Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Do you have access to a computer there? And can you use one to do other work? Blogging, writing, being a mock juror... just thinking out loud here. There's got to be something that's more interesting to you that you can work into your day.

This job actually isn't that bad after I calculated that I'd be making around 6k for the summer alone on it, much more than I could get at any internship.

I'm also really starting to like listening to podcasts & reading on the job. My body is getting use to not falling asleep afterwards too.

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Interestingly, I was just offered an interview for either or both of these positions; hopefully I can take a week or two off from the library to work them (if I am offered them):

http://oeop.mit.edu/sites/default/files ... m_TA_0.pdf""

http://oeop.mit.edu/sites/default/files ... isor_1.pdf

I like both, but I think it'd be hard to negotiate two weeks off library work for the first one, not to mention that my partner will be at Amherst from July 23-Aug. 5.

I'm leaning toward the latter position only for those reasons, though I'd really like to do both, get the time off work, and bring my partner with me somehow. I should probably do the math on how much I can earn in a year without having it affect my fin aid too.

I'm curious if I should interview for the two positions and then ask for permission if I receive an offer, or ask for permission before even interviewing?

Even with an interesting office job, the requirement of being there for most of 8 hours is horrendously monotonous. Eventually your brain will adapt and this will become a background somewhat tolerable pain. You are warned. By the way, usually between the 2nd and 3rd month are the toughest. Make it past 3 months and tolerability goes up.

Yeah, I think most of us have had that kind of job at one point or another. It's not so bad as something temporary. Although in my brief library experience, working at the desk was easier than book stocking if you had a choice. I would always volunteer for the latest shifts -- almost nobody would come to the library at midnight or later, so you just got to sit there like a security guard and do whatever; and I didn't mind walking home then.

Of the comments above, GTOO offers you the most insight. What you should be doing is reflecting as to why you ended up in this position and, more importantly, come up with a game plan now as to how its going to be completely different next summer. What can you do immediately about next summer? Maybe not so much other than planning. But what if you had a plan for the next 9 months focused on getting next summer's job? Figure out who you need to talk to and what you need to say. I bet it would be fabulous. I ended up at Oxford on a grant one college summer that way.

And also think about this in a kind of stoic way -- for you, this is a temporary thing. For other people, this is the kind of job they will have for most of their lives. So the fact that you only have to have this kind of job for a short time means your life is actually pretty comparatively easy.

If shelving books is so boring, how do you expect to handle the constant manual labor when you achieve your ERE dream of your own permaculture homestead?

BeyondtheWrap wrote:If shelving books is so boring, how do you expect to handle the constant manual labor when you achieve your ERE dream of your own permaculture homestead?

Well, I'd be doing it for its own sake and out of my own self-interest, which means the drive and intention behind the work is different. Plus the type of the work would vary from day to day & hour to hour.

I could also just ditch the homestead idea if I ultimately don't like it long term, then try something else. I don't think shelving books for someone else is fairly comparable to building my own stuff, for myself. Growing a garden for one or two people is likely less work than shelving an entire library too, or helping grow an entire 1000 acre farm (another job I've done in the past...for one semester).

Shelving books for your own business is pretty tedious too. So is a lot of the work involved in MAINTAINING a garden. There is really no avoiding some amount of tedious routine maintenance work in life. I mean, if nothing else, you must brush your own teeth. However, there is nothing morally wrong with attempting to avoid it. Or is there? I no longer wanted to deal with the tedium of organizing and shipping rare books, so I hired my own kids to do it for a while and then I shipped my entire inventory off to the Amazon warehouses for them to deal with (for a not insignificant fee.) Some of their warehouse workers made legal complaint about conditions and now they are switching over to robots. YMMV, but, for example, I didn't feel comfortable paying somebody else to change my babies diapers, in part because I was paid to change other people's babies diapers when I was much younger than you.

Really, the only way to completely avoid the responsibility of tedious maintenance work, which you will either have to perform yourself or pawn off/pay somebody else to perform on your behalf ,is to "own" nothing. In which case you will have not only zero responsibility but also zero authority. One of the worst things that might happen to you sometime in your adult life is if you suffer a severe fail or crisis of confidence in a realm in which you hold authority and responsibility and one of the best means by which you can then regain your confidence is through engaging in simple tasks of routine maintenance because it is through simple acts of work that we do engage, effect and "own" our piece of the world.

vexed87 wrote:If Stoicism isn't working, you haven't tried hard enough

Great line. I think that getting your head on right is an important part of ERE.

7Wannabe5 wrote:Shelving books for your own business is pretty tedious too. So is a lot of the work involved in MAINTAINING a garden. There is really no avoiding some amount of tedious routine maintenance work in life. I mean, if nothing else, you must brush your own teeth. However, there is nothing morally wrong with attempting to avoid it. Or is there? I no longer wanted to deal with the tedium of organizing and shipping rare books, so I hired my own kids to do it for a while and then I shipped my entire inventory off to the Amazon warehouses for them to deal with (for a not insignificant fee.) Some of their warehouse workers made legal complaint about conditions and now they are switching over to robots. YMMV, but, for example, I didn't feel comfortable paying somebody else to change my babies diapers, in part because I was paid to change other people's babies diapers when I was much younger than you.

Really, the only way to completely avoid the responsibility of tedious maintenance work, which you will either have to perform yourself or pawn off/pay somebody else to perform on your behalf ,is to "own" nothing. In which case you will have not only zero responsibility but also zero authority. One of the worst things that might happen to you sometime in your adult life is if you suffer a severe fail or crisis of confidence in a realm in which you hold authority and responsibility and one of the best means by which you can then regain your confidence is through engaging in simple tasks of routine maintenance because it is through simple acts of work that we do engage, effect and "own" our piece of the world.

That's some deep stuff right there lol. Well said.

Well, I'd be doing it for its own sake and out of my own self-interest, which means the drive and intention behind the work is different. Plus the type of the work would vary from day to day & hour to hour.

Well, presumably what you're doing is for yourself now--you're earning money to add to your nut so that you can do what you want down the road.

That's how I look at my own job--I do not love it, but it pays me well, and each day I watch my net worth rise as I add more money, earned from my shit job, to the kitty, so that some day (soon) i can spend my day doing what I want.

And--there are a lot of people who have shittier jobs than you. My brother works all day schlepping stuff on to trucks in a hot warehouse. I try never to complain about my shitty office job around him!

I worked in the library in college--I thought it was great. I always saw friends when I was working, since everyone came to the library, I knew where EVERYTHING was (including great secluded make-out spots....), and I could pull books, etc. for my own research while I was working. Could listen to my Walkman (yeah, I'm old...) and podcasts would have been a dream. All in all, much better than the job I had signing in people at the pool on campus. Though that wasn't so bad, because I could read, and if they'd had laptops back then...

EdithKeeler wrote:

Well, I'd be doing it for its own sake and out of my own self-interest, which means the drive and intention behind the work is different. Plus the type of the work would vary from day to day & hour to hour.

Well, presumably what you're doing is for yourself now--you're earning money to add to your nut so that you can do what you want down the road.

That's how I look at my own job--I do not love it, but it pays me well, and each day I watch my net worth rise as I add more money, earned from my shit job, to the kitty, so that some day (soon) i can spend my day doing what I want.

And--there are a lot of people who have shittier jobs than you. My brother works all day schlepping stuff on to trucks in a hot warehouse. I try never to complain about my shitty office job around him!

I worked in the library in college--I thought it was great. I always saw friends when I was working, since everyone came to the library, I knew where EVERYTHING was (including great secluded make-out spots....), and I could pull books, etc. for my own research while I was working. Could listen to my Walkman (yeah, I'm old...) and podcasts would have been a dream. All in all, much better than the job I had signing in people at the pool on campus. Though that wasn't so bad, because I could read, and if they'd had laptops back then...

This is a point I resonate with now more than I did a week ago. I am doing this job for myself, and I now see every hour as one to further my goal of knowledge, connection, and personal freedom via FI. My time at work is a lot better as a result. And yes,it could definitely be worse.

More people are showing up to the library now that summer job employees are arriving too, which makes my time at the library more worthwhile as well.