When did "Rich" become a dirty word?

Remove all ads!

I work in the Alaskan fishing industry. I know people that are in their mid-60's who have been working in the industry for 40 years. They work the summer in Bristol Bay and during the peak runs work 120 hours a week -- on their feet, wet, and often cold. They do it without complaint and are great people. After the salmon run in late July in Bristol Bay they head to the southeast near Kethikan or Juneau where the peak is hitting and work 120 hour weeks there -- on their feet, wet and often cold. They don't complain there either. In early September they head out to Dutch Harbor Alaska where they will work processing Pollock, Cod, Black Cod, King Crab, some Halibut etc. From early Sept to about the middle of October they only work 84 hours a week but after that until the mid of December that goes to 112 hours a week -- they're on their feet all day, wet, and often cold. That's the ones that stay in land processors. Others head out on Factory Trawlers, Trawlers, Floating Processors, Longliners, Trenchers, Crabbers etc where they work similarly long hours while also engaging in the world's most dangerous work. In mid December they go home for about 1 month and in the middle of January go back to Dutch Harbor where they will work in the same way until late May when it is time for the salmon runs again. Rinse and Repeat. For 40 years.

A lot of these people were born overseas though they are now American citizens. Many are Americans who for various reasons are in the fishing industry. Those who work 85-120 hours a week most of the year in land plants earn usually about $8.00 an hour (this will vary based upon company -- Leader Creek will pay up to $10.00 though it is small while Trident or Ward's Cove often pays $7.25 or so.) Those who are fortunate enough to get a job risking their lives out on the water (difficult jobs to get) can make good money -- or lose it. See, boat jobs pay by percentage so there are times when a crewman works the hours and actually ends up needing to give the Captain/owner of the boat money in order to pay for fuel, food etc. The most succesful end up averaging I'd imagine about 50 k a year for their work and they are of course taking a grave risk.

Now, I'm fortunate in that I've been able to obtain a plant manager job in the summers and a longlining job as a foreman on a boat that has a very quick turnaround with a great captain that hits his quota so damned quickly that I get a tremendous amount of time off relative to others.

I will admit this though: while I work hard, even very hard, I do not work harder than many of those I have met that do not have the good fortune to have lucked onto such a good boat. See, my first year in Alaska I by mere chance ended up rooming across from some people who became good friends of mine. It turns out that through their work with Surefish they are well connected and were able to give me the good recommendations that allowed me to prove myself and get the jobs that I have -- but there are a lot of people who have worked just as hard for 4 decades making $8.00 an hour.

I bring all this up to try to prove one point: it isn't all hard work. There is a lot of luck involved as well. A lot of people work very hard and never attain financial security. And I'm not talking about the folk in the lower 48 who consider working a 40 hour week "hard work" or who consider working 10 overtime hours to be really hard work. I'm talking about 100 plus hours for most of your life. Hard work is a component to becoming financially stable when you do not start off that way but it in no way shape or form guarantees that stability. Luck can really be of tremendous help -- not sure why some don't want to acknowledge this.

Regarding Bill Gates, yes he was a college drop out -- from Harvard. He didn't exactly pull himself out of the ghettos. Also, wasn't he lucky to be able to look at Apple's OS and then essentially steal it (this case was confidentially settled) after Apple had stolen it from Xerox? That's how I understand it went. So, looks to me like Gates worked hard, was smart, and was lucky enough to have come from a background that gave him the education and some financial backing and was lucky again to be in the right place at the right time to steal a nice OS and adapt it for his purposes. Sounds like there was a dose of luck there too.

Stating that luck isn't important sounds as extreme to me as saying hard work isn't important.

[ February 03, 2003, 16:57: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

Laches,

Funny thing, my wife was raised in Juneau, and she tells a different story.

Regardless, if these people are being so abused, and they don't want to be there, leave! It isn't that expensive to hop on a ferry and go down the lower 48. These people will find that with the reduction of their cost of living they can work for a lot less, maintain their standard of living (as pitiful as it is) and get some education, or find a job where they might start off low, but can work their way up. Of course for a family of five it is hard to walk away from that $10K permanent fund handout isn't it?

And how did you get where you are today? I suppose that you just kind of muddled around and waited for them to roll the dice and your number to come up? Can you accept the fact that your stance says that how you worked had nothing to do with you getting a better position? If you are happy where you are at, stay there. But if you are driven to go higher, are you going to stay in a dead end? The answer to that question tells someone’s true priorities.

 

Truthfully, I'm getting tired of you either purpsoefully or negligently misreading everything anyone writes that you may not like. You write:

You write this in response to how I said:

Do you see how you twist what others say to cling to your extremist fantasies that luck doesn't often play a role in success? Where did I say hard work didn't play a role too? Notice how I explicitly say it does play a role but that luck often does as well?

Reading comprehension is our friend, learn it.

EDIT -- oh, any you also minrepresent what I said about the people in the industry. Note how I stated they didn't complain, how I never said they were being abused. Do you see that? Can you read, or do you just skim? Frankly, the fact that your wife is from Junea is about as relevant as the fact that I'm originally from Anchorage -- it's not. Now, if you want to talk about the fishing industry I'd be more than happy to since a decade working in it as well as an intense interest and a large number of friends in it have taught me a thing or two about it.

[ February 03, 2003, 19:09: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

laches,

Yeah, I do not have any reading comprehension skills at all. That is how I have made the honor role in my last 8 semesters of school.

You said that you were "fortunate" to make it to your position.

The definition of fortunate from the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary online:
Main Entry: for·tu·nate
Pronunciation: 'forch-n&t, 'for-ch&-
Function: adjective
Date: 14th century
1 : bringing some good thing not foreseen as certain : AUSPICIOUS
2 : receiving some unexpected good
synonym see LUCKY

You stated that it was luck that you were where you are, not me!

I guess it is not my reading comprehension skills that are problem. It is either your inability to remember what you write, or a lack of understanding of the English language.

The way your argument sounds to me is: Hard work * Luck = Success. If you multiply 100 units of hard work with -0- units of luck you get -0- success. I believe that the formula is more like: Hard work * smart choices + luck = success. Sure luck can get you there. Winning the lottery is -0- work + -0- smart choices + an exponential amount of luck. I don't like those odds myself. But -0- luck + 100 hard work * 100 smart choices = 10,000 success. Add a hundred luck and you still only the 10,100 success.

Pick up a set of dice, as many as you would like, and add up the total maximum number you could roll. Now if you start rolling those dice, you are going to eventually roll that number. If you quit after five rolls and say, "See, it is never going to happen", you would be wrong, and like all the people who say that they are not successful because they never got lucky. People who work hard make eliminate the need for luck because they keep rolling the dice, taking the chance, and eventually it turns up for them. Bill Gates is not there because of luck, he is there because he kept rolling the dice until he came up with the number he wanted. Not a matter of luck, a matter of effort.

I am not saying that everyone can achieve what Bill Gates has. I am saying that anyone can. I am saying that by following his work ethic every one can achieve success. It is not luck that put Bill Gates where he is, it was a series of choices he made plus a lot of hard work. We all make those same choices every day. Steve Jobs could be in Bill Gates shoes if he had made different choices. To say that luck is an essential part of the equation is to eliminate self-determination. That I cannot accept.

 

What the hell does being on the honor roll have to do with anything?

Here, you do it again. You write:

By only mentioning part of what I wrote you misrepresent the whole of what I was saying. Here is what I said:

You see where I state above that it was a combination of hard work and some lucky breaks too? I only keep harping on this because there is a pattern of you creating straw men to knock down.

Your formula for the interaction of success and luck is mind boggling. I don't think there is some such forumla. I simply noted that many (most? all?) succesful people caught some lucky breaks along the way and not to demean the importance of hard work (see that part where I say -- "it's not all hard work")

[ February 03, 2003, 22:14: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

This is my last word to you on this Laches, feel free to fire back, but there will be no response from me, so have at it.

Honor roll=good grades. It is pretty hard to get consistently good grades in college (6 of those 8 semester were at a University, not a laid back Community College) without good comprehension skills.

You said:

Synonym for fortunate is lucky. Replace fortunate with lucky (that is what synonyms do) and you state that you are lucky to have obtained your job. Since a bunch of people around you are working harder than you, you probably were lucky to get you position. But because you were lucky to get your position doesn't prove that everyone else had to be lucky to get theirs. Talk about a poor use of logic! I think that is one of your favorites, a straw man!

If I roll a six sided die 20 times and on one of those occasions I get a six, was it luck? If I keep placing myself in positions where I have the opportunity to advance, is it luck, or persistence?

The formula is for demonstrative purposes only. If I was purporting that it was the absolute formula for success, it would be a little simple don't you think (I already know that you are an expert at being simple). How would someone measure 1 unit of hard work? Get a clue, the formula uses mathematics to argue that luck can play a role, but it is unnecessary for success (see argument about luck above), where as you argue that it is essential. Thus if I add no luck, 0+x=x, I still get a product (a level of success), if you multiply no luck, 0*x=0, you get 0 (no success). Just because luck was essential in your getting a good job, it doesn't mean that it is essential for everyone.

Get your head out of academia, forget your stupid little rules of debate, and find some common sense. You are so busy knocking down straw men that you can't even feel the spikes on the ground that are tearing you to shreds.

OUT!

[ February 03, 2003, 22:35: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

All right, since you've cut off Laches...

First, I think that you're taking this far too personally. I do not believe there is any need to trade insults in this forum, nor does it lend anything to the discussion. This can be taken as a general statement for everybody, since I've noticed it in several topics lately.

Second, you cannot ignore the effects of chance or circumstances on a situation and simply make a blanket statement that success is ALWAYS possible. It isn't. I could devise a hundred sets of circumstances where the unfortunate (I use that word advisedly) person trapped inside would find it impossible to become a millionaire at any point in his life. Sure, not everyone has to depend on a lucky break to get rich. Sure, working hard has plenty to do with it. But it's entirely possible to work hard, and have chance work against you. Bad luck could strike your home in the form of a tornado. Your bank could fold. A million things can happen that you can do nothing to prevent; it's simply bad luck. Also, circumstances like being from a poor background in the first place and not being able to receive an adequate education have a lot to do with it -- it doesn't take much to derail someone like that from the path of success.

The point is, while hard work may well be the single most important factor in achieving success for the majority of people, there are cases where all the hard work in the world just won't do it. I'd be willing to bet that I could find a real-life example of such a case. I don't know if I will or not, being somewhat lazy and having better things to do, but who knows: maybe you'll get lucky.

 

Capstone,

I don't need a million reasons how luck could ruin your chances for success, I just need one.

Disclaimer: I am only debating the US here, I have insufficient knowledge of the economic opportunities in other parts of the world, and I believe that in some parts of the world, the only way you will ever be successful, and by that I mean even have enough food to eat most days, is by luck of birth.

Your examples only work if you are complicit. If your bank fails, your money is insured up to $100k per bank, so if you lose on that deal, then it was your own fault for putting too much money in one bank.

I live in tornado alley, my home and belongings are insured, so I lose nothing there. And if I am injured in a tornado, well, I made a bad choice as to where to live. No ones fault by mine, as no one forced me to move here. I take responsibility for my choice.

Give me an example of one where luck eliminates someone’s chances and they didn't make the choice to put themselves in that position. (Remember, I have eliminated the severely mentally and physically handicapped from this discussion a long time ago, there are safety nets to provide for them. So a child who is brain damaged because his parents dropped him/her as an infant can't be used.)

Poor education, if Sam Walton can make himself a billionaire, you mean to tell me that others with poor educations can't make themselves successful. I know that there are thousands of very successful construction firms that are owned by men without a high school diploma. Restaurants owned by high school dropouts. Bad backgrounds, there are thousands of stories of people from the worst parts of LA, NY, DC making themselves very successful.

You don't have to find that one real example. A fictional person in that situation would be fine, and I would concede. However, make sure that they are not in that situation due to the choices they made. My ultimate point here is that you have to take responsibility for your choices. If you are not successful, and will never have the opportunity to make yourself "unfilthy" rich (as opposed to filthy rich), then it is because you have made bad choices and/or not worked hard enough.

 

And I didn't cut Laches of, I gave him the last word.

 

Rich became a dirty word again now that the middle class is disappearing.