Grrrrrr!! Work Rant !

[mtembene]

I left a job to sail across the pacific and don't regret it for a single moment. More to the point though is that I met a couple who sold everything and went cruising for 12 years. Their monthly budget was $800 / month. Not bad if you ask me.

When in the pacific I spoke with fellow who was the Captain on an 80 foot boat. He knew he would never own a boat like that on his own so he quit his office job and got a job on a sail boat. I'm not sure what qualifications were required but he was the Captain when I met him and had no regrets.

Take the plunge, get up and go. What is the absolute worst that can happen? Not much is my guess.

[Don1500]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

This thread's been great.
I now know exactly how I'm going to fund my cruising life...

I've got enough to buy some cheap, starving, scrawny beef cattle (must be beef to fit the tone of this thread...)

Then I'm going to park the whole damn herd in the vast green meadows on the other side of your fences....


But I do feel the pain.
I'm doing the splits at the moment and the joints are starting to creak.
We're halfway there I guess... house is sold, so that foot is free to float, but the business isn't, so that foot is firmly stuck in the mud. It's not even the kind of business I can torch and claim the insurance...

So, what's the going rate for beef at the moment? I need to know how much I just made...

Hay Auzzi, you sold the house! We're even again! Need to wait for the close before I move out but it's going along!

[VirtualVagabond]

Originally Posted by Don1500

Hay Auzzi, you sold the house! We're even again! Need to wait for the close before I move out but it's going along!

I think you're going to get there first buddy

Now our $ is falling off a cliff.... any dreams of a Swan are rapidly becoming a Zodiac...

[BareFtGrl]

Thanks for letting me rant! We are working the plan. We've got it mapped out. Thanks for the reality check too! Sometimes I just feel like I can't take all the BS anymore and any boat would be a better alternative than continuing to be overworked, underpaid, and under appreciated </second small rant.> Plus, I keep hearing people who are older than we are tell us to "do it now!" It sort of puts a little fear into me that I will be one of those who "wished I had." Puts the pressure on, that's for sure. I guess if the jobs market wasn't so poor, I wouldn't cling to the one I have for fear of not having one at all , and move into a different atmosphere what might renew my initial love for pharmacy studies. Ok...well I don't make bad money, I have decent benefits...things could be much much worse. But I feel trapped and I don't like it one bit! I desperately wait for my free days to get away, then they're over all too soon. I might do better if I can eventually get a week away spent entirely on the boat. So...we're working the plan. I guess it's the most wise thing to do. Some days I just wanna give it all up and run away.

[Kindle]

I empathise.

A little over two years ago I was working at a job that I hated. The environment was simply caustic. I stuck to it because I only had to work 3 days (13 hour shifts). One day I walked in and my schedule had been changed to 5 days a week working first shift, second shift, and third shift all in one week -every week!! (unbelievebly there is no labor law against this). The funny thing is I stood there staring at the schedule and at first I felt like someone punched me in the face.... then I felt a huge, overwhelming sense of relief. I didn't have to struggle over it anymore-the decision was made-it was time to quit!! I love my new job, but I am, in a wierd way, thankful that I worked at the other one as it was during that time that we laid out and commited to our plan to get back to the boat and really do some traveling. We are still on track for that plan.

So, my advice is to channel that frustration and lay the groundwork for options-be that cruising or a new career. The grass may not always be greener but having the option to check it out is.

Good luck and make it work. (remember: bad day=motivation)

[Don1500]

Originally Posted by VirtualVagabond

I think you're going to get there first buddy

Now our $ is falling off a cliff.... any dreams of a Swan are rapidly becoming a Zodiac...

The only true answer is gold.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Don1500

The only true answer is gold.

The problem with the current gold bubble is that most people are not buying gold......they are buying pieces of paper and IOU's, "backed" by the very banks and financial institutions folks are betting against by "buying" gold.....if not also in the chain other institutions you wouldn't normally touch with a ten foot bargepole.

Some things you simply can't make up - others you can............

........my bet is that when the bubble deflates (or goes pop?!) that will reveal a few Madoff style "Goldfingers"

[daddle]

Nobody on their death bed ever thought "Gee, I wish I'd worked more."

Fortunes come and go. Time only goes.

[Don1500]

People ask why I'm retiring so young,
I do not want to spend my retirement dead.
Good enough?

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by daddle

Nobody on their death bed ever thought "Gee, I wish I'd worked more."

Depends if your present poisition is related to your health care $$$ running out........

[sww914]

I had an auto shop. While the work was completely different the stresses weren't. Six months ago I decided that rather than work on for a couple more years to save more money, I would just quit. It took a day that I vomited twice from stress to make me quit. I realized that I didn't have to live like that anymore now that I had a boat. I completed my last commitments and quit. I moved my family 200 miles to the boat and we've been refitting for almost three months. We're a couple weeks away from leaving and that feels good. We're out of money, that feels bad. We have a little bit of monthly income and a few more assets to sell so we'll be OK.
Even being broke feels a LOOOOT better than all of the work stress. We have plenty of food and fuel and that's all we have to worry about.
My blood pressure is under control now.
I don't have headaches anymore.
I'm a lot less angry.
This has been hard, refitting the boat, but it's a lot better than that **** was.
Even though we're not to the good part yet we're all still really really glad about this.
Careers suck.

[MichaelC]

Hey, BarefootGirl. Time only goes away. If the stress of jobs and lifestyle screws up your heart muscle [among other things] there is no getting it back. So yes, be as responsible as you can, but that includes being careful of your health. You should not be putting garbage food into your body when you are stressed, so watch what you eat. Stop eating red meat, and eat only white meat that was raised without chemical crap in it [hard to find]. Eat no prepared foods at all. [Unfortunately that will increase stress levels at first until you get it down]. Keep to your plan. Try to tell a boss to **** off at least once a week. [Joke, but it would take care of the job problem ...]. With a 25' boat you absolutely do not need an engine. If you currently have an inboard, rip it out and sell it and look at all the room you suddenly have in your boat. Use the money from the sale of the engine to install solar panels and batteries [which will take up some of the room you just got back]. Depending on the boat, you might have room for a double bed where the engine and tanks were. Think outside the box to get what you want. Always ask which you want more when faced with priority decisions. There is usually a way around it. Much of the current employment situation in the USA was deliberately manufactured to be as it is. Scream at your legislators to repeal NAFTA and GATT. They won't but we should scream anyway. Plan to live on the hook and avoid putting yourself and your boat at anyone's mercy [which does not exist] as much as possible. You can live a pretty good life on very little money. The fly in the ointment is health care, which is a humongous scam in the USA, but it's what we have. Learn to work it. Good luck with all of this. The advice I am seeing on this thread is really, really good.

[sww914]

I forgot a couple of positives-
I can sleep now without pills
No more chest pains
My digestive system works normally
My asthma is mostly gone
I have hope

Sleep and hope are very important, I'm glad I have both now.

[BareFtGrl]

You all are friggin' awesome. LoL! Well, my hubby and I eat organics and unprocessed foods as much as possible. The stress of work could quite simply be decreased by returning to the employee/patient ratio we had 5 years ago. I totally understand those physiological stress related problems..hell, I give people meds to treat those symptoms every day. Depression meds, cholesterol meds, HBP meds etc. etc. and so far (knock on wood) my hubby and I are still in normal range. But only because we both work at it. I guess I'm more frustrated with the poor state of this country as a whole, but more so, the corporate entity. I can go on and on about NAFTA and the lousy US Supreme Court's ruling...anyway...so, I guess it's not just "work" that I'm disenchanted with.
Man I hope the weather's nice tomorrow. I need to go for a sail!!

[osirissail]

Having returned to live inside the USA after a decade living outside, I can see where the feelings of stress, paranoia, and a general feeling of futility with life is pervasive or has swept up the population. Interestingly, I just read the latest BoatUS newsrag and they had an article about President Cleveland back in the 1890's and how back then conditions were not much better than what exists now.
- - So what makes living on a cruising boat away from here so much different - probably a few glaring things and lots of little things. One is cable TV, it doesn't exist on most cruising sailboats. Another is a car or land vehicle, they don't float very well.
- - Then the biggy, real food instead of manufactured and/or genetically altered foods. Along with that is the bathroom cabinet full of dozens of drugs and medicines that folks here consume each day to try to chemically escape the aches and pains of daily life along with the psychological stresses of having to deal with the reality of living inside this huge crazy house.
- - It all boils down to the absence of the barrage of negative and paranoia inducing news and media feeds trying to get your attention so their advertising can suck away your money. When you are "outside" that does not exist.
- - But there are lessons learned from living "outside" that can help with living when back inside the "asylum." Probably best summed up by an ancient character known as "Alfred E Neuman" and his "What - Me Worry?" attitude. See: Alfred E. Neuman Quotes
- - You need to learn to ignore the hype and not sweat what you cannot change or affect. History and humor goes a long way to relieve stress, so much of what is happening has happened before many times and the antics of the present "players" repeating history gets downright funny (otherwise you might cry). You can't change it anymore than you can stop the tides of the oceans. But you can divorce the crap from your own personal concerns.
- - And get rid of the modern fantasies that your working life is supposed to be fun, fulfilling and rewarding financially. Look to history and you will see that such things have never existed except for a very, very few folks with incredible good luck and/or circumstances. For the rest of the world, work sucks except for a few rare brief periods of time. If it didn't suck they wouldn't have to pay you to do it.
- - What putting up and dealing with the crap does do is that it enables you to build toward a future of being able to set sail and cruise and get away from the craziness/asylum. Keep focused on that goal and the reality that life is not all about working/job but what working can do to make your dreams of cruising become a reality.