Drive Time

Once upon a time, I worked. Full time even.

I worked pretty hard, too. I taxed my brain. I worked after traditional hours on weekdays. I sometimes worked on weekends, too. And, because I’m an idiot, I had years in which I didn’t take all the days off to which I was entitled. 

Most of my coworkers worked hard, too. Sure, some worked harder than others. And a scant few didn’t pull their fair share. But my colleagues mostly were diligent worker bees. 

True, the flipside of all that dedication and hard work of mine eventually became that I wanted out. At first, I couldn’t articulate that mindset, even to myself. But once having discovered FIRE, I could, and then determined to become financially independent, or dictate the terms of what I was willing to do. 

Maybe if I’d worked less hard I’d have been less in a hurry to FIRE. But working less hard wasn’t a realistic option. That’s cuz the field in which I worked was objectively high(ish) pressure, and working hard was mostly a precondition to getting and keeping one’s job.  

Fast forward to 2022, my first year of FIRE life. 

Easy Pleasy

As I’ve mentioned on this here blog, I took a part-time job last year. It’s not the job I targeted tho. Long story short, the job I wanted wasn’t available. But had I gotten it, it’d likely have been a seasonal gig and I might only have been able to work about six months out of the year. The job I took, tho, is a year-round gig. And as it’s turned out, I like it quite a bit. Fortune (figurative, but most certainly not literal as to this job) smiled down upon me. 

Now, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, this job is easy. One of my coworkers—whom we’ll call Dee—in describing the job to someone working for our parent organization, used that very word, “easy.” Absent some occasional craziness that I won’t get into here, it’s low stress, too. Merely show up to work when scheduled and do the simple basics of the job, and, to my mind, it’s nigh impossible to get fired. 

Slack Channel

But it’s a funny thing. Some of my coworkers have gotten reprimanded, and a few were fired. 

Because they’re slackers. Bigtime slackers. 

Others of my coworkers aren’t quite as big of slackers. But their performance wouldn’t have come close to cutting it in my former, full-time profession. 

For me, I feel like I’m slacking when I’m actually fulfilling the responsibilities of this job. Because the job is just . . . so . . . easy. Watching my coworkers take actual slacking to an impressive level is just amazing to me. Baffling, in fact. 

Now, I like all these slackers as people. They’re fun to work with. I just shake my head at their demonstrated work ethic. 

Hustle Cultured

Dee is one of the slackers. I have reason to believe that he’s on or near the chopping block. 

What’s interesting about Dee is that he’s a hustler. Dee’s got a few side gigs for which he charges an impressive hourly rate or otherwise earns decent change. He’s also a smooth talker, has swagger, and oozes confidence, three things that . . . uuummm . . . would not be used to describe me. 

But here’s the rub: Dee doesn’t get many side gig gigs. Because he doesn’t market himself or have a network that regularly hires him, and his other money-making ventures are engaged in only sporadically.

It’s been really eye-opening to work with Dee and the other slackers. I mean, I knew these types existed. And I assumed their ranks were impressively large. But it’d been so long since I worked with them that I find it jarring. 

Thing is that most of these coworkers have (money-spinning) potential. In addition to Dee, for example, a second coworker—whom we’ll call Bee—is a fantastic cook and occasionally sells some of her output. Having tasted that output, lemme tell you, it’s darned good. Other co-workers also have outside money-making ventures or prospects as well.

Waste Land

Now, I suspect that some of these coworkers will in fact make a go of their outside ventures or other lucrative paths that they’re pursuing. But most probably won’t. Or won’t anytime soon. Most of the rest will make little life progress, and maybe move on to another low-ish paying job, making slow or almost no next-level financial progress for years, if not their whole working lifetimes. Some may perhaps even take a step backward.

What wasted talent. As a friend to each of these people, I’d love to see them prosper and make positive financial progress. I’d likewise love to talk to them about good personal finance and put them firmly on the path to FI. But having tried just that a bit in the past, it became pretty clear that any suggestions essentially would fall on deaf ears. 

Middling Along

Surely there’s a middle range between slacking and burnout mode, where most people can settle on a sustainable and personally fulfilling degree of drive and dedication to a job. I may have tipped into the burnout area on occasion when working full time. My slacker coworkers seem to me to fall outside of it on the other side of the equation. 

On the whole, I prefer having drive. It allowed me to attain financial independence and to FIRE well before traditional retirement age. Slacking may have made for a more relaxed journey at times, but also likely would’ve precluded being able to amass wealth or otherwise get ahead. It’d also have invited getting reprimanded or fired from the job, and the consequent stress. There’s also the personal fulfillment that came from having drive and doing a job well.

And in the end . . . 

So, I’ll watch silently and marvel at my coworkers’ wasted talents. And thank my stars that I have—whether by nature, nurture, or both—productive drive.