Why do people limit their potential by working for someone else?

[Reverend Rick]

Why are people programed to work for someone else? Most of the high paying labor jobs have been removed from this country and replaced by foreign jobs making inferior products.

Why do people buy these foreign products that have robbed them of good jobs?

Why do people think they can live on a minimum wage job?

Why do people think that they will have a happy life going through it without an education or a viable work skill.

Why would anyone work for someone else when they could make far more money working for themselves provided they had a sellable skill that was in demand.

 

[Valjean]

Programmed? I don't know about programmed, but most people prefer a regular paycheck over the gamble of self employment.

Foreign products? They're cheap and most people don't have a well-developed social conscience.

Minimum wage: People don't "think they can live on a minimum wage job." People with minimum wage jobs generally have no other options.

Young people are not known for long-range financial planning. They're impulsive. They're not thinking about their financial future. Long term planning is un-natural.
Hominid psychology is not wired for long-term planning. It's only been recently that such planning was even possible. For millions of years we lived a hand-to-mouth, hunter-gatherer existence. Our entire psychology is geared toward this lifestyle.

The most potentially lucrative strategy would be to plow everything into lotteries, sweepstakes and other gambling ventures, but there's something to be said for a sure thing that transferred the gamble to an employer.
Your term "sellable skill" confuses me. If you sell it are you not working for the buyer?
Lawyers, physicians and engineers generally work for someone else. Usually they do OK.

 

[Reverend Rick]

It is true, everyone works for someone. Even CEO's work for the shareholders.

The hunter gatherer existence had long term plans as well. Having enough fire wood cut would be a good example. I see your reasoning with this though. It is amazing how so many people can be satisfied with so little.

 

[Aqualung]

It's not limiting my potential to work for somebody else. it's increasing my potential. There's no way, for example, I would be able to learn the construction trade on my own, so I got a job as a construction associate. My employers will teach me the tricks of the trade, and my potential will be greatly increased because now I have a whole new set of skills to market myself with.

Why do people think they can live on a minimum wage job?

People think they CAN'T live on a minimum wage - that's why it goes up every year.

 

[michel]

My wife tried to persuade me to give up my job (with a Bank) for years, and that we should start up our own business.

The theory is fine, and as long as you have a really good idea, you can do it. The problems start when you have to employ people - they can never be as "devoted" as the owner himself.

Then there are no paid holidays, and if you are ill, well, there's no money coming in. Pensions aren't as good either; I was retired on medical grounds from the bank in 1994, and they have been paying me a pension since then. O.K, since I only worked 25/40ths of my career, my pension is not as good as it could have been, but we get by................

 

[doppelganger]

Why is pecuniary income level being equated with potential?

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Because you can work for yourself - in which case your job can become a 24/7 thing instead of 8 hours a day 5 days a week (and if it isn't 8/5 you get paid for your overtime)- you don't get paid holidays as was already mentioned, you still actually work for someone else because you need the clients or you wont be working at all. In order to have a day off work, you either need to work harder the day before and the day after, or you need to employ someone. If you employ someone, as Michel said, they don't care about the business as much as you do most of the time, and even the best workers have their issues you have to deal with. Quite often it isn't actually as lucrative to work for yourself as it is to work for someone else.
So, my other half and I can go back to working for ourselves, get a few nice tax breaks but have to worry about clients who don't pay on time or try not to pay at all and not have a decent holiday in 7 years while working essentially 15 hour days most of the week - including weekends doing quotes until up to 11pm - or we can stay where we have been for the last 8 months or so and earn a combined income of about 120k while getting paid holidays, sick days and an employer contribution to our superannuation funds of approximately 9% of our gross income.
Strangely, we're 'limiting our potential' because the rewards are better. I'm not sure where the limitation comes into it, frankly.

 

[Reverend Rick]

The idea is to work like crazy when you are young and can stand it while accumulating enough wealth to retire at a younger age so you can still pursue your interests. There is nothing worse than being to old to enjoy your money. I would hate to be wealthy and not know who I am while crapping on myself.

Seriously, I have an off season in my business and that is when I get to enjoy life. You and Michel are correct, employees do not care about a business like an owner. Yes, you do sometimes have demanding customers who expect you to go well beyond the call of duty. You just have to charge them accordingly.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Maximum happiness and satisfaction in life
does not depend on Maximum Income
Maxim Responsibility
Maximum risk
Or maximum any thing else.

It depend on finding the right Balance for You...
This differs between people
for some it is the thrust of self employment
For others the comfort of other skills, and their employment working for others, is the way to go.

If we were all self employed there would be a limit on every thing.
Defined by what you could do by your self..
This would be a quick return to primitive times.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Maximum happiness and satisfaction in life
does not depend on Maximum Income
Maxim Responsibility
Maximum risk
Or maximum any thing else.

It depend on finding the right Balance for You...
This differs between people
for some it is the thrust of self employment
For others the comfort of other skills, and their employment working for others, is the way to go.

If we were all self employed there would be a limit on every thing.
Defined by what you could do by your self..
This would be a quick return to primitive times.

To me, primitive times are when a person left straight out of high school barely educated and started working in a factory doing the exact same thing over and over for 35 years finding themselves unemployed, screwed out of their pension and unskilled and uneducated. They are too young to retire and too old to be of any value to any employer. Many lose there homes that were refinanced with ARM's.

I understand that self employment is not for everyone, but many entrepreneurs start their business and run it part time while retaining their regular job.

 

[doppelganger]

I understand that self employment is not for everyone, but many entrepreneurs start their business and run it part time while retaining their regular job.

You may have posted this somewhere and I missed it, Rick (and if so, I apologize), but what sort of business do you own?

 

[Reverend Rick]

You may have posted this somewhere and I missed it, Rick (and if so, I apologize), but what sort of business do you own?

I am an Electrical Contractor. Our family has a couple of other small businesses as well.

 

[doppelganger]

I am an Electrical Contractor. Our family has a couple of other small businesses as well.

Commercial? Residential? Both?

How did you learn the trade?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Self employment is a big gamble. You can make alot of money, make zero profit but not loose anything either, or you can end up loosing alot of money. Also, it costs alot of money to open your own business.

Alot of foreign products are cheaper, and sometimes of better quality.

No one thinks, or I would hope no one does, on a minimum wage job. Not unless you have two of them.

Why do people think you have to have education and a work skill to be happy?

Again, a self business is a large gamble.

Me and my mentor do plan on starting our own business, which will not make us much money at all until we have had it for a few years, expanded, and are making enough money to hire alot of employees to have what will eventually become two separate businesses running at maximum efficiency. Only then, when we are still paying off trucks, trailers, and everything else we need to get started, will we start to see some good money coming in.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Commercial? Residential? Both?

I mostly work installing medical equipment. CT machines, MRI's stuff like that. I will do work for some of the Doctors offices and even their horse barns, (we have some nice horse barns in Kentucky). I am even on call to do trouble shooting in limestone mines. ( I installed some control equipment for conveyors in years past). I did some hotels last year, but the bulk of my business is in the medical field. That's where the money is in our area. I hate to wire houses (but I will). I guess the short answer would have been all of the above LOL.

How did you learn the trade?

I went to trade school back in the 1970's after the VietNam war. I went to college in the 1980's and got an MBA. It's best to run a business that you are familiar with. I kept my electrical licenses current all those years.

 

[Booko]

Why are people programed to work for someone else? Most of the high paying labor jobs have been removed from this country and replaced by foreign jobs making inferior products.

For a start, our entire school curricula is designed to turn out good factory workers, RR.

We don't have much of a cultural tradition of starting your own business any more either.

Why do people buy these foreign products that have robbed them of good jobs?

It can be quite difficult to find items that are not overseas. I remember my husband looking for a pair of tennis shoes not made by slave labor somewhere. It was difficult to find anything not made in China, and the few shoes that were left were made in Honduras. Working conditions there are no better.

Why do people think they can live on a minimum wage job?

Because they have reasonable ideas of what the meaning of "minimum wage" should be?

Why do people think that they will have a happy life going through it without an education or a viable work skill.

Beats me.

Why would anyone work for someone else when they could make far more money working for themselves provided they had a sellable skill that was in demand.

Well, that's why our son is not working a minimum wage job at college. I can pay him a lot more for helping a few weekends in my gardening business. I bill $45-50/hour for labor. Do the math.

At some point when I'm consistently well I will return to working regularly, beyond the bit of business I do now.

Now, should I go work somewhere for small wages, where the gov't takes a big share of that?

Or would it make more sense to tutor a few hours in the sciences and math at $45-55/hour, along with the tax writeoffs I get for using part of the house as a place of work and other attendant write offs? Believe me, when it comes to a Schedule C I know every legal move there is -- none of my income will end up getting taxed. Zip.

When I was in my 20s I know nothing about all this stuff. My family didn't own any businesses. They always worked for someone else. I've just been lucky enough to have friends that I've learned a lot from over the years.

I sure didn't learn it in school.

 

[Booko]

The idea is to work like crazy when you are young and can stand it while accumulating enough wealth to retire at a younger age so you can still pursue your interests. There is nothing worse than being to old to enjoy your money. I would hate to be wealthy and not know who I am while crapping on myself.

And who exactly was going to raise our kids during this period of our life, while we were working like crazy?

Seriously, I have an off season in my business and that is when I get to enjoy life. You and Michel are correct, employees do not care about a business like an owner. Yes, you do sometimes have demanding customers who expect you to go well beyond the call of duty. You just have to charge them accordingly.

Yup, my off season is summer and some of winter. When I'm tutoring eventually it'll be whenever school is off.

 

[Booko]

Oh, Rev. there is one other reason why people often work for someone else: health insurance.

I know quite a few people tied to corporate jobs because there's a family member that is "uninsurable" and they have to have group health insurance because there are no other options.

I've been trying to keep my own medical history off the books so I won't end up in that sort of position myself. My husband can make a LOT more if he's consulting.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I have always had several things going at once. I guess I knew that even when I had a job, there was more money to be made side lining as well. The responsibility of a family is very sobering, and I always some how worried about letting them down. Another issue for me was that I have always liked the feeling I get when I help folks. My wife used to get on to me and tell me I was a sucker for a hard luck story. I can't help it, I get a rush doing things for others.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Oh, Rev. there is one other reason why people often work for someone else: health insurance.

I know quite a few people tied to corporate jobs because there's a family member that is "uninsurable" and they have to have group health insurance because there are no other options.

I've been trying to keep my own medical history off the books so I won't end up in that sort of position myself. My husband can make a LOT more if he's consulting.

OK, you got me there. My employees have better insurance than I do. I have previous medical conditions that prevent me from having a great plan for myself. I have a super high deductibles, so unless I have a lengthy stay at the hospital, I foot the bill for most of my medical expenses. I do get some complementary scans however.