"You gonna get another job?"...

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
OK. If I can find a blank tape laying around, I *may* be in business. The trick is to dig out my old digital converter box from the old TV. You set the signal on that and set the VCR to Channel 3 (4 here, actually) and program the timer. I may just attempt it. We shall see.

Or I could just tell the HR monkey that I have been coughing and have a sore throat. But that won't get me any money.
 

missmanners

grrrrrrrr...
The good part about living in the middle of nowhere on a reservation and be so far under the poverty level is I still work a lot. Not many can pay right now, but I'll relocate snakes (and other vermin) anyway. And come winter 'yote hides will be $100+. I bought my rundown house for $3000 and pay a very low lease on 87 acres of rock, sand, scrubby trees, all kinds of varmints. I meditate a lot, spend most nights under the stars pondering stuff and I have never been so contented.

;)
mm
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
That's as similar to where I'm at as I've encountered. I have zero debt and no wife or kids, so my expenses are very low. If I wanted to live on ramen noodles and my tenants stay up on their rent (and my dog doesn't have any more unexpected medical bills) I could just about live on the rent from one house. If I could've gotten a second comparable rental, I wouldn't need a job. I wanted to do TaskRabbit and just do gigs like moving people or assembling IKEA furniture, etc, but their application process is such a headache I gave up and let it drop.

It's funny, because other property managers just don't get it. The rule of thumb is that you need around 10 rentals to not need a job. But the rule of thumb figures you've got a mortgage yourself, all your rentals have mortgages, you pay cleaners and handymen and others, and you have a wife and kids to support. Chatting with a realtor at a networking event and before I could finish my thought, he was like, "Yeah, you could probably get by on 6 houses." But this is a guy who is giving away a 2 year old sofa online because he found a sofa he likes better. People just don't know how to live simply.

On an unrelated note, my brother, who's broke all the time, just dropped $,1800 on a small tractor for the grounds of the 10 acre property my parents owned. Because he liked the John Deer better than the Ford tractor with a front-end loader and the other one International? with a mower attachment. And none of these things are going to make him any money. He just doesn't get that--buy things that make you money. I have the A-Team van but that's so I can haul stuff to rental properties that won't fit in my Mustang. And once I had the A-Team van, I didn't run out and buy a Mystery Machine--although I was sorely tempted. While I was fixing up the A-Team van someone nearby was selling a 1967 Chevy van for a fair price. With repairs, doing up an appropriate interior, and getting a vinyl wrap exterior I could've had a pretty convincing Mystery Machine for under $10,000. Of course I don't need 2 vans, wouldn't have had anyplace to park it, and therefore would've had to find someone willing to pay me $15,000 for a Mystery Machine. Probably something I could've done, but it would have taken away time and money from the projects I'd already committed to. That's another thing my brother never gets. He's always got a million irons in the fire and regularly sinks a ton of money into something he just lets drop because something shinier has come along.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Just made a batch of elderberry sytup (yielded a quart and a half) from a few local bushes, some distilled water, a little cinammon and ginger and a cup of vodka. Also finished an ACV immune tincture, and the best CBD oil I ever made.

I doubt seriously I'll ever go back to an hourly or salaried job again. Since Covid people seem to need a little more tlc and direct attention on interactions, and they seem quite willing to pay for it.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Went to my census training today. Maybe I've just forgotten, but I feel like when I did it in 1990, they just handed you a clipboard and said "go nuts." I've probably forgotten.

But anyhow, this was 2 hours of training and paperwork and being issued a big honking iPhone and more stuff to read and study and whatnot. Can't someone just pay me $500-600 a month for being such a great guy?

As I get older, I increasingly become a whiny pussy. I almost don't believe some of the things I've done because they seem beyond me. I completely tiled a bathroom once. But I guess I made an A-Team van fairly recently so maybe I'm not as soft and incompetent as I feel sometimes. That said, I really don't feel like working at a factory or counting people. I wish the TaskRabbit app wasn't so frustrating, because I'd much rather assemble people's entertainment centers and move their shit and stuff than punch a clock.
 

Chuckles51

Member
I know when I was unemployed in 2011 and nobody was really hiring, I was even trying for something part time just to help and you had to use the web sites to apply for minimum wage jobs and answer all these stupid questions for a shitty minimum wage job!!

:mad:
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
lol. I totally honey badgered on a background check recently. They made me jump through all these online questions for a 3rd party contractor. And when I got to the end, the HRbot said "We see a couple gaps in your work history, would you like to explain them?"

Well, gentle reader, our hero had maybe knocked back a few more cocktails than is wise when conducting business and I opened by ripping off Jack Nicholson's big speech at the end of "A Few Good Men" with "I have neither the time nor inclination to explain myself..." I did salvage it and actually provided some explanation, but I didn't delete out the opening. So the next morning I was like "Well, I fucked that up. Burned that bridge." so imagine my surprise when they actually scheduled me to come in for my orientation.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
You're going to do the census? Knock on strangers jobs during Covid?

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
LOL I said jobs, I meant doors.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Like, 1% of 1% of people get the disease. The vast majority of those are people with other serious health problems. And if you stay 6' away, outdoors in the sunlight, and wear a mask the chance of getting it is even smaller. Finally, of the people that DO get it, 40% experience NO SYMPTOMS. While I feel for anyone who's lost someone to the disease, if you look at it rationally, I've probably got a better chance of getting lung cancer from secondhand smoke than dying of the 'rona.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Well there's a lot they still don't know about the long term effects. We're still only 8 months into this. Hence the term "novel". I wish him well.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Like, 1% of 1% of people get the disease. The vast majority of those are people with other serious health problems. And if you stay 6' away, outdoors in the sunlight, and wear a mask the chance of getting it is even smaller. Finally, of the people that DO get it, 40% experience NO SYMPTOMS. While I feel for anyone who's lost someone to the disease, if you look at it rationally, I've probably got a better chance of getting lung cancer from secondhand smoke than dying of the 'rona.

The actual statististics arent quite like that. If you look at total infections and put that up against cases with an outcome it's more like 6% in outcomes, with the rest still sick and not over it. Been doing a lot of research with a couple other people I know with statistics and it's a pretty potent virus when all is said and done.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Ye gods. As I type this, I'm in a miserable teleconference being run out of Philadelphia that is basically reading to us all the stuff I just spent hours reading--after spending hours having a computer-based training read the same information to me. The only entertaining thing is the random differences from the 3 different iterations.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
It's like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off": "Again, if there are any questions, it's *6 to unmute. Anyone? Anyone?"
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
...and someone just interrupted this torture to point out that we were just being read the things that we read after having the computer read it to us. It's like "Yes. Just shut up and we'll get through it that much faster." I should've just took out the earbud and watched BSG. Now I've gotta watch it on the fucking laptop.
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
I know this call is a waste of time and I'll get paid for it whether I stop listening or not and because they took roll already I can get to the next things I need to do. So I should just set the phone aside. BUT I'm OCD and paranoid. The OCD/German in me is like "they said I had to do this call so I'm doing this call." And the paranoid is like "what if, at the end they give us a secret password and I don't know to say "xylophone" when my supervisor says "trout"?
 

Volpone

Zombie Hunter
Trainer is an idiot. We had a 5 minute conversation of "So if we are only allowed to work 8 hours, but we are required to take a half hour break, does that mean we can really only work 7 1/2 hours?" (The actual conversation was so stupid and frustrating that I can't even remember how it went.) And it went round and round and round to the point where I was off mute by the time it finally wrapped up because I was about to say: "Look. Say you say you can work from 11-9. That's 10 hours. Then you say you're available to work 8 of those 10 hours. So you work from 11-3. You've just worked 4 hours. You take a half hour break. Then you work from 3:30-7:30. That's another 4 hours. With a half hour break. And you'll enter it into the computer at the end of the day.
 

Oerdin

Active Member
"I don't think I'd *like* another job."
-Office Space.

*sigh* I can just about *see* "retirement" from here. Finished renovating my rental and have someone set to move in on the 19th. Stock market's down a bit but I could just about make the nut on another rental property. Given my cost of living, that would be enough that I wouldn't need a job anymore. I could do little side gigs for walking around money and then once I'd been managing rental properties long enough to qualify for a mortgage without a job I could refinance one of them to get money to buy another property. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Only there are NO houses on the market right now. So nothing to renovate and rent out. There IS the census, though. And they're hiring. That would put some money in my pocket and get me out in neighborhoods where I could keep an eye out for potential deals. The pay is pretty good and it would wrap up just about the time the stock market is back on track and there are some homes for sale. It's a solid plan.

The one flaw in it is that I really don't want another job. I like hanging out with my dog and puttering around the house. I've gotten spoiled. But I guess I need to bite the bullet because otherwise the money will eventually run out... :(

I have kind of been going through something similar wrt my deceased father’s estate. Honestly, wait a year and the real estate market will drop, just have cash on hand so you can spend when you find a good opportunity. I am lucky because I inherited one paid off house and half of three others (my sister got two to herself which were smaller rental units) along with a fair amount of other stuff. I am sitting on that cash hoping when the bubble pops I can add one to two more to my portfolio.

My parents did this fix it up and rent it out thing as a small business for 40 years and it worked out very well for them. I will say it is not easy money as it requires a ton of work both to maintain properties and to properly manage them and you won’t make any money if you hire someone else to do it so you have to do it yourself. My other big concern is California’s Democrat controlled government has gone hard left and has passed stupid shit like not being able to evict non paying tenants and even put rent control on the Nov ballot even though voters have twice rejected rent control in the last four years.
 
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