[quote]kpsnap wrote:
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Someone left this in a San Francisco restaurant today, kinda funny…
[/quote]
Funny? Thank you for making my point about greed.
My household income is slightly more than $100,000, I’m an atheist, and I’d never dream of doing that to someone.
Jewbacca: Thank you for your story. It’s a good one.
Beans: Valid point about why chasing money is no different than chasing lifting numbers. I mulled that over for a few days and couldn’t provide a good counterpoint. [/quote]
Corollary to bean’s point about lifting numbers–a friend of mine, who I worked with, owns 3 bars. He built them from scratch right out of college, and has already made his first million. He’s under 30–typically that time when a male with money would be spending a retarded amount on silly things he doesn’t even want, just because he can. Instead, this guy lives like a well off blue collar guy–nice truck, motorcycle, small house (we’re talking single story small, like the size of some 2-3 bedroom apartments).
His girlfriend, who I also know, asked him what he wanted to buy. He always answers, “i don’t really need anything. Not much I really want to buy”. Why then does he stress about his business, put in 16 hour work days, get completely upset at people who are screwing up their jobs, and why is he always worrying about the next promotional event or a better way to cram his bars full of college students? Is he greedy? Sitting on his horde of bank accounts like a dragon on gold? No. having known him for years I can say absolutely not. He also gives quite generously to charity. No, this is due to 2 things:
- more profit is a way to measure his progress, his success. The business gets more people in the door, they come back more often–that means he’s progressing as a business man. Exact same thing as chasing lifting numbers. It’s the only metric he know of that allows him to compare himself to his competition, and judge progress against them or ahead of them. Exactly th same as beans pointed out earlier.
2)he stresses, gets incredibly upset, worries constantly, because this business is his baby. Really like his kid. He did about 80% of the construction work himself–no crew, one man. He worked 18 hour days living on energy drinks building dor months and months, took out the loan himself, sold his truck and motorcycle for more money at one point to do it. Every time he expanded, he did the work himself–myself and a few others helped the following bars and renovations, but it was still a crew of basically 3-4 guys, on a good day maybe 6-7. All the building code, him. All the fire code, him. All the trim, decorations, varnish, half the furniture, all him. Soo…when somebody is working for him and starts lazing around or steals money, or gives shit away, or even something as simple as forgets to turn the breakers off when closing, he gets upset. Becuase its like somebody not giving a shit about his child, his kid.
The samw thing happens in boardrooms across America. Its the same for both people, just different kinds of work. Same long hours, sleepless nights, stressing, all that. And it doesn’t matter whether its the federal gov’t telling them “you didnt build that” or their employees screwing around and stabbing them in the back…or sheer negligence. It’s a kid to them.
Also for the record, Obama is pissing my buddy off too, not just the board room “rich guys”. my buddy might have 7 figures in the bank, but he doesn’t make 7 figures a year. That’s saved up.