How do you deal with being read the riot act?

[Othello Harrington]

I have always had my principles but I haven't had a job in over eight years. I guess I can live without the one but not the other.

Either your selling a lot of high margin weed (impossible) or you have different means of making money, 8 years without a job is crazy.


If I were without a job for more than a month I would go nuts.

[Dyne]

Either your selling a lot of high margin weed (impossible) or you have different means of making money, 8 years without a job is crazy.


If I were without a job for more than a month I would go nuts.

i would think being an instructor pays for his bills.

[Othello Harrington]

Well then that's a job isn't it?

[PaCrappa]

Confirmed. Lets start a rock and roll band.

But we only got three chords between the two of us!

Either your selling a lot of high margin weed (impossible)

Not impossible (believe me I tried), but far too much effort for the actual payday.

i would think being an instructor pays for his bills.

Some day I am certain it will but not now. I have earned a grand total of $50 for the one time I gave a private lesson. Which was weird. But anyway, I get paid nothing for jiu jitsu and I'm glad because money has a way of clouding people's judgment. I'd prefer to keep both my judgment as well as my professor's cloud free. I get to train for free, receive private lessons for free, get all the Gracie Barra gear I can stand for free and get a bigass discount on Atama (my current favorite gi maker) products. Signup fee for Pan Ams and hotel in LA at the end of March will be paid for as well. I don't expect money until I'm a blackbelt or until there's some reason for me to do more private lessons (I'm in no hurry).

So I end up doing all kinds of fun stuff for money. My favorite things are chopping wood and soldering. But I have recently helped demo a house, control flooding, secure a huge international soccer tournament, and so on. But that's on a day by day type of basis usually (one time I had a soldering gig that lasted a month) and of course I'd never even think about working for anybody that doesn't treat me how I like to be treated.

And seriously, I'm pretty damn sure I would not be able to fly by the seat of my pants like this if I were located in Ohio or PA. Or if I could I'd at least be poorer as a result. There's no question (in my mind) that things are a bit tougher in the east.

[Josh]

I'm pretty sure I got fired from my last job because I wouldn't take responsibility for a fuck up that was not my fault, and because I wrote an email where I stood up for myself instead of taking the money cock up my ass.

Since then I have sat for portrait classes, cleaned carpets, done some freelance graphic design and some live sound gigs.

I'm poor and happy. If I rolled over and said: yeah bossman, it was my fault that you gave my the wrong master and I sent it to duplication when you said "send this to duplication" heysuh bossman yessuh! I would be employed, but I'd also be a bitch. I'm not comfortable being someone's bitch.

[Othello Harrington]

In this world you are either somebody's bitch, somebody, or poor. It sucks that this is the way of the world. Being that I have been all 3, I'll take option 2 for the rest of my life. Got here at 30, so meh, I'm happy where i'm at aas well.

[Gooch]

I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. - No one gives it to you. You have to take it. When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church. When I was your age they would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

[Othello Harrington]

/ The Departed.

Rep given

[Othello Harrington]

Unnamed employer: I'm sorry, Mister -

Brantley Foster: Foster.

Unnamed employer: I'm sorry, Mr. Foster. We need someone with experience.

Brantley Foster: But how can I get any experience until I get a job that GIVES me experience?

Unnamed employer: If we gave you a job just to give you experience, you'd take that experience and get a better job. Then that experience would benefit someone else.

Brantley Foster: Yeah, but I was trained in college to handle a job like this, so in a sense I already have experience.

Unnamed employer: What you've got is college experience, not the practical, hard-nosed business experience we're looking for. If you'd joined our training program out of high-school, you'd be qualified for this job now.

Brantley Foster: Then why did I go to college?

Unnamed employer: [laughs] Had fun, didn't you?