Reality hit me today.

[King James]

I make decent money doing what I do....I also sacrifice a lot to do so....Im on call...I work nights/days/afternoons/weekends/holidays...in all weather.....on no sleep....sick....hungover....my buddy last night texted me cuz he was invited to a party at the university....couldnt go cuz I was working

That being said....I do it all not only for the money....I do it cuz when Im a work I enjoy being at work....They pay us as much as they do cuz of the things we dont get to do in life...rather than the things we do at work.

I know guys who have 25-30 years on....They despise their job....it doesnt matter that they are making 100K+ a year....they are unhappy at work...and they are unhappy away from work....as their divorces (sometimes multiple) can attest to.....at that point its not worth the money....yes its nice having it....but Id rather make less but be a happy person with people to share it with....rather than a rich old fuck whos all alone.

That being said.....Im lucky cuz I do love my job....so I get to make the money I make.....AND be happy.....plus most of my friends are railroaders now anyways....so when we can party....we party....doesnt matter where or when.

[cuate01221]

you'd rather work for less money doing something you enjoy?

you say that now because your young, and youd much rather be having fun while having to work...but heres the hard reality of it, work isnt meant to be fun...its about making money. everything in life revolves around money...wanting it...having it...earning it...spending it...flaunting it...

when your older and have a gf/wife/maybe a kid, and you need to support them, lets see you take a pay cut in work to do a job you like doing...it simply wont happen, and anyone who does is a complete moron with half a brain.

your only "happier" then others of your age group because you think you are cause you worked hard to be happy...but reality is...the kid whos parents just bought him a new audi...im pretty sure hes just as happy as you are, he just has other ways of showing it...maybe by driving downtown at night with buds pickin up random girls and hookin up with them...

my advice...take the factory job...drop out of school if needed...ever heard of night school? theres always ways around things.

That is possibly the worst advice I have ever heard. I would never drop out of school to make an extra $7/hour at a factory. I would have to work there my whole life because nobody if going to want to hire someone who quits. Lets say you had to hire someone and you had to choose between a high school drop out, or a graduate who went to college and never quit. Who would you choose?

That being said, I am not going to drop out. My sister did and now she has 4 kids running around her 3 bedroom apt, no license, no job, no car, and has to rely on food stamps, unemployment, the checks she gets from being a foster mother(will probably end soon as the mom is getting the kids soon) and others to give her rides to where she wants to go. Not the life I want.

[stewie]

That is possibly the worst advice I have ever heard. I would never drop out of school to make an extra $7/hour at a factory. I would have to work there my whole life because nobody if going to want to hire someone who quits. Lets say you had to hire someone and you had to choose between a high school drop out, or a graduate who went to college and never quit. Who would you choose?

well if you read what i wrote, i said go to NIGHT SCHOOL wich will allow you to graduate, and from there go to night courses at college. no one said life is easy..a good job and nice pay wont just be handed to you...get out there and make your dreams a reality.

if its such bad advice, then why does it work for so many people?

my buddy is a prime example, he graduated in 2002 from highschool, and he just finished college this year, and hes working for a company that started his pay at 125k a year. did he have money to go to school?? fuck no...hes in debt up to his ass in student loans and etc..but now he'll easily be able to pay it all off...hes sacraficed the best years of his life as a young adult to go to school and do homework for 8 hours a night....but when hes in his 30's and sailing in his yacht with 10 gorgeous fucking broads at his side drinking and willing to fuck his brains out for his money...it'll be well worth the sacrafice of missing "the best party years of your life".

[Leung]

well if you read what i wrote, i said go to NIGHT SCHOOL wich will allow you to graduate, and from there go to night courses at college. no one said life is easy..a good job and nice pay wont just be handed to you...get out there and make your dreams a reality.

if its such bad advice, then why does it work for so many people?

my buddy is a prime example, he graduated in 2002 from highschool, and he just finished college this year, and hes working for a company that started his pay at 125k a year. did he have money to go to school?? fuck no...hes in debt up to his ass in student loans and etc..but now he'll easily be able to pay it all off...hes sacraficed the best years of his life as a young adult to go to school and do homework for 8 hours a night....but when hes in his 30's and sailing in his yacht with 10 gorgeous fucking broads at his side drinking and willing to fuck his brains out for his money...it'll be well worth the sacrafice of missing "the best party years of your life".

i'd agree going to school while you're young is the best. I turn 30 next january and i'm only now getting my associates. I won't get my bachelors in health care management till 2014. If i would have gone to college 10 years ago, i think i would have been able to pay off my mother's house and at least re-did the floor for her.

I'm sure you mother won't say it but she'd probably want you to take care of yourself and secure your future first before helping her.

[HondaB18]

That is possibly the worst advice I have ever heard. I would never drop out of school to make an extra $7/hour at a factory. I would have to work there my whole life because nobody if going to want to hire someone who quits. Lets say you had to hire someone and you had to choose between a high school drop out, or a graduate who went to college and never quit. Who would you choose?

That being said, I am not going to drop out. My sister did and now she has 4 kids running around her 3 bedroom apt, no license, no job, no car, and has to rely on food stamps, unemployment, the checks she gets from being a foster mother(will probably end soon as the mom is getting the kids soon) and others to give her rides to where she wants to go. Not the life I want.

you make it seem like once a person finds a job they will work there for the rest of their life

you also make it seem like having no degree will make you live off the welfare system

here is reality, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and do what you gotta do. some members have been saying that, they have more life experience than you

don't count your chickens till they hatch, apply that to the "13/hr" job

i'm not telling you what to do but you might want to reevaluate your current situation , you are the one living it

[cuate01221]

you make it seem like once a person finds a job they will work there for the rest of their life

you also make it seem like having no degree will make you live off the welfare system

here is reality, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and do what you gotta do. some members have been saying that, they have more life experience than you

don't count your chickens till they hatch, apply that to the "13/hr" job

i'm not telling you what to do but you might want to reevaluate your current situation , you are the one living it

I'm not saying I will have to work at that factory forever. What I am saying is you have to look at it in the eyes of the person hiring you. Sure I will be making $20/hour now, but what if the company goes out of business? Then I will be left job-less, not have a degree in anything, and will be a high school drop out.

Night school will not be an option if I drop out. The factory job I was offered is a 14 hour shift every day except for Friday's when I have to work for 16 hours and Saturday is a 10 hour work day. My shift would be starting at 1 am and I wouldn't get out until 3 pm. That leaves me 10 hours of free time. I usually sleep about 6 so now I have 4 hours of free time. Job is about 45 minutes away and I can get ready and have the car warmed up in about 30 minutes. That leaves me 1 hour and 45 minutes of free time. No way I can live with that everyday. Plus I drive a 20 year old car. While making $1000 a week would be nice, I would only have 1 day a week to my self. No way I am going to live with that.

Now the job at an autobody place I only work from 7am to 5pm, Monday through Friday for one week, the next week I work from 4pm-7pm because of school. While I am making only about 750 for the two weeks of work, I have the whole weekend to my self, I can stay in school, If my car breaks down I can pretty much walk to the job sight, and I will be doing what I like, plus getting a 100 for my shop grade that whole week. Only thing about the autobody place is I need to have a 75 average in school which is easy as my average last year was a 92. Not only that, but after a 2 months of working at this place, the owner wants to put me as the person who goes to your house to check the damage of the car(can't remember what that position is called and this shop does not deal with insurance companies). I will not have to use my car, although I do have the choice to. The only draw back I see in this job is getting paid bi-weekly. Other than that, I will be all over this job the day after February vacation!

[stewie]

I'm not saying I will have to work at that factory forever. What I am saying is you have to look at it in the eyes of the person hiring you. Sure I will be making $20/hour now, but what if the company goes out of business? Then I will be left job-less, not have a degree in anything, and will be a high school drop out.

well, in the event that the factory goes out of buisness...you'll be working such long hours that you wont have time to go out and have a social life, wich means you should have a ton of money saved up in the bank allowing you to attend night school, be unemployed, and still live comfortably for a few months. by the time your done school, you should still have some money left over and should be able to find another job or move out of the dead end town in wich you live in...move away

why do you think so many immigrants moved to new york at the turn of the century??? cause they knew that where they lived they couldnt have a future...and america was the land of opportunities, and new york is the closest major american port to europe probably, so they did what they saw fit..pack up and moved to a place where they could work and make decent money...sure living conditions sucked balls, but they were able to afford it and slowly have their family come over to join them. if they could just get up and go...so can you. theres no excuses when it comes to people saying how they cant afford anything or how badly their life sucks...the only real thing that sucks is peoples motivation to get up and change their life.

i looked up your citys website..southbridge mass. and yeah...looking at your city in pictures...it looks like a dead end town, no offence...but just from looking at the photos...you can tell that if you stay there past the age of 25...your there for life. personally, id rather go somewhere with job options, somewhere i can make something of myself.

[cuate01221]

well, in the event that the factory goes out of buisness...you'll be working such long hours that you wont have time to go out and have a social life, wich means you should have a ton of money saved up in the bank allowing you to attend night school, be unemployed, and still live comfortably for a few months. by the time your done school, you should still have some money left over and should be able to find another job or move out of the dead end town in wich you live in...move away

why do you think so many immigrants moved to new york at the turn of the century??? cause they knew that where they lived they couldnt have a future...and america was the land of opportunities, and new york is the closest major american port to europe probably, so they did what they saw fit..pack up and moved to a place where they could work and make decent money...sure living conditions sucked balls, but they were able to afford it and slowly have their family come over to join them. if they could just get up and go...so can you. theres no excuses when it comes to people saying how they cant afford anything or how badly their life sucks...the only real thing that sucks is peoples motivation to get up and change their life.

Yah, I think I will just stay in school and see where that takes me....

[stewie]

Yah, I think I will just stay in school and see where that takes me....

alright, thats fine, thats your choice, but in 1-3 years from now...if your still on this site and i see you make a thread about how much life sucks(if im still here as well)...cant afford anything...blah blah blah etc...im just gonna sit and laugh and tell you that you've nobody to blame but yourself.

[cuate01221]

alright, thats fine, thats your choice, but in 1-3 years from now...if your still on this site and i see you make a thread about how much life sucks(if im still here as well)...cant afford anything...blah blah blah etc...im just gonna sit and laugh and tell you that you've nobody to blame but yourself.

And I will let you.

[King James]

Sometimes you do what you gotta do....if you have to work the factory for a year to get into a better position then thats what you gotta do

theres a difference between dropping out because you need to....rather than those who do it because they want to.....I agree you need schooling to get anywhere in this world (and contrary to popular belief you can make decent money on just a high school....I am proof of that)....but if you cant afford to eat...then sometimes in life you have to make tough choices....theres nothing that says you cant do correspondence....or go back at a later date.

[cuate01221]

Sometimes you do what you gotta do....if you have to work the factory for a year to get into a better position then thats what you gotta do

theres a difference between dropping out because you need to....rather than those who do it because they want to.....I agree you need schooling to get anywhere in this world (and contrary to popular belief you can make decent money on just a high school....I am proof of that)....but if you cant afford to eat...then sometimes in life you have to make tough choices....theres nothing that says you cant do correspondence....or go back at a later date.

Well I have about $250 right now because of stuff I have sold that I know longer use. I'm trying to get my mom to stop paying for cable since we have netflix and my sister has another xbox 360 she doesn't use. I will probably sell my music system from the cb7(I can easily make $250 just with that and put in a cheap HU for now). I have a lot of things I will be selling that I know longer use. Might get rid of the spare clutch I have and I will also go to a couple places that are in walking distance to apply to until I get the job in February. We might be taking in two foster kids soon as well. That's $500 each every two weeks. So if we get approved for that it we should be back on our feet.

For being this low on money for two months now, it really changed me a lot. I look at things a whole lot different than how I used to. I really need a job soon even if it means not having a social life. It's not like I have many friends that live close by anyway.

[JohnD1079]

While I wasnt in your exact position at your age, I think that if I went back in time, I sounded very similar to you. Cars is all I knew, so I thought thats what I wanted to do. You're 16 and you show it, as did I.

Anyways, heres the reason why I dont ever want to touch another car again

and it gets better. The chipped part got lodged in my lip and I didnt know. My lip was swelling up, so they decided to cut it and see whats up, and out comes the other half of my tooth.

[10k]

i feel you bro i was there too in my life im 19 now going on 20 and my dad is the same has another wife nosy as well too she kicked me out of the house when i 15 only family member i had close by was my brother..who let me move with him but after 2 months of me being in school he needed help paying the bills and rent..which at the time i had to drop out and look for job during the day cause me being illegal in the country since i was 8 months i couldn't be like the typical teenager that can find a part time job working in the a/c. i had to be on the move working in heat finding ways how make money to help my brother and his wife and 3 kids at the same time of me having a roof over my head.till this day im hoping for the best to come and get legal so i can finish my schooling and get a decent job..i just learned not bring to myself down of being broke at random times and being cautions about my illegal status not able to finish my schooling and not having a average teenager life. in the end it will be worth it

[PR CB7]

papi the only advice i have for you is to tough it out, you at sixteen have more common sense and automotive knowledge than some members in this forum
you still havent graduated yet, so life will be a bitch

look at this as a phase and try to make the impossible to not fall in this type of situation again, show your family that you will not be a statistic, show them that you are better than all this shit

in the end when life turns around for you this phase in your life will be great stories for other people and for your children

chin up papi and enjoy your life