Hours I work/PTO
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
I really can't imagine any job that any person wouldn't want to have a change of scenery for a bit. Of course one of the very first things you must have to have Scott's type of setup for is a team of support personal - it's can't be a one man shop like JB mentioned, or many of us here on ML have today.
And I think that few people would agree with you more than me. Which is why I think nearly all really great jobs provide for a change of scenery and any good IT job has to either be just a part of the IT puzzle and/or has to involve a lot of other people.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
Why on earth you'd want to take it with you on vacation is absolutely beyond my understanding. That is the f'ing DEFINITION of vacation!
It's wanting to take a vacation that confuses me.
That's cool man - you do you.
I am going to leave it right there.
My whole point was... find work that you love so much that you don't want a vacation from it. Not just work that you love enough to put up with.
I don't feel a need to take a vacation from my hobbies, either. I do them because I like doing them. I don't look forward to not doing my hobbies. Or like playing video games. I realize that those things I naturally vacation from by simply not doing them from time to time, but that's only because I get busy, not because I'm vacationing from them.
I think vacations are a bad concept... the idea that work sucks so much that we need time away from it. Yeah... when work sucks you absolutely do. But wouldn't it be better to fix the problem rather than to bandaid it?
Do you think this is a reasonable expectation for more than 1-5% of the working population? I sure don't.
Yes, I think that it surely is. I also don't think that most people care enough to pursue it, they just don't prioritize life happiness like they could. Many prioritize "following societal rules" or "doing what their parents did" or "following the path of least resistance."
It's like eating healthy. Will more than 1-5% of the population ever do it? No, they just don't care enough. Is it realistic for most people to do it? Yup.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Scott doesn't want to take a vacation from his job, yet him and the fam - well wait, nevermind... Even though Scott does some side work for NTG, we all have to remember, he's more or less retired now. working when he wants to (granted that's still a lot of the time doing tasks for NTG).
Well, that is how my employment works as mentioned in the other thread. So it is not like @scottalanmiller's situation is unique. And I am certainly not retired.
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@JaredBusch said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Scott doesn't want to take a vacation from his job, yet him and the fam - well wait, nevermind... Even though Scott does some side work for NTG, we all have to remember, he's more or less retired now. working when he wants to (granted that's still a lot of the time doing tasks for NTG).
Well, that is how my employment works as mentioned in the other thread. So it is not like @scottalanmiller's situation is unique. And I am certainly not retired.
And I worked this way prior to retirement, and not solely at NTG, either.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
Why on earth you'd want to take it with you on vacation is absolutely beyond my understanding. That is the f'ing DEFINITION of vacation!
It's wanting to take a vacation that confuses me.
That's cool man - you do you.
I am going to leave it right there.
My whole point was... find work that you love so much that you don't want a vacation from it. Not just work that you love enough to put up with.
I don't feel a need to take a vacation from my hobbies, either. I do them because I like doing them. I don't look forward to not doing my hobbies. Or like playing video games. I realize that those things I naturally vacation from by simply not doing them from time to time, but that's only because I get busy, not because I'm vacationing from them.
I think vacations are a bad concept... the idea that work sucks so much that we need time away from it. Yeah... when work sucks you absolutely do. But wouldn't it be better to fix the problem rather than to bandaid it?
Do you think this is a reasonable expectation for more than 1-5% of the working population? I sure don't.
Agreed
I find humanity exhausting in all its forms. This especially includes bringing work into my home/sanctuary.
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@JaredBusch said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Scott doesn't want to take a vacation from his job, yet him and the fam - well wait, nevermind... Even though Scott does some side work for NTG, we all have to remember, he's more or less retired now. working when he wants to (granted that's still a lot of the time doing tasks for NTG).
I really can't imagine any job that any person wouldn't want to have a change of scenery for a bit. Of course one of the very first things you must have to have Scott's type of setup for is a team of support personal - it's can't be a one man shop like JB mentioned, or many of us here on ML have today.
Hire @Bundy-Associates to handle it for you. Screw those NTG people...
errr......
LOL - I have a local who's my backup when I'm out, the boss wants face time, no matter how meaningless it might be.
On this last vacation - which I guess Scott wouldn't call a vacation because I did check my email everyday, even during the con (just not as often) and even answered a few of them.
Now to be like Scott said, and actually full out work, nah, my boss won't handle that. If I could take 3 months and work remotely during the summer and have a person in the city who can turn a screw driver because I'm gone, otherwise I'm doing all the tech work, that would be awesome, but she's just not having that.
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@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
Why on earth you'd want to take it with you on vacation is absolutely beyond my understanding. That is the f'ing DEFINITION of vacation!
It's wanting to take a vacation that confuses me.
That's cool man - you do you.
I am going to leave it right there.
My whole point was... find work that you love so much that you don't want a vacation from it. Not just work that you love enough to put up with.
I don't feel a need to take a vacation from my hobbies, either. I do them because I like doing them. I don't look forward to not doing my hobbies. Or like playing video games. I realize that those things I naturally vacation from by simply not doing them from time to time, but that's only because I get busy, not because I'm vacationing from them.
I think vacations are a bad concept... the idea that work sucks so much that we need time away from it. Yeah... when work sucks you absolutely do. But wouldn't it be better to fix the problem rather than to bandaid it?
Do you think this is a reasonable expectation for more than 1-5% of the working population? I sure don't.
Agreed
I find humanity exhausting in all its forms. This especially includes bringing work into my home/sanctuary.
Work doesn't always involve humanity, though. What if you were a painter, work might allow you to escape people, for example.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@MattSpeller said in Hours I work/PTO:
Why on earth you'd want to take it with you on vacation is absolutely beyond my understanding. That is the f'ing DEFINITION of vacation!
It's wanting to take a vacation that confuses me.
That's cool man - you do you.
I am going to leave it right there.
My whole point was... find work that you love so much that you don't want a vacation from it. Not just work that you love enough to put up with.
I don't feel a need to take a vacation from my hobbies, either. I do them because I like doing them. I don't look forward to not doing my hobbies. Or like playing video games. I realize that those things I naturally vacation from by simply not doing them from time to time, but that's only because I get busy, not because I'm vacationing from them.
I think vacations are a bad concept... the idea that work sucks so much that we need time away from it. Yeah... when work sucks you absolutely do. But wouldn't it be better to fix the problem rather than to bandaid it?
Do you think this is a reasonable expectation for more than 1-5% of the working population? I sure don't.
Yes, I think that it surely is. I also don't think that most people care enough to pursue it, they just don't prioritize life happiness like they could. Many prioritize "following societal rules" or "doing what their parents did" or "following the path of least resistance."
It's like eating healthy. Will more than 1-5% of the population ever do it? No, they just don't care enough. Is it realistic for most people to do it? Yup.
I think these two things come at great personal costs differences.
I'd really like to have @Minion-Queen say that she loves her job so much that she would like to never (or almost never) take a vacation from it. Short of you Scott, I know of no one who loves their job so much as to say that don't want a vacation from it. Not one single person. Now maybe JB is close, because he gets to work like you do, the hours he wants to work from nearly anywhere he wants to work it. So goes to Japan every few years, does he take time off work? Nope, he works from Japan.
But I don't think that most people want to work that kind of chaotic schedule. Most people, yeah sure they are not as potentially good for the company, like knowing that they will be off work to attend their kids recital that evening at 7 PM.
I also wonder, how much of the population is working blue collar jobs that just can't afford flexibility. The pharmacist at Target can't just decide that they want to take 3 hours off in the middle of the day, they need to be at the store filling prescriptions from a to b time so people know things will be ready for them. Frankly I have no idea how many jobs of the total jobs are like that vs ones that can be time shifted as needed.
Just look at me here, My boss would say that I can't time shift my job either. When someone's PC/printer/network is down, they need it fixed now. Luckily my office is only open 6 AM to 6 PM M-F. I work 7-5 M-T and 7-11 F, the rest of the time I'm more or less on call. Of course when I need to do server maintenance, I don't get to say, hey I'm not coming in until noon today because I'm staying until 9 or 10 installing updates (maybe I should check on that
). and even if I did, I'd still be on call, just like you say you're on call, only difference is, when they call you and you don't answer, there are more people to call to get help :P. -
Now the eating healthy thing - I don't consider that the same as work at all because often to eat healthier, you have to spend more money on the better food. Which means you have less money for other things that you might want to do, like hobbies.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Now the eating healthy thing - I don't consider that the same as work at all because often to eat healthier, you have to spend more money on the better food. Which means you have less money for other things that you might want to do, like hobbies.
Healthy eating doesn't really cost more, it can be free.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Now the eating healthy thing - I don't consider that the same as work at all because often to eat healthier, you have to spend more money on the better food. Which means you have less money for other things that you might want to do, like hobbies.
Healthy eating doesn't really cost more, it can be free.
i.e have your own garden?
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
But I don't think that most people want to work that kind of chaotic schedule. Most people, yeah sure they are not as potentially good for the company, like knowing that they will be off work to attend their kids recital that evening at 7 PM.
I agree, but what I don't agree with is that most people love their jobs, or their work or career, or even really believe that you can. That people don't doesn't mean that they couldn't, though.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Now the eating healthy thing - I don't consider that the same as work at all because often to eat healthier, you have to spend more money on the better food. Which means you have less money for other things that you might want to do, like hobbies.
Healthy eating doesn't really cost more, it can be free.
i.e have your own garden?
Exactly, I know a lot of people that do that.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
I also wonder, how much of the population is working blue collar jobs that just can't afford flexibility. The pharmacist at Target can't just decide that they want to take 3 hours off in the middle of the day, they need to be at the store filling prescriptions from a to b time so people know things will be ready for them.
Perfect example. Pharmacist. A career that doesn't even need to exist and exists purely because a medical union pressured the fed to create an artificial need for those jobs so that people who want them can get them. There is no need for that job and it's awful. No one needs to work that job. A computer can do that job. If people wanted happier jobs, they could simply choose not to be pharmacists. The world wouldn't end, nothing bad would happen, they could do something else more productive and let computers do the pharmacy work.
That we've created busy work to keep people who aren't out looking for happiness busy isn't in dispute. Only that any given individual has the chance to not follow that system if they chose to. Could everyone all do jobs that they love? Maybe, maybe not. Doesn't matter, because they won't. And enough always won't that those that choose to, probably always can. Or nearly always.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Just look at me here, My boss would say that I can't time shift my job either. When someone's PC/printer/network is down, they need it fixed now.
But how does that apply? All you are saying is that your job isn't make itself the job you love, nothing more. They don't need you all that time, they just need the job done.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
I'd really like to have @Minion-Queen say that she loves her job so much that she would like to never (or almost never) take a vacation from it.
She said that in the other thread last week, actually.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Now the eating healthy thing - I don't consider that the same as work at all because often to eat healthier, you have to spend more money on the better food. Which means you have less money for other things that you might want to do, like hobbies.
Healthy eating doesn't really cost more, it can be free.
i.e have your own garden?
Exactly, I know a lot of people that do that.
huh - the amount of food it takes to feed one person from a garden is about one acre so I've been told.. the amount of work involved in taking care of that is anything but free, and would basically replace your hobbies. so I guess the money question of before become moot since you'd have no time anyhow.
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@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
Short of you Scott, I know of no one who loves their job so much as to say that don't want a vacation from it.
And? What do you derive from that? Other than I know other people that are like this too, my point isn't that everyone does this, only that people should do this. I never argued that people are prioritizing their overall happiness well. Only that they should.
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"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." - Confucius
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/confucius134717.html
This isn't some "Scott-ism", this is long held wisdom that I just take to heart.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hours I work/PTO:
@Dashrender said in Hours I work/PTO:
But I don't think that most people want to work that kind of chaotic schedule. Most people, yeah sure they are not as potentially good for the company, like knowing that they will be off work to attend their kids recital that evening at 7 PM.
I agree, but what I don't agree with is that most people love their jobs, or their work or career, or even really believe that you can. That people don't doesn't mean that they couldn't, though.
Oh now there I agree with you - most people don't love their jobs.. don't know about the "don't believe they can" part, but I suppose that could be true too.
I know a guy who loves to paint minis, he also loves to talk about guns... but painting minis doesn't pay very well, and neither does talking about guns.
Not to mention the fact that there's a belief (no idea if it's true or not) if your hobby becomes your job, good chances are you'll eventually hate that hobby.
But my point was more about are there enough jobs in the world doing what people WANT to do versus things that NEED to be done for the majority to be loving their job? This seems unlikely.
