Introduction
It’s a Tuesday evening around 6 o’clock, and I am still at the office. Jessica, the office manager, walks by and notices that I am still working. She asks me why I haven’t left yet, and I tell her that I still have a couple hours of work to do. She reminds me that I have a two year old daughter and a two week old son at home. I tell her that I understand, but the work needs to get done.
I have always been a hard worker. I worked for my dad growing up, and he taught me how to work hard. It has always bothered me when I see lazy people.
Fast forward a few years…
I am back working for my dad. He runs a very successful painting business, and I am his right hand man. I am the only person working for him (at this time), so I guess I have to be his right hand man.
It’s the middle of February. We are usually slow at this time, but I am working 50-60 hours every week. Since we are usually slow at this time of the year, we have already let our summer help go. Now we do not have enough work for three people, but my dad and I can get it all done if we work long hours. Besides, it is much easier to work longer hours than train someone to paint the way we want them to paint.
You might be wondering why we don’t just hire one of the guys we let go that helped us over the summer. We don’t do it for a few reasons. One of the guys that helps us teaches during the school year, some of them take other jobs, some of them work odd jobs on their own, and we just don’t want to hire some of them back.
My dad actually goes to Florida a few times each winter. He usually starts around January and finishes up around spring break. Every time he goes, I get a little more anxious to go myself. I would much ra ther be hanging out on the beach than working 50 hours a week. I realize that there has to be something more than this.
I do not mind the hard work, but working so hard all the time means that I get little time to do what I really want to do.
As I already mentioned, I want to do a lot of things. Sometimes I want to go on a vacation. Sometimes I just want to go play with my kids in the back yard.