You don’t get it Right now, everyone in my shop has left. Its just me working on an some excel models. I could have left long ago to pursue other interests. Why do I stay? Because I like the feeling of accomplishment more than I like pursuing idle activities. I also genuinely like what I do. I also have an incentive to work. Unlike the french who have no shot of being anything but mediocre, I have a shot at maximizing my God-given potential, running my own shop and making a lot of money.
purealpha Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Here is an example, I wander in today in a daze of > bliss, and the following event combined with > Economist article triggers my AF post. > > My manager friend comes to talk to me. She tells > me she was glued to her Blackberry all vacation, > even though she just told me she is getting > burnout and needed vacation, she works 8-8 > usually, and she goes home and answers emails to > midnight. I said “why?”. She said, “because she > doesn’t want to miss a thing”. I said “is it > expected” (cause I’m thinking of taking a job with > her portfolio)? She said “no not really, I’m just > type A”. All the time there is this subtle > bragging from her about how her life voluntarily > sucks. > > Observation - gradually these people become fatter > and more stressed and eat more fast food and more > pills…GDP benefits from their cycle of > stupidity, but how do they benefit. I feel sorry for her. She is probably a loser. Maybe not in the conventional sense but she loses out in the end. She is hiding behind her emails and blackberry because she is too afraid to face her shortcomings. Only in the last year I have started to let go and enjoy life. I am so much happier for it. People like your manager friend are the most uninteresting people in the world.
joemontana Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You don’t get it > > Right now, everyone in my shop has left. Its just > me working on an some excel models. I could have > left long ago to pursue other interests. Why do I > stay? Because I like the feeling of > accomplishment more than I like pursuing idle > activities. I also genuinely like what I do. I > also have an incentive to work. Unlike the french > who have no shot of being anything but mediocre, I > have a shot at maximizing my God-given potential, > running my own shop and making a lot of money. To each his own. Believe me I know a thing or 2 about being competitive and a high achiever. You dont know what you are missing out because you never explored it. Its called life.
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I used to work late every night- burn out - quality of my work suffered. Now I basically made a rule to get my work done by 6 and go home. It was mostly a case of planning better, working efficiently, and finding areas where I wasted most of my time. I also found that working late, responding to e-mails at 3 in the morning, etc does not really impress people. We had an analyst who was let go for underperformance, even though he stayed late every night.
joemontana Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You don’t get it > > Right now, everyone in my shop has left. Its just > me working on an some excel models. I could have > left long ago to pursue other interests. Why do I > stay? Because I like the feeling of > accomplishment more than I like pursuing idle > activities. I also genuinely like what I do. I > also have an incentive to work. Unlike the french > who have no shot of being anything but mediocre, I > have a shot at maximizing my God-given potential, > running my own shop and making a lot of money. +1
“A life, Jimmy. Know what that is? It’s the shit that happens while you’re waiting on moments that’ll never come.” - Detective Lester Freamon
kkent Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well, this work ethic thing called American > capitalism feeds the whole of the United States > and tens of millions of other people outside of > it; it produces the vast majority of medical > advancements; and it lays claim to some of the > world’s most world altering advancements in the > history of the human race, such as the harnessing > of electricity, flight, nuclear technology, and > the microchip. And the French have done… > > And I’m aware that many of those advancements came > from foreigners (Einstein, Tessla) who hung their > hat in the United States. There wouldn’t be a USA without the French. Then there wouldn’t be a France without the USA or the Soviets. So everybody, take a break.
Joe’s thing makes sense. If you are working cause it is fun and you like it then you make sense, your the kinda guy that would start a business or run some big arm of a corporation cause it is a good time for you. You are like the 1%. +3 What I’m talking about is the other 99%. In any other country these would be the happy common people, here they are like the unhappy common people. I really wish they would get a life so they would stop coming to my desk telling me they were checking their blackberry all night. How boring, I can’t even say in the office what I was doing all night!
cycle of f’n life. 14-18 you work hard to get into college 18-20 you party and f any chick who is willing 21-22 you study your arse off to get a f’n job b/c your parents are about to cut you off and can’t get a degree in orgasims 23-25 you revert back to 18-20 26-28 you realize chicks don’t dig your party ability but like the $, so you carry your blackberry up your arse and make yourself seem very important 29 you begin to realize people can read through your b/s from 26-28, you finish off your work and apply to biz school for that extra pedigree 30 you enter biz school and revert back to 18-20 31 you better get a f’n job for dropping 80 grand and not getting 2 years of pay 32-35 you think work is about facetime. you spend 12-16 hours a day at the office. you pleasure yourself when thinking about what is was like when you were 18-20 36-40 you officially don’t give a f anymore, you openly tell everyone how many f’ chicks you banged when you were 18-20 41-45 you have a couple kids now, would rather spend 18 hours at the office then hear the whine of a 3 year old. 46-50 you are trying to catch up on retirement and private school is starting to take a toll 51-55 you save every f’n dime for your kids college 56-60 you realize retirement is pipedream 61-65 you revert back to 18-20 66 you’re officially old. 70 gameover.
I think debt per person in US is higher in the US then France. People have to work more.
Have you guys ever heard of work- life balance?
^here we go again with the “I want to have good dental benefits and 4-day workweeks so I’m happy making $23K a year” cheerleaders.
I’m not sure you know what having a successful career and real security means….keeping both the body physically and mind mentally active, challenging the boundaries of your professional skill sets, broadening your life’s experiences and exposures, exploring new depths of people diversity and culture……that is REAL security. (JTLD take it from one that has probably 10 times the “financial” and “Real” security you seek or think you have ….that does not even rate on fulfilling one’s life experiences. You either have a lot yet to learn, or you will live a shallow life. )
Your problem, like most people, is that you naively assume that having a successful career and having a good quality of life outside of work are mutually exclusive. That in a nutshell is why some people are successful, and most people aren’t.
I’m from Lisbon, have worked in Paris, and now work in Madrid. All around not much difference, in Europe everything works in a different pace. But it still works. I think the virtue lies kinda in between. Europeans should definitely have more work ethics not in putting in extra hours but actually following their work schedule and be more productive overall. Americans should never agree and think it’s cool to work a 50+ work week and should get at least 1 month vacation off (mandatory!). Both societies would improve.
JohnThainsLimoDriver Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Your problem, like most people, is that you > naively assume that having a successful career and > having a good quality of life outside of work are > mutually exclusive. That in a nutshell is why some > people are successful, and most people aren’t. Granted you understand English, that problem is addressed in my response above. But, like most people, you just read posts here to reply, not to understand. That, in a nutshell, is beyond naivety - and the difference between you and I.
Each to their own. Having worked on both sides of the pond, i’ll take the European model any day (this thread isn’t just about France). New York sucks. Eating a sandwich at your desk - pah! There are plenty of millionaires in Europe who have a 40 hour week, do real work and have a proper lunch every day in a restaurant.
I can’t be bothered reading this whole thread, i therefore am with the french on this one
JohnThainsLimoDriver Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > JensensalphaMale Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > P.S. You could always move to France if you > like > > it that way. > > +1. Seriously, if we’re on the topic of > generalizations, no one’s being stopped from > moving to France if you want to be lazy, fat, > greasy, arrogant, obnoxious, and hairy. If you > like your women with armpit hair and BO then gay > Paree is the place for thee. An American is calling the French “fat [and] greasy”. That’s pretty dumb, dude. Is there even a fatter developed country than the US? I think only maybe Canada comes close; although a friend recently mentioned that New Zealand was pretty bad.