People are tired of being a cog in a machine.
Most people quit talking to you after you leave the company. Companies don’t care, we’re all replaceable. I don’t blame people who declare a war on work, etc. All that matters is the bottom line to corporate america.
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