Working late again

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Speaking from a guy that has worked ridiculous hours including my own Manufacturing business with upwards of 25 employees at any given time it all comes down to what you want out of life. Work a ton of hours and your life will pass you by. Extra money is great for toys and the long haul including retirement. Just remember without your health you have nothing and too many hours can wreck you! And not enough money won't allow you the proper healthcare. A balance is key IMO looking back at my working career.....

As for the young workforce, it has been an interesting year for me as I am now basically on the carpet and out of production. The lack of desire for people to not work is not secret but that's not all the younger generation. What I am realizing is we have failed the younger crowd by not being there for them as adults or lack of parents showing a work ethic. But the flip side is there are younger kids who want to do better in life and are lost.

And I am as much to blame as anyone. I sit here pecking a keyboard when I should be at some youth center teaching kids how to read a ruler, righty tighty-lefty loosey, and how to be motivated to excel in any given career even if your a Janitor! And I am not alone....

JW
 
I’ve been at my current job for 21 years. Had 22 at my last place. I’ve been working 5 10’s plus Sunday forever. Even more during outages. All kind of weather. I just recently stopped working weekends except when I have weekend duty. If someone says they can’t find a job, they’re not looking.

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oldkimmer said:
The young guys run rampant over the boss’s. 1 guy is 22. He didn’t come to work for a week. Told the boss he was sick. He told his friends he didn’t want to work. They won’t fire him because we are short 30 workers. I guess a useless person is better than no worker. He whined to our boss that I never want to help him. He is a lazy kid that only wants to visit with other co workers. Not with me cause I tell him to get to work. I told the boss that he is lazy and visiting all the time and I’m not gonna help him. My boss said we have to work as a team. I told the boss that as far as I’m concerned he is not part holding up his end. Not just him though as the store is loaded with lazy ppl. Now the k looks y kid has a week off cause if they don’t get their way they threaten to quit. I say let them quit. Kim
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In 1976 I was 23 married had a child and serving in the NYSANG. I owned a house with a mortgage, working shift work
I will never forget my very first day at work in the power house way back in August of 1970
The foreman gives me a pair of gloves, a hardhat and a shovel and says follow me
He takes me to this dark dirty dusty noisy place which turns out to be in-between two coal mills and says start shovelling (coal spills) and dont stop until I come get you at lunch time
There was no ear protection and a respirator was a dirty rag tied around your mouth
So this was around 730 and after hours of backbreaking hot sweat work im starving and wondering when's lunch
Well the guy never came back and I missed lunch, so I shovelled until the end of the day and I did that the next day and a whole lot of days and weeks after that
At the weeks end I got my check and took home $75.00, went home gave the old man 30 and took the rest and went straight to the Cross Town bar and grill, beer was 20 cents a glass and they bought back after the fifth
These kids dont have a F-ing clue today. Boot camp and a hard days work would do them a world of good
 
I worked 30 years in the Emergency Services. I hit 52 and I am finished. Now I do what I want, when I want. When I work for other people, it is for free......Been living life on my own terms for the last 5 years. :thumbsup:.
 
Steve welder said:
In 1976 I was 23 married had a child and serving in the NYSANG. I owned a house with a mortgage, working shift work
I will never forget my very first day at work in the power house way back in August of 1970
The foreman gives me a pair of gloves, a hardhat and a shovel and says follow me
He takes me to this dark dirty dusty noisy place which turns out to be in-between two coal mills and says start shovelling (coal spills) and dont stop until I come get you at lunch time
There was no ear protection and a respirator was a dirty rag tied around your mouth
So this was around 730 and after hours of backbreaking hot sweat work im starving and wondering when's lunch
Well the guy never came back and I missed lunch, so I shovelled until the end of the day and I did that the next day and a whole lot of days and weeks after that
At the weeks end I got my check and took home $75.00, went home gave the old man 30 and took the rest and went straight to the Cross Town bar and grill, beer was 20 cents a glass and they bought back after the fifth
These kids dont have a F-ing clue today. Boot camp and a hard days work would do them a world of good
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Shoveling coal spills, one of the most important jobs in the mill. The kids we have wouldn’t do it, so the next guy wouldn’t do it. Their motto in “Coal Handling“ is leave it for the next guy. They don’t understand how explosive coal dust is.
The company ended up bringing in vacuum trucks to suck up coal on the belt lines.
 
It's been a while Kim, glad to see you posting again
 
Righty Tighty said:
Thanks. We work 24 hour shifts, so it’s easy to rack up the hours quickly. We’re allowed to sleep during certain hours, but where I’m at is very busy, so down time is minimal (even at night). We do get overtime after 40, thankfully.

I miss my dogs!!
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I bet they miss you too. I have two miniature dachshunds. One of them loves me and the other worships the ground I walk on. When I get home after being gone a while, they go ballistic with joy.
 
Dfr360cuda said:
If someone says they can’t find a job, they’re not looking.
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Ain’t that the truth. I don’t know of an industry that isn’t struggling for manpower right now.
harrisonm said:
I bet they miss you too. I have two miniature dachshunds. One of them loves me and the other worships the ground I walk on. When I get home after being gone a while, they go ballistic with joy.
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Same here. My two boys go absolutely nuts when I walk through the door. I’m lucky to have a neighbor next door who keeps them at her house with her dog while I’m on shift. I wouldn’t pull the crazy hours otherwise.
 
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Though I agree with the sentiment about "Kids these days!" There are still many good ones out there. I coach High School Football and in doing that I see all kinds. In sports, it's one of those things where you get out of it what you put into it. No red ribbon for everyone type of thing going on here! I have been doing it long enough to know that the kids that succeed in sports will usually succeed in life too. You don't need sport to succeed, I never played a damn thing as a kid. I just knew I didn't want you be a poor broke boy anymore.
Anyway, I am a proud Dad with a son who I am trying to raise right. He and I are restoring a truck fir his first vehicle and we are both learning so much! I think the main problem with so many "Kids these days!" is the parents. If dad sits on his *** playing video games after work and does nothing with his kids then you get what you get!
Kids with any ounce of ambition will still succeed as long as we get rid of our Liberal governments!
This is already way too long but I'll share an email we got from my son's employer from last summer. Remember, there are still good ones out there!

Cley

We thoroughly enjoyed having Hayden on our team this past summer. His sense of humor and perfectly timed sarcasm had our entire team laughing! We've had our fair share of summer students and we were very impressed with Hayden's work ethic and self-management skills. You should be very proud of your son! I have attached (and mailed) a well-deserved letter of reference for Hayden! When spring/summer rolls around if he's in the market for a job, we'd be very happy to have him back!

My best,
Bree
 
Haven't had very many <60 hour week since about May. Is what is. I love what I do so it's not like work. My 22 yo has been at it too. Tech at a Toyota dealership. Shows up on time, works hard, never calls in sick, stays late if they ask. He's definitely in a minority. But there's good kids out there.
 
Half the restaurants in my town aren’t even open to serve dinner. Nobody here has a work ethic or wants to work anymore.
 
Long story.
I turned 16 in Feb 1964. It was a Fri. Dad gave me the old woreout '49 Chey to drive to school.
Sat. Mom went to buy some groceries at the A & P grocery in our little very rural town of 4000. She came home and told me I had a job starting Mon. at the grocery, 12 1/2 hours Sat and every afternoon after school excect Mon. I mentioned I did not know I was looking for a job. She said: Yes the Hell you were, you just did not know it!" Quote un Quote. I knew we did not have the income of most there, but I never knew we were that poor in comparison. But our home had food, clothes, and love. A neighbor gave me a horse when I was 13. I was rich!!

I had a bud that rode with me to school every morning, I picked him up on the way. His dad had an insurance business, I figured Kenny's family were somewhat well off as his dad bought him a MoPed when he was 14. At 14, I walked. When Kenny hit 16, he told his dad he wanted a car. His dad told him to get a job like I had and he would "help" him with expenses like gas, cost of the vehicle, insurance. Kenny told his dad no way and to **** off. His mom died from bad cancer when he was 17. I felt bad for him. Kenny always had to bum rides, and then he graduated and dad paid or him to go to college. He got a journalism degree and the draft lottery came along and he had a "good" number. I went to a ag college and had a full time summer job ever summer. Plus I started colts after work and weekends.

When Kenny graduated college, him and another kid from our HS class moved to Alpharetta, Ga. a high end burb of N Atlanta and started a magazine about all going on that burb. I heard it was doing well, untill Kenny embezzeled a lot of $ from the co. The mag went under and Kenny disappeared for years. Later I heard he went to prison convicted of embezelment where he worked. Then when he was about 60 he returned to our home town, broke and nowhere to live. An older neighbor down the road where we had lived as kids took him in. Another kid in our class had some good businesses and gave
him a job but guaranteed to him IF he stole he would have him killed and no one would find his body. I guess he never stole. I heard Kenny died a few years later. I saw his brother and told him I heard Kenny had passed, such a shock. His brother said " I had NO brother." Sad story.

Funny as we get older things make us think back so many decades. In a small rural county, you have a small school and you know everyone it seems and everyone's families as you are related to part of the county anyway. I think back and seems like the kids that had either jobs after school or family had big farms where they worked there all the time, those kids all learned to work and had the fire to work. Then I think back to those kids that had what I called the "easy life", either they inherited wealth or married wealth, succssful I guess you call it.... or... so many of those kids died early from drugs, suicide, murder. Life if funny.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Same here. My two boys go absolutely nuts when I walk through the door. I’m lucky to have a neighbor next door who keeps them at her house with her dog while I’m on shift. I wouldn’t pull the crazy hours otherwise.
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That's a GOOD neighbor.
 
barbee6043 said:
I say, the "pandemic" and free gov mnt $$$$ has changed a lot of people. People is a relatively lose term.
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I don't think it necessarily changed them. It just allowed them to be their true selves.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Logged 122 hours this week. Between that and a mild case of insomnia, I’m pretty roasted. I could’ve worked more, but as mentioned before, I’m trying not to burn myself out.

You guys might be right regarding the younger generations in other industries, but in mine, guys in their 20s sometimes work even more than me. Once we get guys hired, they work their asses off. It’s finding good candidates is what the challenge is.
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I'm at around 840 hours overtime for the year. that comes out to 2,920 hours worked for the year. Just did some math and that is 16 extra hours for every 40 hour work week so its basically like working 7 days a week for a year straight. However, those overtime hours were pretty much all in the span of 5 months during our busiest peak in fire season. 16 hour days for up to 14 days straight. If you do your full 14 days on a fire you get guaranteed 3 days R&R now instead of the 2 we used to get.
For the last 4.5 years I have lived next door to my fire station on the National Forest. It has been a blessing to have my 10 year old to be able to come over and hang out at the station and being able to bring a radio and pop in at home for a couple minutes a day.
My situation is changing next month and we will be moving back to Oklahoma to work on a 10 person prescribed fire hand crew but still being able to come out west and fight fire in the summer. I am changing agencies and will be with Bureau of Indian Affairs and burning tribal trust and adjacent land. We will assist local agencies as well as the National Forest there.
They tell me that they get 1000 hours overtime in their 6 month prescribed fire season because they travel the whole of the Eastern Oklahoma Region of the BIA and pull 12 hour/day doing fuels prep/reduction and 14 hour/day on burn days. Hotels, overtime, per diem. It's a lot of time on the road in the winter but more choice in workload in the summer. Regular schedule is a 5/9 hours a day and 4/9 hours a day 80 hour pay period, so a 2 & 3 day weekend every 2 week pay period.
I will have a 30 minute commute now but while it's a lot of hours there's 5 days off in a 14 day pay period and the ability to still go out to the west on assignments the I choose during fire season. If I want to stay home all summer and plan winter burns I can. If I want to go earn Hazard Pay and more overtime I can. I can go or stay depending on the assignment and what I have going on at home with the family in the summer (finally a summer vacation!). Also, my wife won't have to work anymore, we will be living in my childhood home, and my parents just built a brand new home 3 houses away. Kids will see grandparents every day.
We really wanted to have a traditional life and this affords it. It's cheaper cost of living, we already have the property, Mom can be a stay at home Mom (the way God intended) and raise our children in a home that produces our own food. She has attained a mastery of gardening and raising chickens and we plan to add goats and pigs. My brother in law is a cattle rancher in the area so we'll have beef too.
 
go-fish said:
I'm at around 840 hours overtime for the year. that comes out to 2,920 hours worked for the year. Just did some math and that is 16 extra hours for every 40 hour work week so its basically like working 7 days a week for a year straight. However, those overtime hours were pretty much all in the span of 5 months during our busiest peak in fire season. 16 hour days for up to 14 days straight. If you do your full 14 days on a fire you get guaranteed 3 days R&R now instead of the 2 we used to get.
For the last 4.5 years I have lived next door to my fire station on the National Forest. It has been a blessing to have my 10 year old to be able to come over and hang out at the station and being able to bring a radio and pop in at home for a couple minutes a day.
My situation is changing next month and we will be moving back to Oklahoma to work on a 10 person prescribed fire hand crew but still being able to come out west and fight fire in the summer. I am changing agencies and will be with Bureau of Indian Affairs and burning tribal trust and adjacent land. We will assist local agencies as well as the National Forest there.
They tell me that they get 1000 hours overtime in their 6 month prescribed fire season because they travel the whole of the Eastern Oklahoma Region of the BIA and pull 12 hour/day doing fuels prep/reduction and 14 hour/day on burn days. Hotels, overtime, per diem. It's a lot of time on the road in the winter but more choice in workload in the summer. Regular schedule is a 5/9 hours a day and 4/9 hours a day 80 hour pay period, so a 2 & 3 day weekend every 2 week pay period.
I will have a 30 minute commute now but while it's a lot of hours there's 5 days off in a 14 day pay period and the ability to still go out to the west on assignments the I choose during fire season. If I want to stay home all summer and plan winter burns I can. If I want to go earn Hazard Pay and more overtime I can. I can go or stay depending on the assignment and what I have going on at home with the family in the summer (finally a summer vacation!). Also, my wife won't have to work anymore, we will be living in my childhood home, and my parents just built a brand new home 3 houses away. Kids will see grandparents every day.
We really wanted to have a traditional life and this affords it. It's cheaper cost of living, we already have the property, Mom can be a stay at home Mom (the way God intended) and raise our children in a home that produces our own food. She has attained a mastery of gardening and raising chickens and we plan to add goats and pigs. My brother in law is a cattle rancher in the area so we'll have beef too.
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Glad to hear you're finally making the move to Oklahoma! It's been a long time coming. I think the traditional wildland schedule is more of a young man's game (or at least one without a family). Sounds like your new job is just what you need.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Glad to hear you're finally making the move to Oklahoma! It's been a long time coming. I think the traditional wildland schedule is more of a young man's game (or at least one without a family). Sounds like your new job is just what you need.
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It is but I had a great situation being in a USFS housing unit next to the station. It is a 1 minute walk. For those that don't know it's kinda like military housing for the Armed Forces. The Forest Service occasionally built residences or barracks next to the stations especially if they were remote. My station is adjacent to a Wilderness Area and a big lake. When it was built in 1964 it was way out there.
Last October I had accepted another Forest Service job but with the LBJ National Grassland in Decatur, TX (3 hours from my hometown in OK). HR dragged their feet and I couldn't get them to tell me a start date for 6 months. Fire season was starting in California and I felt that I couldn't leave my crew down a man, especially since I was one of two CDL divers for the engine. I told HR that I unaccepted the job in TX.
This Bureau of Indian Affairs job came up in October, I applied, and they gave me a start date of Jan. 2 pretty soon after I accepted the job. The station there is only 30 minutes from my house. My Dad is selling me the old place because they built nearby and the kids will be walking distance away.
I had it placed on me to move back home because my folks are getting older and California is out of it's mind. 3 hours away in Texas wasn't moving back home. I feel like this was divine intervention.
 
Steve welder said:
"the way God intended " Nonsense
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Oh BTW, she’s got remote work doing consulting and will continue to save the family money by canning and pickling things she grows. She currently works and makes $33 an hour. That’s not worth missing the childhood of your offspring.
A woman’s independence is not gained by being in the workforce, away from her kids for 40 hours a week. Kids are a woman’s greatest achievement. She should work, but “work” should be done on the thing that matters most.
 
go-fish said:
It is but I had a great situation being in a USFS housing unit next to the station. It is a 1 minute walk. For those that don't know it's kinda like military housing for the Armed Forces. The Forest Service occasionally built residences or barracks next to the stations especially if they were remote. My station is adjacent to a Wilderness Area and a big lake. When it was built in 1964 it was way out there.
Last October I had accepted another Forest Service job but with the LBJ National Grassland in Decatur, TX (3 hours from my hometown in OK). HR dragged their feet and I couldn't get them to tell me a start date for 6 months. Fire season was starting in California and I felt that I couldn't leave my crew down a man, especially since I was one of two CDL divers for the engine. I told HR that I unaccepted the job in TX.
This Bureau of Indian Affairs job came up in October, I applied, and they gave me a start date of Jan. 2 pretty soon after I accepted the job. The station there is only 30 minutes from my house. My Dad is selling me the old place because they built nearby and the kids will be walking distance away.
I had it placed on me to move back home because my folks are getting older and California is out of it's mind. 3 hours away in Texas wasn't moving back home. I feel like this was divine intervention.
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Texas! Not Oklahoma. My memory ain’t what it used to be. Good move either way.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Texas! Not Oklahoma. My memory ain’t what it used to be. Good move either way.
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Yeah, I met up with you last year when I was on my way to TX to meet that crew. They were bummed it took so long with HR too.
 
go-fish said:
Oh BTW, she’s got remote work doing consulting and will continue to save the family money by canning and pickling things she grows. She currently works and makes $33 an hour. That’s not worth missing the childhood of your offspring.
A woman’s independence is not gained by being in the workforce, away from her kids for 40 hours a week. Kids are a woman’s greatest achievement. She should work, but “work” should be done on the thing that matters most.
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I appreciate that your a combat wounded Vet and of course I have the utmost admiration for all Firefighters
With some married couples who have children, they often find it necessary to work outside the home in addition to raising their families and maintaining the household
The notion that its "the way God intended " is your opinion, one of which I dont share
 
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