# Work ethics and shit



## cport420 (May 14, 2013)

Well I don't spend a lot of money on stupid stuff and usually make it without a normal job. Now I like this cause it suits me and my life is way less stressful that way. Anything wrong with that? Added I'm a felon who smokes weed and has a bum leg so finding work is awesome. Shit gets old and I usually just do odds and end jobs. Sometimes manual labor stuff where I take it easy for a few days due to leg pain since the wreck. Just venting on life sucking.


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## wokofshame (May 15, 2013)

I hear ya. I have a what I consider a great work ethic but I don't believe in working 12 months a year 5 days a week 9-5. My brother works all year round, I'll go visit and feel like i don't match up, but ya know what?
I'm not a fucking mennonite. i work until i get $ to head on, then I leave.
Look how much technology is out there-excavators instead of shovels, feller-bunchers instead of crosscut saws, computers to run everything- wasn't the whole point of that shit supposed to be to help us work less?
I know this isn't really what you're saying, but yeah, anyway, fuck normal jobs. Most people just don't know what they'd do without them, they'd feel lost without a sucky 9-5 to base their life around.


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## wizehop (May 15, 2013)

People need security, fear change and the unknown, so they sell their souls for a false sense of happiness. I grew up in a government town where like most places you go to school, get a degree in whatever, then take a 9-5 job in the public sector, working inside a cubicle for the rest of your life, doing mindless tasks that amount to nothing. The highlight of your year is the 1 week you spend in the Dominican Republic getting drunk on a beach. Do this for a year, then repeat, over and over until your too old to do anything but think on your wasted existence. Most people spend 99% of their life working for 1% of the reward.
No amount of explaining can convince me that as human beings we came onto this earth to work in a fucking cubicle for a faceless corporation. Non the less its the furthest most of us have evolved to. Because people take jobs strictly for security they become empty. So people try to fill this void by spending their money on shit illusions to build themselves up. Like owning a $600 purse somehow makes you above a person with a $20 purse, or how owning a more expensive car actually means anything. Its retarded but people truly believe this nonsense. Oh and I don't blame capitalism for it one bit, its peoples own stupidity that the system takes advantage of...but that's a whole other point.
I cant really slight people for going with the grain though. As a species we need to fit in and feel loved, so it's difficult for most of us to go on our own and be who we really want to be. So instead of chasing that dream we get herded into mindless careers, and mindless past times we don't really like, just so we can feel included and loved. Sadly though there is no love in places like that, just a whole lot of desperation end emptiness.
But hey who needs to really live a full life anyhow when you have movies and other fantasies that can get you there quicker. I think peoples ever increasing hunger for entertainment and fantasy reflects the true reality we are facing as humans. Lambs to the slaughter.
Luckily I'm a semi crank, semi anti social bastard, so it has been easier for me to go my own way because not only do I not care what the average person thinks of me, I also cant stand running with them. You could say I suffer the opposite affliction most people go through. I don't even like walking on the sidewalk with a group of people, Ill cross the fucking road.
So for me the idea of rushing to work in some office building at the same time as thousands of others, taking my lunch at the same time as thousands of others, rushing home at the same time of thousands of others, even watching the same damn tv shows of thousands of others and talking about it around the fucking water cooler, and so forth is unthinkable, makes me sick really.
I have never defined myself by the jobs I have had. I have done everything from day labor work to managing companies. At the end of the day it was work to make money in order to do the things I really cared about. For most people work defines them, and it always seems to be the first question that comes up when meeting someone random, "So what do you do for a living?" I guess with some of us, our lack of steady work defines us better.

I think I have found a possible jackpot for myself though, as I have been working the past 2 years as a lighting/rigging technician on movie sets. I now help create the fantasies people fill their voids with. Its contract work that pays really good though, but the best part is filming schedules are usually 3-5 weeks. So Ill slave away for a few weeks then have a few months off. I only need to work 3 months of the year to get by, and the rest of the time I can tour. That's a little closer to my ideal living arrangement's.

Personally I wouldn't ever work at all if I could avoid it, but I have come to love traveling abroad and I have yet to find a way to fly for free. So until that day comes Ill work when I have to, doing what ever work comes my way. Non the less at the end of the day it is still only work, and I do it so I can buy that plane ticket far away, or get whiskey for a long train ride.

I do at times wish I could find a career that defined my life so I could get paid doing the things I love, but as of this post that hasn't happened yet, as to make money from the things I'm passionate about would go against everything they stand for.


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## travelin (May 15, 2013)

i taken a look around at 18 years old, got myself cleaned up, applied for trade school, got it, learned a trade and with the exception of six years in the navy that forever and always took care of any obligation i could possibly feel toward the security of this nation, i work around 2-10 months a year often working overtime and i spend a LOT of time off work and playing.

playing is rockhounding and poking around the desert and mountains here and there and camping and flyfishing wherever i desire between jobs.

nothing i own is a status symbol. the very idea is repugnent to me. some items i own are extremely expensive but are the best for my purposes. some items i own are not that expensive, but again are the best for my purposes.

i owe no allegiance to any company, never have and never will. i go and i build things and when the building is done or im tired of it i take off and go do my thing.

no cubicle for me and my wife is the same.


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## cport420 (May 15, 2013)

Yep. I just don't want to be a slave to a car and place. I do fine without them and don't really see the big deal with my family and some friends. Some which sit in an apt all day watching tv or at work paying for the apt and tv. Seems lil a big burden. I fucking hate burdens.


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## MFB (May 16, 2013)

Time is an important idea here for me. It is truly the only thing regardless of social status, race, etc. that we are allotted an equal amount. No matter who you are you have 24 hours a day. If you waste 24 hours one day, you still have 24 hours the next day.

24 glorious hours a day to fill your life with the things you LOVE!
I could never waste those hours working for shit I dont need.

Work ethic is not your ability to take shit from your boss at some job that you don't like, as most people would have you believe. "Oh, you dont have a job, you have no work ethic". HA!
Work ethic is your capacity to put energy into the things you love, into creating a world in which you would want to live.

With that being said, I whole-heartedly support those businesses who do the right thing, embrace a democratic economy (small, local drivin business, co-ops, etc.)...although I'd still never work for them.  There are a ton of community gardens popping up here in CO that dirty kids with 'no work ethic" have put together to help food banks and such.

A few trades are great for any man to have, but it's sad to me when those trades come to define who he is.


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## Deleted member 125 (May 16, 2013)

i consider myself to have a very strong work ethic, but by no means to i work 9-5 365 a year so somebody can have a nicer house. i take the work i can get and up until recently its been mostly kitchen work, shitty jobs for shitty pay, that i didnt feel bad quitting after ide saved up a comfortable amount of money to get me by until i figure out what my next move is. with that being said im currently "working" well over 40 hours a week but i love what i do now and the people i work with, so it hardly feels like a job.


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## cport420 (May 16, 2013)

Whats the community gardens like? Is that sorta like a commune type deal where you do chores for food and shelter of some sort? Is anyone currently doing anything like that? How do you meet up with people from these places?


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## cport420 (May 16, 2013)

http://directory.ic.org/intentional_communities_in_Colorado 

like these places in that link?


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## MFB (May 17, 2013)

Cport,
A community garden basically works like a CO-OP. People build and maintain the garden and eat what is grown. They are publicly functioning in terms of ownership, access, and management,as well as typically owned in trust by local governments or not for profit associations. They can be held on private or public land, generally vacant lots are turned into gardens. It's a smart way for people to eat healthy food, create communty, and give corporate the middle by not buying the genetically modified bullshit.

Home Chicken coops have also become super popular as well here in the Springs. I know a few people that have them, and the eggs are DELICIOUS. Also, a NO-PAY restaruant is just opening up, where you pay what you can, or work for you meal. Ive seen these in other cities and thought it was an awesome idea.

The types of places that give you room and board for working thier farms is referred to as WWOOFING. (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I've heard this is a great way to travel but admittedly don't know much about it. Im sure there's tons of info with a quick interwebs search.


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## notlateforsuppa (May 17, 2013)

def be careful of the "internships" on organic farms some are prob.coo but some want to work you to death for little to no pay>?


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## wizehop (May 24, 2013)

I feel compelled to throw one more point into the work ethics mix. I think our freedom as individuals is directly tied to our work ethic, and this is the single biggest reason why people who lack in this department grow up bitter. 
 I also believe that this lack of "work ethic" is one of the greatest issues concerning the North American scene, as these days its considered trendy to be useless or frowned upon to move up in life.
 worse still, on top of people fucking their own lives up by perpetuating this fallacy of "fucking over the Man" by being a waist of space, they also grow to resent the rest of the world who is actually working on making a life for themselves.

Case(s) and point(s):

 In my poorer days I ate at soup kitchens and missions quite a bit. To some degree I actually liked being there despite the reasons for needing to be. I spent a lot of my day working around the schedules of the soup kitchens. 7:30 am Breakfast at the Salvation Army, 12:30 Lunch at the Shepherds of Good hope, 5 pm supper at Saint Paul's, I had the best places down like clock work.
 Walk over, get in a stinky ass line, eat, and repeat. I was never pissed off because I was there, nor did I feel that I was owed more in life. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the people I ran into there. None the less my life at the time was basic and I was pretty content really.
 For me there was no misfortune in my life that would have really warranted me being penniless. To be blunt, I was eating in these places because I was lazy. There was lots of options for me to work, from day labor centers, to a ton of places I could get a shit job and make a bit of bank. I just wasn't interested in going out and getting work. 
 I saw a lot of people down and out on a daily basis, and despite hearing a lot of shit about how bad of a spot people where in, no one ever talked about fixing it. The percentage of people who seemed to accept their current position was quite small. None the less I was pretty happy.
 So every day melted into the other and it was actually a pretty chilled existence. Like Orwell stated in DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON (great book by the way) "there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs—and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety." 

 To me poverty doesn't stem from lack of money. Lack of money is only a symptom of something greater. Unfortunately though our society judges everything solely on the backs of the dollar bill. rich/pour, successful/failure, crust punk/pussy, train hopper/oogle, most of the time the reality of the person is far over looked by simple minds.
 This is just as true for people without money as it is for people who have money. This forum is just as full of the whole "oh they have money their fags" as people with money judge those who don't. Its the same fucking shit no matter where you go.
 So we call out other groups and shoot down people who have shit, because of course anyone who has anything must have had it handed to them. Meanwhile we are slugging it out at the bottom like real people right? As far as I'm concerned this is the worst attitude an individual could ever have.
 The worst part about all this is that despite our own arrogance we still think that it is someone else's responsibility to make us who we want to be. That somehow the government should buy us our freedom. Like we just need to sit around and wait for the world to come to us, and when it doesn't its someone else's fault. Eventually volunteering at the soup kitchen made this painfully clear to me. As over time it became evident just where these attitudes lead most people towards in the end.
I felt a bit bad that I was free loading and well, I wanted more access to the food. So for the next two years I served food there regularly while definitely taking advantage of the access to more eats.
 It was amazing how most of the people who came in where pissy about the quality of the free food (actually quite good ), or the rules they had to follow. Most people who where there where pissed off and felt they deserved more from these free, volunteer run, non government services they contribute nothing too. Honestly some of the pickiest mother fuckers out there.
 On top of the bitterness there where two common reasons for people eating there, both of which I believe to be a fallacy in the pursuit of freedom. Mental illness of course is a whole other ball game, so lets stick to the sane folks for this one.
1) they didn't want to work for anyone. A lot of these people had issues with authority, and somehow felt that it was better to have nothing than be told what to do, even if it was only on a job site. We'll call this shit pride
2) the sense of self entitlement was ridiculous. Even more prevalent than not wanting to be told what to do, people felt there position in life was not their doing, but because others have treated them poorly, or they didn't get what they deserve.

 Now I get that shit happens in life and we get dealt bad hands at times. The thing is at the end of the day we are the only ones who decide how to deal with what comes at us. People want to be free but wont accept responsibility for their place . Time after time I saw this in the people who where coming in. 
 As someone who was pretty much in the same boat, I didn't have issue with the fact people where there, but I was turned off by the fact that most didn't take responsibility for themselves. The ones who did where happy as shit day in and day out, but you could tell the people who couldn't accept responsibility for themselves by their anger. 

These attitudes also run rampant with the north american traveling scene, especially among so called train hoppers. This is magnified with this whole bullshit Anarchist anti civ business, which is the biggest contradiction out there. 
 Ridding trains yet ranting on capitalism. The railroad being one of the biggest fucking capitalistic industries the continent has ever produced. Not to mention its capitalism's excess that fuels a free loading society. Nothing against the lifestyle, just the people who bitch about the things that make their choice lifestyle a reality... weak as fuck in my eyes.
 It blows my mind how free people want to be, yet expect the fucking government to hand out their happiness. Like do people not see the massive fucking contradiction in it all?
 If your sitting around expecting others to give you shit, your about as far from freedom as you can get. Yet somehow the war drum beats to these false notions every fucking day.
 Again if you don't want to be part of a system and your happy with what that brings, then by all means go for it. Having a good work ethic doesn't mean you have to work for a system, it just means you gotta be willing to roll with the punches in order to have the life of your choosing.

I find it sad when I hear kids go on about this Capitalism bullshit and how they don't want to work for the man..Like if they do its just some kind of machine sucking the life from them.
 The system may be set up for just this, but what they don't realize is they are actually fucking themselves by going against everything just for the principal.
Fuck the man! I agree whole heatedly. That being said though, even if the system is set up to take advantage of us, even if money is a complete illusion (which it is, just think how the same piece of paper has different values depending on what number it has on it...same paper different number), the thing is at the end of the day it isn't about the man or someone else making money off of you. Its about yourself and your freedom to do with your life what you want. 
 So what if the guy your working for is making more money off of your back than your getting. By avoiding that work you also give up on all the opportunities that money could afford you. People seem more driven to keep others from succeeding off of them, then by making their own life rich and full.
 There are certain undeniable truths about this world and no amount of going against them with change that. So at the end of the day your not fighting anyone but yourself. If you think your going to change the world by Dumpstering and not making money, your seriously delusional. Again if you chose to live that way its all good, just don't turn around and be pist when you don't have anything.

I used to get flack for working and making money from a large potion of the train hopping community. But you know what, when Im sitting on a roof top in the deserts of India smoking opium and hash, looking out over the vastness and experience everything that comes with it, its really hard to buy into this bullshit, or give a fuck what some spanger train hopper thinks freedom should be. 
Yet despite the obvious benefits to ones self a good work ethic brings, people still get Romanticized by this whole angry fuck the world business. I say fuck the worldtoo, but don't fuck yourself, which is just what people are doing.
 This stands just as true for making money as it does for living a life void of money. Both require a good work ethic to get ahead and be successful The point here is only you can make your life what you want it to be. At the end of the day avoiding things just because its part of a "system" or because someone else profits more, is idiotic in my eyes.

 The real issue in all of this is that kids look up to skids who perpetuate this false ideal of freedom. And because of that they are doomed towards an angry wasted life.


True freedom comes at a price, things on this earth cost time, money or both either way both require effort. If your pissed about your lot in life and doing nothing about it except bitch, I'd say you have a pout work ethic, and I'd be even bolder to predict your going nowhere and may as well be happy about it.
 Worse still, the idea of avoiding making a life for yourself because part of it includes working in a system is pure fucking poison. Besides if you really want to take it down you need to get to a place where you can actually make things happen. Being a crust punk is about as far from making this happen on a mass level as it gets.
 You can still take from a system without being a slave to it. Think of yourself as a cancer cell, drifting undetected throughout the body. You may go with the flow, you may act like one of the heard, but at the end of the day your a fucking wolf on the prowl.
 Unfortunately for me I got a taste for traveling abroad and I cant stop. Planes cost money, everything costs money, I have no choice but to work in order to buy that ticket so I can really fuck off for a while. That's the reality, if I want to do things I gotta to do what it takes to make it happen. In this case that means making money and working my ass off from time to time. I know why I work when I do and I don't give a shit if it supports some system or not. There is no fucking way I'd ever give up going to say India in order to fight some political system...

All that to say, our work ethic is the only thing that stands between our dreams and our nightmares. If we want to truly be free, we need to live our life based on what will get us to where we want to be, not based on a shity political ideology.
 Nazi Socialists like to use the term "work makes free" as a way to get the heard to work hard for the system. Even if your against the system this still rings true, you just need to use it for the right reasons. Perspective is everything.

 If your content having nothing then its all fine and good. just don't turn around and blame others for why your where you are. Freedom is all responsibility for ones own actions. You want shit out of life, you gotta take it.


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## Matt Derrick (May 24, 2013)

wizehop said:


> I feel compelled to throw one more point into the work ethics mix. I think our freedom as individuals is directly tied to our work ethic, and this is the single biggest reason why people who lack in this department grow up bitter.
> I also believe that this lack of "work ethic" is one of the greatest issues concerning the North American scene, as these days its considered trendy to be useless or frowned upon to move up in life.
> worse still, on top of people fucking their own lives up by perpetuating this fallacy of "fucking over the Man" by being a waist of space, they also grow to resent the rest of the world who is actually working on making a life for themselves.
> 
> ...



Fuck yeah man, that was incredibly well put. I wish most travelers had this kind of clarity about work and existence in general.


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## cport420 (May 24, 2013)

No shit bro. I agree with a lot of what you said. I trade time doing things that make me happy instead of working all the time. I worked three days this week. Made bout 150. Did different stuff each day. I'm not lazy though. I just really don't want to be a slave to a job. I haven't been to the point to a soup kitchen but would if I had too. I accept my choices and live by them. And I hate depending on ppl


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## rails2rails (Jul 23, 2013)

Work ethic to me means doing all that you possibly can to support whatever lifestyle you happen to prefer and being a burden on no one. When I was in my 20's, I busted my ass 5 days a week as a bike messenger Sept.-April/May so that I could bolt during summer and travel/see the world. I wasn't sitting on a sidewalk all day expecting someone else to take care of me.


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