Tick Tock, Don't Stop - A Manual for Workaholics by Robert S. Swiatek - HTML preview

Intrinsically, danger is not far from immorality. And yet people still insist on making a living by engaging in these situations. The list of similar occupations goes on, such as bank robber, loan shark, blackmailer and extortionist, to name a few. If you want to be involved in any of these “occupations,” just remember that you probably won’t have to worry about retirement. You have a very good chance of having a short life. Nonetheless, the danger of the position is exactly what attracts many to these livelihoods.

I’ll come back to morality in work later but for now I’ll just deal with work that is dangerous. I have already spoken of professional athletes such as boxers, car racers, hockey and football players. These people actually risk their lives making a living and many participants wind up being crippled or suffer in some other way from the effects of their job. If you are a professional football player, you have to expect to trade in about ten years of your life for the glory of the sport since the average age of those combatants is below that of the male population.

Some of the apparently safe professions include teacher and butcher. If you are a shop teacher, pray that you are not the former as well (as in make sure you still have all your fingers at the end of the day.) Working in the meat department and preparing beef, pork and chicken for the counter means you can’t be too careful with the cleaver. Even if you teach math or history, you have to be aware of the fact that today’s students not only pack their lunch but their pistol as well. That can’t be too encouraging a thought. Statistics on school safety may indicate otherwise but that won’t reassure you in the least if the school you are at witnesses violence like that at Columbine High.

Wearing the uniform of a law enforcement officer may bring good pay but ask any wife of a policeman about her fears and you probably won’t go into that line of work if you are deciding on a career. It doesn’t matter if you work in the city or the suburbs, both areas will have crime and all the danger that comes with it. There was a comparison of the danger in Vietnam to that of working the ghetto of a major city on the west coast and Vietnam was found to be the safer environment. Never having been in the Far East but having read about that war and seeing depictions of it in movies, I can’t help but think the life of a cop in that particular city could never pay enough.

And while we are on topic of Vietnam, another really dangerous job is that of anyone enlisted in the service. Some joined because they wished to get a good education and they were just about promised that they would never come close to seeing combat duty. They were in for quite a shock when they found themselves on a plane to be a part of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It really doesn’t matter with which war you had to deal, whether Korea or either of the World Wars, you have to realize just what danger each situation involves. As far as I am concerned, the term “good war” is an oxymoron, as there never was nor will there ever be such a thing!

There are other people who wear a uniform and serve the people but fortunately don’t have to worry about carrying a weapon and staying alive. However, they do have to climb into burning buildings to rescue people and put out excruciating fires. Some rangers actually fly planes over raging fires in the forest and try to control them from above. That’s probably just as dangerous and yet in each case, someone has to do it.

Not long ago there was a PBS series on buildings, bridges, dams and tunnels. The show was quite incredible as it got into how all these structures were finished. The men who were involved with building the Empire State Building needed work since it was the time of the Great Depression, but seeing some of the films of these individuals walking on the steel beams fifty stories or more above only made me cringe. Amazingly, that New York City landmark was completed in thirteen months. If it were attempted today, that length of time wouldn’t be enough to get the ordinances approved!

Working on the tunnels, bridges and dams was just as challenging and dangerous. Each resulted in the loss of human life and yet we rarely take into consideration how any of these structures came to be. Without the Hoover Dam, development of the desert would have taken much longer and journeys from one place to another would have required much more time. The same applies to many of the bridges and tunnels when you consider travel by car or bus. Building the railroads wasn’t any easier and involved many dangers as well.

Today construction of skyscrapers still goes on, as does the apparent danger. Even if you work behind the wheel of heavy machinery, whether it is equipment for the farm, building of a new condo or moving huge logs, your life will be fraught with danger. Everyday you hear of accidents relating to each of these situations, with workers losing their lives. How would you like to be someone on the construction crew doing maintenance to our interstate road system? There may be reduced speed limits but I have seen too many men and women driving as though everything were normal. This means that they are going at least five miles over the usual limit. This is not fair to the workers. They are working so these people can have a smooth highway to get from one place to another and yet their lives are at risk.

What about those who spend their time working in a factory with all the constant repetitious work, not to mention the other dangers? Laboring in a chemical plant or at a nuclear power plant can’t be that healthy either and yet how many individuals spent their entire lives with these dangers? Radiation and toxic chemicals are something we all want to avoid but there are jobs that involve working in these areas to make our lives better. Factories and plants produced goods while at the same time wound up with toxic by-products, and now they have to be cleaned up. Even today, the creation of toxic substances as well as the cleanup of the dangerous byproducts continues.

Some other dangerous jobs include being a lion tamer, a missionary in a foreign country, coal miner or rugby player. It’s true that some of these efforts have to command a high wage in order to get volunteers. As you can tell though, not all of these efforts will reward you that well and even if they do, you will probably sacrifice a few years off your life, if not worse. There are many other jobs fraught with danger that I have not mentioned and the same applies to them as well.

There are some jobs that are not dangerous and yet somehow danger has been attached to them. This is the result of the intervention of “human beings”, who, due to their lack of consideration or prejudice, hate or bigotry, have forced good citizens to worry about their every move. I have already mentioned a few of these occupations, such as missionary and teacher, and there are many others. Anyone involved in any of these professions is just standing up for what is right and defending the rights of the underdog. It may be against big business or against discrimination for any number of reasons and yet this effort is not without danger and risk. But it shouldn’t be.

You were bombarded in a previous chapter with some of the jobs I have had over the years so you can see that I was involved in some danger. After all, I did work at a nuclear power plant, an ornamental iron shop and a chemical company. Fortunately I survived without any obvious impact but some results don’t show up for decades so we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. In each of these positions, I either was unaware of the danger because I was too young or I was looking to leave as soon as I could.

As far as work that was immoral, I got the feeling that the chemical company I had worked for gravitated toward that tendency. The product offered might have been a scam as I heard there were letters written by users of the product who weren’t pleased with the results. I doubt that they got a refund, as the owners of the business were out to make a fast buck, as far as I could tell. I also worked for a few major corporations whose businesses produced pollution as a byproduct or who were accused of policies that hurt powerless people. Needless to say, I did leave these firms but at the time I was young and shielded from many concerns such as these.

Unfortunately, each of us can be at a corporation that destroys the environment or at least will have some future impact on it that is not known today. Other businesses could care less about hurting the planet or the people on it. All they worry about is the bottom line and the stockholders. They seem to forget that destruction of the environment and its inhabitants will ultimately mean that not only will there be no buyers, they themselves won’t be around either. Despite this, many people do get involved with these businesses in order to make a living.

We are well aware of a job involving danger. A job that borders on the immoral is a bit more difficult to qualify. Any position that hurts people or robs them of either their dignity, surroundings, health or their savings is immoral. This poses a great dilemma: if you are unemployed and the only job available is one that is dangerous or immoral, do you accept that position?
10. That’s not for me

From the previous chapter you can see that there are some jobs that I will go to any extreme to avoid. That may not have been true years ago but then I was naive and desperate. Besides dangerous and immoral undertakings, a list of jobs comes to mind that I would bypass. You probably have similar feelings for some reason or the other.

Being a doctor pays quite well although lawsuits can really do you in if you mess up. You may be involved in litigation even though what came about had nothing to do with your competence. To become a practicing physician requires years of schooling. These disadvantages had nothing to do with the fact that I never aspired to the healing profession. To begin with, I’m not crazy about anyone cutting me open and I certainly couldn’t stand to do that to someone else. I don’t care to have my blood drawn nor would I want to insert any instrument into someone else to get a sample of his blood. Naturally I wasn’t entertained watching the blood flow in the first half-hour of the movie, “Saving Private Ryan.”

I feel almost the same when it comes to dentists. It’s quite normal to want to avoid those types of visits and I’m no exception. I don’t like people doing things inside my mouth although I will reluctantly put up with it every so often, especially if it alleviates my pain. It follows that the dental profession is not for me although I am certainly not an anti-dentite! There is one aspect of the profession that I could never put up with and that is the decay part and what goes with it. I have a very strong sense of smell, which can be great on many occasions but a disadvantage at other times.

I have been involved in sales at times, although not willingly. Even if you don’t care for the profession, you really can’t avoid it unless you inherit wealth. Any time you go into a job interview, you have to sell yourself, or else you’ll have to go on another interview and one after that. However, selling a product is quite another story. I don’t believe you can convince others to buy the goods unless you yourself will buy them. You have to be convinced to be convincing, or else you have to be persuasive. If not, you will be stuck with the vacuum cleaner or the car. If you are the kind of person who would sell anything for a price regardless of its condition or value, I don’t want to know you.

I mentioned distributing cookbooks and all it involved and the fact that I didn’t stay long doing this. When I walked into the warehouse for the first time, it was emphasized that there was “no selling involved.” Well, if I didn’t do any selling, there was no way either the company or I could make money. After a short while it was quite obvious that you had to “sell” the books. They certainly wouldn’t sell themselves although that was what we were led to believe. That same summer I had a chance to be a distributor for frozen foods. This time I went with one of the salesmen on his rounds and at the end of the day I realized that this was not for me. You can’t be a distributor without being a salesman! Anyone who says otherwise is smoking weed.

Fortunately I have tried to avoid any job having to do with sales. I had an opportunity to open up an office for computing services in South Carolina but I refused. Once again this would have involved sales, in this case consultants. I just wasn’t into that scene, even though it could have paid more than my salary as a software consultant. ^.

Being a telemarketer is another “profession” that I wouldn’t even consider. Once again it’s sales, but also I’m not sure that many of these people have any ethics. This seems to be one occupation that borders on the immoral. I’ll have no part of that scene. Being an investment counselor is one thing but selling pork futures or copper commodities is quite another. For plenty of insight into that profession if it interests you, check out the movie, “Boiler Room,” which I referred to earlier.

Along the lines of sales, you can’t omit another job in which I have no interest: politician. This is one job where it seems honesty will get you nowhere. There’s too much power involved and I don’t know about you, but I feel our taxes shouldn’t support people in office who do nothing or very little. If you get paid, you have to produce and Senators and Congressmen are influenced by too many special interest groups to be effective for the common man. It seems that you almost have to be corrupt to deal with the happenings of the country and the world. If not, by the time you leave office, you probably will be.

Another job that we don’t think about as “sales” is that of a lawyer, but they have to “sell” or convince the jury of the innocence or guilt of the person on trial. I truly admire those people who defend others accused of crimes that they didn’t commit. On the other hand I have no respect for a lawyer who represents someone who is guilty and knows this. I find the law quite interesting although I have no desire to be in that field.

Another occupation that I have no interest in is driving. As you may recall, I did earn a few bucks on two occasions by driving a vehicle. When I picked up grocery carts, I didn’t drive faster than 35 miles per hour since the job was in the city. Also, there were enough carts around to enable me to earn a nice rate of pay. The other job of passing out those cookbooks would not have been enhanced in the least if I had a jet engine in my car. As I said earlier, the only people making any real profit on that gig were those in management, no matter how much you hustled.

Driving has a few obstacles to success. Nature is the first one. If you have to drive into the sun on your way to work or on the way home, you probably will change your driving time so as to avoid that bright object. Like most people, I am not thrilled with driving in the rain. It is even more of a challenge after dark. Snow and ice are no picnic either. And yet you will probably not be able to avoid any of these hazards if you drive a big rig. The goods have to be delivered no matter what the weather outside is like.

I have already mentioned my preference for avoiding jobs having to do with sales. In many cases, driving to earn a paycheck will necessitate some sales. It just can’t be avoided. That is another reason why I will find another way to make a living other than getting behind the wheel of a van or truck.

As a consultant over the last few years, I have done my share to put miles on the vehicles I have owned. In the process I have noticed a few other annoying features of driving. Construction is one but there are many others. These have to do with putting up with drivers under some influence. It could be as a result of alcohol or drugs but it could also be a consequence of something else. Most of us will not be too pleased about sharing the road with someone who was just turned away by his girlfriend. Someone who is behind schedule and needs to catch up on the highway could make our trip one to remember as well when we would prefer the opposite.

Then there is the concept of speed and mass. SUVs, vans and trucks are loaded with power and driving one at the normal speed limit might lead the driver to believe that she is traveling much too slow.

But it doesn’t really matter what type of machine people are driving. I see too many men and women traveling fifteen miles over the speed limit. Apparently, if you have all that power you should exercise it! Since the speedometer registers up to 150, this must mean that that speed should be reached. Well that seems to be their feeling. I also witness those in 4 by 4s heading out on the highway covered in snow or ice and not slowing down one iota. They’ve seen the commercial of the truck climbing up a hill of boulders, up a mountain or cliff and figure that winter challenges are no problem...they can get where they are going in their vehicle, despite the conditions. Then they wonder why they wind up in the ditch or off the highway. As far as I am concerned, the only vehicles that can get over snow and ice without a concern are steamrollers and army tanks. Their mileage is not that great, though.

But then the mileage of all those massive machines on the highway isn’t much better and too much gasoline is consumed, not to mention the noise pollution and the effect on the air outside. It seems that these vehicles are much meaner to the environment than ordinary cars. Also, did you try to see around these monsters when you are leaving a parking lot? You also see trucks tailgating and weaving in and out of traffic as well as passing and then cutting right in front of you. All of this behavior is not very intelligent.

When it comes to those semis on the highway, some of the drivers are courteous and good at what they do but there are others who need some education. You will find drivers of eighteen-wheelers who tailgate you for miles when all they have to do is pull into the left lane, pass you and be on their way. If they don’t do this because they are prohibited from that lane, consider the fact that tailgating is illegal. If they have violated one law, why worry about another one?

I have seen too many drivers of these big rigs flying down the highway well over the speed limit. They justify it by the fact that they get paid by the mile. But consider the consequences of getting pulled over by the police. A speeding citation means their profits will be dented further, not to mention the loss of time. Any advantage they had has just disintegrated and more so. If an accident occurs, there will still be a loss of time and perhaps worse. If the driver gets hurt and has to spend time in the hospital, how can he put on mileage then? If the truck becomes disabled, the scenario is worse. As you can tell, driving any kind of truck is not for me.

Two other jobs that I wouldn’t take are executioner and undertaker. A career as executioner / undertaker could be quite lucrative since you already have the body. Just staring at the gas chamber or hangman’s noose turns my stomach so I would not be the one to throw the switch or do the injection to snuff out someone’s life. Even people who perform these gruesome tasks are affected by the whole state of affairs. As you can tell the funeral business is one of the last ways in which I would care to make a living.

There’s a lot of money in it but I would never stoop to become a prostitute or stripper. In fact I would stay away from any job that has to do with pornography. Unfortunately the Internet owes its success to the world of porn but that’s one success that I don’t want to share. It hasn’t stopped many individuals from earning a living.

I had one occupation for a few years that I will not do again, namely that of a landlord. I even had an agent doing much of the administration but still there are better ways of making money. Fortunately I had fairly decent tenants, with one exception. They were everybody’s worse nightmare but I won’t go into that. Many people rent out their former home or a condo they own and do all right. It seems that many of the people I talked to who did this once will have no part of it anymore.

I mentioned working at a nuclear power plant for a short period of time. The reason I wasn’t thrilled with this contract was because of the radiation threat. You do hear that this is one of the safest forms of energy but let me bring up two reasons to question that theory. It’s a known fact that spent nuclear fuel has to be stored for years before it is inactive. I’m not talking five or six either. If proponents of atomic power can overlook that fact, is it possible they are not quite concerned enough about radiation hazards?

I wasn’t involved with the reactor in any way but incidents in the building where I worked close by were a bit upsetting. One numerous occasions you would hear an announcement over the public address system calling for the fire department to report to a specific fire panel in a specific building. Not long after, there would be an announcement that “the alarm was a false alarm.” I analyzed this scenario and figured that maybe there was a fire and the “false alarm” response was a lie. The other possibility was that it truly was a false alarm. If that were the case, could you trust a place that had all these “false alarms?” Either conclusion convinced me I had to leave as soon as possible.

I mentioned another job I had for a very short period of time at a chemical company. I remember one not too pleasant night there when we had to clear the building because of a fire, which turned out to be insignificant. I also recall interviewing for a job at another corporation that was very big in chemicals sometime while I was finishing college. At the time I was disappointed that I didn’t get the job. Looking at it today, I really am glad that things worked out that way and working at any chemical company is not for me.

A few other professions in which I don’t prefer to be involved are entertainer, actor or any kind of manager. My chapter on management earlier may have convinced you that this area is one in which I want to have as little to do as possible. You may like these jobs but I’d prefer some other rather than being a tax or bill collector.
11. A job I liked

Over the last twenty years I have been a computer software consultant. You can be a consultant even if you think PC means politically correct and has nothing to do with machines. If you practiced law for years and have an encompassing knowledge of how the entire system works, you could become a law consultant. Similarly if you deal with toxic chemicals and their disposal and have a degree related to that subject, you might become a consultant for environmental cleanup. For just about any profession, there are or could be consultants. Of course, to become one you need to have credentials as well as a great deal of knowledge in a specific area.

My job as a consultant has to do with software or programming of computers and all related concerns. I really don’t have to know how to build a computer or install a network since my area of expertise is slightly different. Over the years I have performed a variety of tasks, such as analyzing systems, designing them, writing computer programs in various languages, testing those programs and the systems of which they are a part and documenting the program and the system. The testing itself has involved that of the program or unit testing, system testing, regression testing and whatever other kind of testing management wants done before implementation.

I have also maintained existing programs and systems, taught programming and other courses related to a specific computer, installed systems as well as other miscellaneous related tasks. I also have to know how to use other software to accomplish many of the tasks that I have described above. It sounds like a great variety of detail but I have learned much since I began consulting in the late 1970s. You also find that learning never ends in information technology, since change is an ever-occurring phenomenon.

One of the rewards of this type of life is the high rate of pay that you can command. I have done very well although I have encountered people in the same profession who have gotten paid exorbitant rates for doing exactly what I do. Their skill and experience is no different than mine, and in some cases inferior, but they still get paid huge sums of money. Management has a great deal to do with that. One other reason may be that they have a very specific skill, such as knowledge of a software package that a corporation has. The people with this knowledge are few in number so those who have those skills will command high wages. There is a downside to this situation. If the company using this software decides to use some other package, the consultant will be out of a job. Other corporations could be using this package but maybe they have no need for anyone to come to their assistance. Thus very specific skills can pay very well but the limitation of knowing just one package could leave you on the outside.

Disadvantages of consulting include the fact that you won’t get paid if you are sick, on vacation, it is July 4th or any other holiday and you are not at work or you decide to take a personal day. You must pay for your own insurance coverage and you could be on call and not receive one cent for it. I have already dwelt on the topic of being “on call” so I won’t belabor the point. The contract you are on could end at any time and you may have a period of time with no money coming into your checking account.

On a number of occasions I had contracts end rather abruptly but fortunately I had another place to work within a short period of time. There was one occasion when I went six months between contracts. And that was in the spring when I bought the house in which I currently live. I did manage somehow and you need to be prepared for just such situations. If you are concerned about security, you may not want to be a consultant.

You also need to pay for your own retirement although it is very possible that your consulting firm will have a 401-K plan to which you can contribute. Of course, it still comes out of your pocket. You may also have to pay twice the FICA that you ordinarily would pay but that depends on how the firm pays you. In addition you may also have to deal with the IRS, which no one cares to do.

Another disadvantage is you will have to go on many interviews, even if you never get turned down. After a while you will get used to it although they are some things that are hard to take. Interviewers might say afterwards that they didn’t hire you because they thought you would be bored. In that case maybe they really did you a favor. I had one interview not long ago and found out the person talking to me didn’t think I could “handle the user.” Should I have brought a knife or gun to the interview? On another occasion my interviewer was ill. I didn’t get the work but instead wound up with “pink eye” from shaking her hand.

Contracting means that you will probably get the jobs that the full time employees don’t want, namely maintenance work. Many times these same people will treat you like an outsider, talking about you behind your back. I doubt that they will be singing your praises most of the time. You also won’t be able to take a vacation precisely when you want it and you are stuck with dealing with a consulting firm, which I will get into much further detail later.

Of course there are trade-offs. You will meet many more different people than if you were a full time employee of a corporation, even if you changed jobs every five years. Every year I invite to my corn roast over two dozen people whom I have met while doing contract work. Naturally, since you do meet so many people, there will be some whom you will wish you hadn’t met. Fortunately the end of an assignment means that you may not run into them for a long time.

Some of just those types of people include, for me, a co-worker on the year 2000 project that seemed to have a bad attitude towards everything and everyone. I recall him getting on the phone and complaining to the help desk about the software we were using. The recipients of his ire weren’t too happy and eventually wouldn’t return his calls. I can’t say I blame them. One thing you never want to do is get on the bad side of people who can come to your assistance. The last I heard he was shipped out to some faraway post where he could do little damage.

Even before I became a consultant I ran into one who was hard to forget. He was big and tall and I recall his wardrobe. He had a blue suit, green suit and a red suit. I’m not sure how he covered the other two days of the week, but he did have shoes that matched each suit, one of each color! He used to sit at his terminal and monitor the production system runs and he was quite talented. He was one of the few people I ever met who could do this while not even being awake. Did I mention that he was talented?

On another project I was blessed with not one but a crew of characters. The first person had skills but I really couldn’t figure out exactly what they were. Actually she did have the ability to produce paper as documentation, most of which a year later was irrelevant and useless. The second person was less knowledgeable from a technical point of view but he got paid more than any of us despite the fact that a few of us did all the work for which he took the credit. The last person was also a consultant but he really didn’t want to do any work and seemed to hate most of mankind.

As a consultant you will have the opportunity to learn about all kinds of computer systems and disciplines. You are expected to know just about everything relative to software and to be able to quickly adapt to new environments. You have to know where and whom to get information from to make you productive on your very first day on the contract. This means there is hardly a chance that you will be bored and these circumstances indicate that this way of life is not for everyone.

You will also be able to avoid much of the politics of the company and if not, you can be content that the length of the contract will mean that you will be free of any burden in this regard quite soon. Being a temporary worker could also mean that you can avoid a few meetings. If you do wind up in a situation that isn’t the most ideal, all you need do is remember that each contract has a time limit. Even if you are on a contract that you enjoy, you will still feel great when it is over.

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