Time millionaires: meet the people pursuing the pleasure of leisure

[alex123711]

It is often a struggle just to stay afloat. But if you had enough money, would you pursue more of it – or should time now be our greatest aspiration?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... of-leisure

[Viktor K]

That was a pleasant read. The ideas resonate quite a bit with me. I do feel so detached from worker drones, even when just a decade prior I wanted to be the best worker there ever was.

[Seppia]

The great resignation and the come to Jesus moment of people realising it's nicer to do other things with your time VS a 1.5h commute both ways provides a great opportunity to zag.

The bar for being in the top decile/quartile of performers has never been lower in my career, thanks to so many people slacking or just straight up pretending to work.
I know some people are gaming the system by taking up two jobs, but I personally would have ethical problems with that. It's much easier to just work hard in one job and turbocharge your career.

I really believe we are in the first innings of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for people to significantly increase their wages in a short amount of time.

[Lemur]

@Seppia

Regarding the "short amount of time." I've been debating in my own head if the "Great Resignation" is just a short-term trend of undersupplied human labor or this is perhaps even a larger part of a permanent cultural shift in the way we value work vs time.

I'm starting to believe that we're in a modern labor strike movement but instead of picket signs and labor protests, we're just seeing people voting on their feet, spreading word of mouth on Social Media, etc. For instance, look up the growth of the subreddit anti-work.

The weirdest thing I heard recently was a radio host begging people to "go back to work" for "the sake of society." This was close to the Washington DC area. It was strange.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I know some people are gaming the system by taking up two jobs, but I personally would have ethical problems with that. It's much easier to just work hard in one job and turbocharge your career.

Sorry but no, it’s easier to turbocharge your bank account with 2 paychecks and to speed up the process by which a career will no longer be necessary.

The bar for being in the top decile/quartile of performers has never been lower in my career, thanks to so many people slacking or just straight up pretending to work.

"Great Resignation"

…

The weirdest thing I heard recently was a radio host begging people to "go back to work" for "the sake of society." This was close to the Washington DC area. It was strange.

The delicious part of this is that the establishment has refused to let asset prices reset, so now you have people with 12 years of accumulation and experience of things going up and to the right who have no risk management controls sitting on enough assets to make this possible. I have read stories of many people “quitting to trade stocks full-time” in the dot com bubble and those people had to go back to work when the bubble burst.

It’s true that people got a taste of being home during the lockdown and don’t want to go back, but without their portfolios being relentlessly pumped by the central banks, they wouldn’t have the luxury.

Add to that you have the unvaxxed who are not working unless they have the good sense to lie.

This is a problem for the oligarchy of the oligarchy’s own making. They created this scenario.

[Seppia]

@MI
Yes of course it's easier to collect two pay checks, I should have specified "for me", meaning I could never bring myself to cheat in that way.
I would not be able to sleep at night so making 2x wouldn't make this a win.
Also, focusing on doing one job the right way could be beneficial in my opinion in the mid-long term, especially for someone starting their career.
I make more than 2x today VS what I made in 2016, and in 2016 I was making more than 2x what I was making in 2011.
This was during a period of wage depression.
Someone making 30k taking on a second 30k job will probably (unless caught) be making more or less the same in a few years, as it would take a superhuman effort (or talent) to advance in a career while working halftime.

Regarding the "short amount of time." I've been debating in my own head if the "Great Resignation" is just a short-term trend of undersupplied human labor or this is perhaps even a larger part of a permanent cultural shift in the way we value work vs time.

I have no idea what the future will bring, but I know that HR in the USA today are easily OK'ing 20% pay raises for slight over performers in fear of losing them.

[7Wannabe5]

Everybody points to Covid as instigating factor, but I think that may be just like pointing to Lake Erie on Fire or 3 Mile Island as instigating factors of more generalized environmental consciousness. At some juncture, reasonably affluent humans start preferring a clean, lovely environment and leisure time to further accumulation of money and stuff. It also may be the case that the ready availability of gig work is what previously primed the system for breaking free from the 40 hour/week paradigm.

[Viktor K]

Gig work vs 9-5, which would the time millionaire prefer?

On gig work you've got nights and weekends. I've always envied the 9-5 structure when working nights and evenings.

But also having 9-5 free can be really nice for things like going to tourist destinations without the crowds, reserving campsites, etc.

There's also the baseline schedule of your friend group - when are they free? If they're all 9-5, and your a time millionaire, are you lonely? Or what if they're 9-5 and you're a gig worker, maybe you miss a lot of opportunities to hang out.

Being overemployed (2x 9-5) is short-term vs long-term tradeoff to become time millionaire. As a recent 2x-er, I've found my free time unaffected, but time horizon to potential time millionaire status shortened.

[Mister Imperceptible]

@Seppia

I’m not criticizing your own personal choices, but I disagree that working two jobs or two contracts is cheating. The market is the market. If you died your company would post your job faster than your obituary would appear. There are 168 hours in a week and an agreement to work 40 with or for someone has no bearing on what one does in the other 128.

[Seppia]

I’m sure it’s different in the US, but in italy all employment contracts state that you can only work that one job.

[GandK]

I read this article a week or so ago and was initially irritated by it. The author's actual clarity about people gathering the rosebuds of time vs chasing status dollars proceeds immediately to the jarring supposition that people who gain extra time would naturally spend it on self-indulgence:

...time millionaires measure their worth not in terms of financial capital, but according to the seconds, minutes and hours they claw back from employment for leisure and recreation.

Probably she was trying to capture a specific mindset, and certainly she is writing to a specific audience. But I have to wonder what percentage of humanity would spend this "currency" instead on getting enough rest, on self-improvement and education, on health care for sick relatives, on teaching one's own children, sanding one's own floor, growing one's own food, etc. Does having non-employed time naturally mean outsourcing of almost all other life tasks must and would continue? My own experience says no.

[Mister Imperceptible]

There is a larger personal story here of fathers and grandfathers being screwed by US employers and the US military. In Europe you have all sorts of social guarantees we in the US do not have. So there is an impetus in the US to take by force what used to be guaranteed and what still may be guaranteed by some degree in Europe. With body integrity violation mandates it looks like the war being waged by capital against labor is now explicit and overt but capital may have made a blunder of overreach (?! or ?? to be determined) and ceded an advantage that labor should ruthlessly exploit.

[chenda]

With body integrity violation mandates

Body violation ?

[alex123711]

The great resignation and the come to Jesus moment of people realising it's nicer to do other things with your time VS a 1.5h commute both ways provides a great opportunity to zag.

The bar for being in the top decile/quartile of performers has never been lower in my career, thanks to so many people slacking or just straight up pretending to work.
I know some people are gaming the system by taking up two jobs, but I personally would have ethical problems with that. It's much easier to just work hard in one job and turbocharge your career.

I really believe we are in the first innings of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for people to significantly increase their wages in a short amount of time.

Curious to know what industry you are in? Reminds me of the book "Bullshit jobs" he argues most jobs are pointless and its common for people to pretend to work or do meaningless work.

[Seppia]

@MI
I would have zero problem doing it to “evil corp XYZ” that has been treating me like shit for ages.
I’m lucky enough to work for a company that has been fair to me, so I try to pay back with equal fairness.
Not judging anybody.

@alex I’m in sales in a F&B company.