To be rich....

Re: downshifting

I like pressing red buttons to see the red lights come on . . .

You are partly right, TCM - the confusion between a person's wealth and a person's worth has always irritated me immensely, while social darwinists make me feel quite ill. The cut and thrust of commerce just isn't the right environment for a sensitive chap like myself, no matter how talented.

;-^)

- Nick

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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Pretty much, yeah. It's late and I can't sleep. Good stuff though, eh? I think I believe some of it, though it has never occured to me much before now......

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Re: downshifters are selfish bar stewards

'the luxuries we have in this country and to which less developed countries aspire dont/wont exist if everyone works only at half throttle'

Now look here . . . someone needs to be brave enough to tell the Chinese that they simply can't all have fridges . . . the Age of Consumption was a flash in the popcorn pan, not the wok.

I'm not going to work harder than I need to to create STUFF for people who have been brainwashed into thinking they need it . . . aren't we in enough trouble yet? When people stop running their obese kids to urban schools in 4x4s etcetcetc then ask me again.

And don't talk to me about the value of work . . . every year this country comes to resemble the <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/golgafrincham.shtml>Golgafrincham B-Ark</A> a little bit more.

- Nick

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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Its a good view point though The more you think about it the more it makes sense.
Personally Im with the rest though ----Work to live ---selfish maybe but there you go.

Cheers

Terry

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Re: hmm.. but

not all hard work directly impacts to make more fridges, mousetraps, or cheap boats?

One or both of the kids were playing up the teachers at school, as i heard at parents evening. They're overconfident, speak out of turn, easily bored, said the teacher, his displeasure very obvious. Um, look, no offence Mr teacher, i said - but we don't want him to end up like you, see? The last notable person this school turned out died 20 years ago- so how about reconizing some of these kids as future leaders, future prime ministers, future monster taxpayers... or at least being able to afford a disgusting BRAND NEW albin vega so others can tune out and buy it cheap 10-20 years later when it';s old, and still lay claim to not impacting on the dreadful materialist world. Can education do that any more? Or will a few generations of teachery teachers lead us to "healthy walks" and erm, that's about it?

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Re: hmm.. but

Now who's pressing buttons . . .

I often work with kids who are overconfident, speak out of turn and are easily bored, and it is true that these are characteristics you might expect to find in those destined for future greatmess. However, they are also characteristics you find in the future unemployable. I am afraid most of them aren't going to be leaders . . . most of them are going to fall into the second group. Let us hope that your kids are two of the rare exeptions.

I would have thought you would have paid for a better school for your kids - or do you just despise all teachers?

- Nick

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Re: hmm.. but

Have to agree. Too many kids these days fall into that category, and not cos they are bright, just easily bored, which says little for employment prospects

<hr width=100% size=1>Me transmitte sursum, caledoni
 
Re: working till carried out in a box

Corr - 10% - how come G Brown lets them get away with that. I'm sure he'll address that in the next budget....

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Re: skool

um, the skool is £12k a year.

Individually, there are some great teachers. But as a career, i agree with ma and pa who spent their lives teaching and then said that they felt they watched other people go off and do other things less well than they would have done.

I suppose that really - i has a shit time at a different expensivish school. interstingly, everyone 25 yrs along is yeknow ok fine, no different really from parents... apar tfrom one chap who dipped out after physics at uni to run the nearby bookshop, and Mr US amazon came across him - who also read physics- hired him and piad him in shares, and now this very ncie litte chap is worth millions, by accident - and only by downshifting. Maybe most of this life thingy is time/place/luck/chance/face based?

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Re: 10%

shurrup! Anyweay, it was his idea, cos lots of his mates running barely-profitable whelk stores sold up and got taxed to bits, which is no good at all, now is it?

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Re: skool

Agree, there's much luck in all this. In which case, I'll finish this stuff and leave the office now..... Dammit I'm gonna have to tread heavily on the planet. The last eco-friendly train left a coupla minutes ago so I'll have to rent a blimmin merc. Will let you know if it's newly resprayed :-)

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Re: skool

We have endured years of teachers telling us how wonderful they are. A recent Educational Review Office study here in NZ had this to say -

The ERO study shows almost half the country's beginner secondary teachers, and a third of novice primary teachers, do not reach the required level of classroom competence.

Only 65 per cent of primary and 52 per cent of secondary teachers tested met required competence levels across four combined areas.

Surprisingly NZ teachers seem to find it easy to get jobs around the world so I suspect it is a worldwide thing.

John


<hr width=100% size=1>I am the cat but I am only 6.
 
To be rich ... would mean all sorts of things, financially I don't consider myself rich, I still have a mortagage, 2kids 2 dogs, wife has her car for work I have mine, just aquired a boat --- ummm I seem richer than I thought !!! still work too much, don't boat enough ... maybe I am poor ?
But I consider 'riches' other than money - I have a lovely wife who puts up with me, 2 great kids who I think tollerate me, 2 dogs who think I'm great (when I take them for walks, but not when I bath them !) I have my health and after 20yrs of mind numbing work a job that I actually enjoy! So maybe all in all I not that badly off....

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Re: skool

Maybe most of this life thingy is time/place/luck/chance/face based?

Yep . . .

I have not always resembled the driven snow, having worked on two separate occasions for that arch servant of Mammon, the oil industry - the second time for eight years. I certainly burnt my share of Jet-A during that time.

My performance in both positions was naturally brilliant, but both jobs ended - one abruptly and one with a whimper - because I was working for numpties, my face didn't fit and I wasn't prepared to have the surgery.

On the other hand, our current house is the only place in this area to come on the market that we could afford to buy outright in the last three years, and we heard we'd got it thirty minutes after we handed the keys to the old place over (It had taken us two years to sell it). Two weeks later we found the boat we were looking for almost on the doorstep of the new house.

So not only do the above mentioned factors skew the meritocracy beyond recognition - often they are also responsible for the creative excuses we make to justify our current life choices, whether as downshifters or fast lane shakers and movers.

My father in law - an Aberdeenshire farmer who spent five years as a 'guest' of the Japanese during WW2 - has a saying I respect enormously:

'It's a fine thing to be content'

I'm working on it . . .


- Nick


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Re: skool

Anyone who thinks (financial) riches are necessarily related to hard work is terribly naive.



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Re: skool

The trick with the easily bored is to challenge them. My kids tended to fall into that category. Some were stifled and are now in very ordinary jobs, one - the most stubborn since he was a month old, and the least academically able - has just finished his degree. The last two had teachers who challenged them to produce , and they did. He's 18, got good A levels and is off to a good uni. She's 15 and her last report strongly implied that the school sun went in when she pulled her knickers up.

As far as being rich is concerned, We run two cars, one an executive model, the other a supermini, and a yacht. I take great amusement in the fact that we paid less than half for the three together than my office collegue did for his new(ish) car.


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Re: violent disagreement, get on yer bike

Where would Mother Teresa have been by your definition?

John

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Well,
rich is me......
I have given away three sizable divorce settlements, and held onto my house, and luckily Lynn came along (again, but thats another story)...... Sooooo, we now have a house with a mortgage which we just doubled to buy our NEW boat so that we will finish the payments on house and boat simultaneously, and a few quid in a kitty which some half arsed City Slicker will no doubt reduce to a pile of ash by the time we need it.
I took the decision not to chase work all over the globe and my tax bill halved, and my stress pill bottle remains unopened. This leaves us more time for everyone and especially the boat.
We are happily fat and greying, and do everything together
Are we rich??? You bet.



<hr width=100% size=1>Our engine will never wear out - it only runs for 5 mins before packing it in again.
 
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