I love having a job. I have been rather consistently employed now for about 23 years. The only times that I have not been employed are usually (and understandably) after a move from one city to another.
I have never been fired. I am very pro-firing. I have seen too many long-time employees that do not earn their keep and I find that it generally drags down productivity in a broad and hurtful manner. My current boss likes to fire fools on Fridays. Even though I work hard to keep my spot, I get nervous on each Fire-Day. I like my paycheck very very much. That is how I buy my pork. Mmmmm, pork.
Although I am currently the Funding & Development Director, I am currently handling IT as well. yes, I will be very hard to fire 
My last position was as an Executive Director, but the Board I worked with were crazy fools and I am hesitant about ever taking the top spot again.
I began my career as a tutor and administrative assistant. I made a million pizzas in San Francisco as a young man. I have been a maintenance man, training coordinator, loss prevention officer, surveillance officer, nightclub bouncer, independent graphic design consultant, Native American technical assistance provider, cafe and record store owner/operator, affordable housing developer and acid dealer (that last one was a long time ago, to be sure).
Being unemployed is cool for about a week or two. But clearly it is not for me.
Having A Job: 
→ 8 comments so far ↓
1
phil
// Apr 24, 2009 at 11:22 am
Being unemployed is the worst. The goal of life is to make yourself useful. Usually that means working. I would talk about this more, but I am currently at work and want to stay employed.
2
Joe
// Apr 24, 2009 at 11:55 am
I wish I could give a plus to this review. I will have to settle for plussing phil’s comment; which is unfair because DDS did all of the heavy lifting.
But yes Dan, I agree on all counts. The worst company to work in is the one that you have the most job security ie the one where nobody gets fired.
I <3 the idea of “Firing Fools Fridays”.
Tenure should be illegal (sorry teacher-homies but it should). Imagine a world as a teacher, where if you did a bad job you got fired and if you did a good job you got paid more. How silly is it that neither of those things happens?
3
Joe
// Apr 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Oh and the worst times of my life have been when I have been jobless.
1) Desperately trying to gain employment when I was a Sr. in high school and was living on Naida’s floor. I finally got hired as a dishwasher at the cheesecake lady, which to date is the worst job I ever had but is still better than having no job.
2) The summer after my first year of school. I had moved out of SC and moved in with my girlfriend. I left behind my lucrative career changing lightbulbs at UCSC. I felt like such a POS until I found a job. Okay, i still felt like a POS after I found a job but less of one. I ended up doing “misc” for a carpet installation company.
4
phil
// Apr 24, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I do think it would be interesting if the pay for teaching was high enough that it would attract people who were motivated by money, rather then depending on saints and martyrs.
I take issue with what you say about teacher’s unions for a lot of reasons, the most crucial being that there’s no reliable way to gauge a teacher’s performance. Any ‘stats’ that are kept are useless at best. The best way we’ve come up with so far is having administrators decide whether they’re good or bad.
They’ll always want to keep the people who rock the boat the least and make the fewest demands, etc and I don’t blame them. But what you’d see happening is principals firing teachers they don’t like personally for small things and promoting their friends.
At my school for example, I was considered a good teacher by the higher ups because my students all did well on the state tests, I did what I was told, didn’t ask the administration for anything and didn’t complain during staff meetings. My actual teaching ability, for better or worse, was never even considered. It’s always going to be this way.
At DDS’ job the boss can fire people on Friday. At a school they can’t do that because the principal is not the teacher’s boss. The student is the teacher’s boss.
5
LukeG
// Apr 24, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I have to present the other point of view, just to play devil’s advocate. I have worked since I was 14 1/2 and am working now, a lot, etc., so don’t get me wrong, I respect work, have been a dishwasher, forklift driver, dirt mover, ie., also know shitty jobs.
I just want to add that the best times of my life were when I didn’t have a job. I went traveling for a year after using my job to buy a truck and save up money (in order TO travel).
Basically traveling is the antidote (if you have money saved, or are willing to be very… ungrounded).
However, not having a job is the worst and makes one feel like ess. Made me feel so shitty I couldn’t believe it. Even having “free time” and wandering around, even if your girlfriend pays the bills for a while, or you get some money from family or friends, it is not a settled feeling and yeah: bad.
And just continuing on this theme, this makes me think perhaps of how primal we truly are. I agree with Phil that the purpose of life is to be useful (or something like that, I apparently am too lazy to scroll up and copy and paste what he actually said) which is in many ways true… and it makes me think that that is such a pack mentality thing. Which doesn’t make it bad. We all want to do well for our pack, lest we be ostracized (I’m not an anthropologist or anything just typing…)
My gripe is that it may not be true. I think that our workweeks are distorted and someday we will find a system where it is not about how many hours you pass in your workplace, but how much you actually get done. And also, the more you work the more you get paid.
I like DDS and Joe’s comments too btw.
6
phil
// Apr 24, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Well said, Luke. One thing about employment that is especially good is vacation. If you don’t have a job, you can’t have a vacation (or a weekend for that matter).
7
kathy
// Apr 25, 2009 at 11:14 am
Did you all hear about the Whole Foods worker in NY who got fired for TRYING (as in attempted!) to eat a sandwich that was supposed to go in the trash? http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/fired-over-a-tuna-sandwich-and-fighting-back/
Not being in a union or living in another country, the worker did not have a right to his job. Absent of race/gender discrimination, most workers can be fired for any reason in this country. The horrible thing about the WF worker is that his employer tried to block unemployment benefits over the trash eating incident. Obscene!
I think people should have more rights in employment. I think bosses should have to prove there’s a good reason to fire someone. I think tenure should be easier. Don’t UPS drivers get over probation in 6 months or something? Why so long for educators? Not fair.
8
zjyw
// May 3, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I like being employed as well. I thought I would never find a job in this economy but I did and in I think the most recognizable hotel in Vegas (Bellagio), and now I might even be promoted.
I’ll just keep on living the dream.
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