Thursday, April 30, 2009

Get A Job

When I first moved to this town - I had planned on being a country squire who would sit on the front porch and drink lemonade and living off the rent I collected from my properties.
Okay, I don't really have a front porch. The image just seemed nice when I'd imagine it.

But being retired at 33 gets old really fast.
I had to go do something.
Volunteer work got depressing - I got tired of seeing a bunch white people helping a bunch of Black people who used these services as another level of dependency.

I had to actually work to make some money.
But after being out of work for a few years with no references - I was stuck.
I could run clubs or construction sites - but here, nobody knew or believed me.

My first construction job was gained from driving by a house being built in my neighborhood and seeing the lack of progress.
I had helped the owner's parents earlier when they were having problems making a repair to their home.
When the owner's mother told them that I could do construction - "No, he's just a California pretty boy" was their response. "Look how soft his hands are" was another common response from neighbors.

But one day I happened to have my tools in my truck from making repairs to some of my rentals.
I stopped and said,"You need help".
"No thank you", they said.
I told them that I wasn't asking them if they needed help, but that I was telling them that they needed help.
After a few hours of making corrections (The old California earthquake codes are similar to the new Texas hurricane building codes), I went home.
That night, the owners and the mother came to my home to pay me and to ask whether I could finish building their home.
I had only stopped to help them make some corrections at no cost to them.
But they wanted to pay me a pretty nice sum to finish building a three bedroom 5,000 square foot home.
After I finished building the home, I couldn't keep up with the offers for employment I'd received.

It gets hot and humid here during the summer months.
I didn't feel like sweating all day.
So, I decided that I would do a little bar work to enable me to sleep late and to keep cool.
But no one would hire me.

I came across a struggling club that was looking for a bartender.
But all of my references were out of state.
I told the owners that I would work two weeks for free and that if they liked my work, they could hire me.
At the least, it would be two free weeks worth of labor - it was a win-win for the club.
After the first day, I was hired.
After two months - I was part owner.
After six month - I was a full partner.

After this stint, I had created a service of setting up and opening bars.
I can pick and choose with whom and for how long I wish to work.
So, what's the point?
To be creative in proving your worth in a tough economic or social environment.

11 comments:

brohammas said...

how bout forced into retirement at 33?
Ishould probably work at getting some of these paintings out of the basement.

RunningMom said...

Retired at 33?! wow. I have a talent for cleaning up corporate mess. But at the moment I can't afford to retire. Perhaps when I am done with school I will be able to use my talent to work for myself.

brohammas said...

sorry, its hard to type tongue in cheek. "forced" is the keyword.
Pink slip, golden parachute, what a difference those colors make.

Freeman Press said...

Man I'm 33 right now and truth be told I am wondering what to do with all my free time. Ish if I would've known that I would've asked you what did you do when I first started the blog. My whole blog is about what I think about and do with all this freetime. Poor little rich kid!

The versatile one with knowledge or the guy who went to seek knowledge and found out no sage was there so decided to stay. That pretty much describes you at least what I gather.

uglyblackjohn said...

@ brohammas - Dude, you could work a part time job as a hobby and let your art pay the bills.
Your's seems to be a good example of chasing what you love instead of chasing the money.
It seems to be more about "quality of life" these days.

@ RunningMom - Isn't your goal to work for youself.

@ FreeMan - Yeah, I read "Where much is given..." and tried to act upon it.

But I'd say that both of your descriptions are true.

Freeman Press said...

Alright now that I got you figured out then it's time to attack. LOL

Man I have so much freetime it makes me think of taking over the world and shit. So it's good to know I'm not alone in going out to acquire knowledge and come up with a plan of attack. I thought I was fukking going crazy for a while wondering what the hell to do. I damn near workout 3 times a day and the bizness runs itself so what the hell do I do with the rest of my time?

uglyblackjohn said...

@ FreeMan -
Q; "...so what the hell do I do..."
A: Blog.

Nah, but seriosly - just help people.
Don't make the mistakes I made in doing too much and having the people become dependent upon you.

Since you have so much time - invent a simple product like the Snuggy (or repackage an old product like the Snuggy).
Millions are made by re-inventing the wheel.

Tairebabs said...

I found your post quite inspirational. I can't believe you are retired at 33. Now let me go and think up something I can reinvent.

RunningMom said...

Yep that's the plan ;)

Anonymous said...

Well I am definitely not smart like you. I am around your age and I have huge student loan debt, I am looking for a job in an industry that pays little and I have no net worth to speak of. How can I build wealth when I didn't plan as well as you did and thus will most likely never own anything or be productive other than paying rent and loan debt.

uglyblackjohn said...

@ Anon - Nah, I'm not smart - I just got lucky and then used the lessons from my past failures.