Hard work is meaningless: You are just slave to circumstances (purpose, humans)

[bobspez]

You don't understand the corporate world. Those people work very hard at being backstabbers and schemers. In fact it is all they think about day and night. There are two tracks in the corporate world. Those who are interested in the job and those who are interested in office politics. All the top jobs go to those interested in office politics. They generally kiss the asses above them and kick the asses below them on the corporate ladder. Those interested in the job and able to do the job generally top out at lower management and actually get the job done. Those in the higher ranks are only interested in their own careers and use any means to advance to senior management positions. Two entirely different mindsets, and two entirely different sets of skills, interests and morals.

Originally Posted by hakkarin

Yes it will. How do you think most people succeed in the corporate world? By being backstabbers and schemers.

[bobspez]

Peebola,
I went to your website. I thought the commercial art your sister did for the brewery was very professional. Looking at your animations, though, I don't see any commercial potential for them. Where would they be useful in a commercial sense? If you look at commercials, or animated movies or TV shows, they are among the most expensively produced pieces of video out there. A one minute commercial can cost a million dollars to produce. An animated TV show like the Simpsons requires a staff of script writers, animators, musicians, editors and voice actors. To be honest, your animations are amateur efforts, good for a hobby, but not for making a living.

Over the past 6 years I have posted a bunch of videos on Youtube and recordings on Soundcloud. Many only have a few dozen views or listens. I do it because I enjoy singing and playing, recording, editing and posting my efforts. But compared to pros, I pretty much stink. There's a reason Bieber gets millions of hits and I get dozens.

I'm sure you also know that having dozens of jobs in dozens of years on your resume is a red flag for employers. It says you never lasted or got promoted on any of the jobs. If you really want to work you may have to start at the bottom, maybe as a janitor or office cleaner on the night shift or washing dishes or cleaning grills or some other low paying work, or maybe temp clerical work. I don't know where you live, but in big cities these types of jobs are always available at $8 an hour, even for felons.

It's hard to understand why you blame your parents. You could have gone to community college and studied art and worked your way through school. Most kids don't do what their parents advise once they are out of school. You could have gone to trade school and picked up a skill like welding or driving a truck and had a long term career with a decent living, or studied bookkeeping or accounting in college and had a long term career in that field, which could have led to something you liked more.

I worked my way through a state university (UCLA), living at home, working and getting student loans. I had no connections, and my parents had no money for my college.

When I got my degree I couldn't get work and wound up working part time as a clerk in my friend's parents' liquor store at minimum wage. I lived in a one room dump with a mattress on the floor and a hotplate and a refrigerator and bathroom. Finally I packed my bags and moved to NYC and got a night shift job answering phones for a large corporation. I worked my way up to a decent salary and changed companies for a better position and salary as my wife, a stay at home mom was raising our three kids.
I was 42 when I finally got a job I really loved and worked that job until I retired. Until then I did whatever work payed the bills.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the choices you made, but it seems like you are saying that they haven't panned out. I know people who have gamed the system and spent most of their lives on public assistance. If they are fine with it then more power to them. But ill health not withstanding, you generally get out of life what you put into it.

Originally Posted by peebola

Agreed. Of course everyone has their own experiences in life, and when it comes to the whole "hard work vs. luck" debate, most people who have been given lucky breaks (good luck) will say it takes hard work to make MORE good luck, and most people who have not been given lucky breaks will say hard work does not make good luck.

Both groups of people are correct. However...

In my opinion, luck will always trump hard work. Always. When I speak of luck, I speak of good luck, bad luck and no luck. Good luck is usually random, bad luck is also usually random. If you have no luck, then you are stagnant, all the hard work in the world will not make you successful, all your hard work will not magically make good luck appear.

I have been animating for close to 10 years. I have animated over 30 shorts and one feature length animated film. Me and my sister have our own web site (which we coded) called areyouguystwins Animation studio, where we showcase our animations. We have entered various animation competitions and festivals where our animations were either not accepted or ignored. I have done the hard work, writing and animating, writing 3 screenplays, designing our own web site, having a Youtube channel and Vimeo channel, sending animation links to various "people in the biz" and to be promptly rejected or ignored.

Now what? Ten years of animating and I still can't get my foot in the door. We haven't made a dime off our animations. What work do I need to do in order to get that good luck that is supposed to be the reward of hard work? I don't know what to do to get myself out of my "no luck" phase. Just an example of how no luck has been trumping my hard work with regard to moving along my animation dream (having our own animation series on TV).

BTW, I was born into a lower class family. No connections. I paid for my own college degrees (3 of them) and I have worked over 24 jobs in 32 years. I have worked hard and have never made over $31,000 a year. I am not a felon, I am not on drugs, I am not an alcoholic, I do not have kids, I am not and have never been on welfare. Currently, I am unemployed with no health insurance. I have applied to 147 jobs in the past 6 months, went on 22 interviews. I received one lowball job offer for a part-time job. I am still unemployed. I believe I am intelligent, funny, and a great problem solver. I believe I would be an asset for any company.

With all that being said...no company wants me. My animations are going no where, and I have less than one year's left of savings to live off of until I mark my spot under the bridge.

I need some good luck. I need someone to reach out to me with an opportunity, but unfortunately, the universe has other plans. My hard work is doing diddly squat for me at the moment.

[Burke_D]

Originally Posted by bobspez

Yes, luck is involved. But the job was offered to me, a person with no experience for the job, because I had spent the 10 previous years working hard, gaining a reputation for good work. And when opportunity knocked I jumped at the chance. I did everything I could to make the absolute best of that piece of luck.

I met my future wife on the subway. I chatted her up and convinced her to give me her phone number. Neither one of us normally took that train. A piece of luck, but I jumped at the chance. We've been married 43 years to date.

I bought my first house because the owner's children had measles and were quarantined for 6 weeks and I got the opportunity to view the house the day after the quarantine lifted. There was already a bid on the house at full asking price and I told the realtor to offer the owner $1500 above asking, and was accepted. A piece of luck, but I jumped at it.

Luck comes very rarely, and the door opens for a very short time. But if you know what you want and jump through the door, you can take advantage of that luck.

But you have to work hard to take advantage of the luck. Otherwise that great job will cause you to get fired. That great romance will end in divorce. And that great house will crumble around you from neglect.

The mistake you are making is assuming that everyone gets doors opening for them. Some people will never get a door opening no matter what they do. The world is not a level playing field. Never has been, never will be.
Some people will never get to "jump through the door" because there will never be a door. There will be no opportunity to seize.

[Burke_D]

Originally Posted by bobspez

Peebola,
I went to your website. I thought the commercial art your sister did for the brewery was very professional. Looking at your animations, though, I don't see any commercial potential for them. Where would they be useful in a commercial sense? If you look at commercials, or animated movies or TV shows, they are among the most expensively produced pieces of video out there. A one minute commercial can cost a million dollars to produce. An animated TV show like the Simpsons requires a staff of script writers, animators, musicians, editors and voice actors. To be honest, your animations are amateur efforts, good for a hobby, but not for making a living.

But wait a minute, I thought that hard work brings forth opportunity, no matter what. At least that has been the mantra of you and CPG and others in this thread.
So now you are saying that Peebola needs to work hard on something other than animation?
So you guys are saying that hard work brings opportunity but ONLY if you do the right kind of hard work?
Then how did all of the famous animators(or any famous artists) become successful? Shouldn't they have been working hard at something else?
...or did they get lucky? And why should the "rules" of luck apply differently to someone, like say, Justin Bieber than to the rest of us?
Shouldn't anybody who works hard enough doing anything get a good opportunity eventually?
To hear you guys tell it, hard work GUARANTEES good opportunities, no matter what.

[peebola]

Originally Posted by bobspez

Peebola,
I went to your website. I thought the commercial art your sister did for the brewery was very professional.

I did the artwork. Not my sister.

Originally Posted by bobspez

Looking at your animations, though, I don't see any commercial potential for them. Where would they be useful in a commercial sense? If you look at commercials, or animated movies or TV shows, they are among the most expensively produced pieces of video out there. A one minute commercial can cost a million dollars to produce. An animated TV show like the Simpsons requires a staff of script writers, animators, musicians, editors and voice actors. To be honest, your animations are amateur efforts, good for a hobby, but not for making a living.

You are correct. Animated movies and TV shows cost millions of dollars with hundreds and even thousands of people working on them. The animations me and my sister do are done by TWO people with NO money to spend on them. It is called POTENTIAL. We animate because we enjoy animating. If we could get Hollywood to buy our idea (characters) for an animated TV series, they can take our "bad" animation and hire hundreds of Koreans to animate them correctly. I could care less how they change our supposedly crappy animation style, as long as they pay me for being the creator of the series.

But I forget, in this "everyone has to be perfect world" if you can't be perfect in everything you do straight out of the gate (including competing against animation studios with millions of dollars) then you may as well throw in the towel and commit suicide. Sad, sad world we live in.

Originally Posted by bobspez

Over the past 6 years I have posted a bunch of videos on Youtube and recordings on Soundcloud. Many only have a few dozen views or listens. I do it because I enjoy singing and playing, recording, editing and posting my efforts. But compared to pros, I pretty much stink. There's a reason Bieber gets millions of hits and I get dozens.

I prefer to watch "amateurs" than watch Bieber. But what do I know? Maybe you don't suck. Maybe you just haven't met the right "hit" who can propel your hobby into something profitable.

Per your reasoning, Just because I can't get any "hits" on Vimeo means I suck at animations? Nahh...I don't think so. It just means I haven't met the right person who sees my potential and likes our animation style. It's called Good Luck.

Originally Posted by bobspez

I'm sure you also know that having dozens of jobs in dozens of years on your resume is a red flag for employers. It says you never lasted or got promoted on any of the jobs. If you really want to work you may have to start at the bottom, maybe as a janitor or office cleaner on the night shift or washing dishes or cleaning grills or some other low paying work, or maybe temp clerical work. I don't know where you live, but in big cities these types of jobs are always available at $8 an hour, even for felons.

I have applied to "low-level" jobs, grocery stores, retail, temporary Fedex/UPS jobs. No luck. Again, you can't please everyone in this world. I get it... I am one of those notorious "job hoppers", you know, one of those people who really are worse than felons. At least hiring a felon the employer can get a $3000 WOTC tax credit. Hiring me? Well they get a person who shows up for work everyday, does the job well, and then automates the job so it is no longer needed, which is why I am a "job hopper." I am a problem solver, go figure. But then again, most companies do not want a problem solver, they want a seat sitter.

Originally Posted by bobspez

It's hard to understand why you blame your parents. You could have gone to community college and studied art and worked your way through school. Most kids don't do what their parents advise once they are out of school. You could have gone to trade school and picked up a skill like welding or driving a truck and had a long term career with a decent living, or studied bookkeeping or accounting in college and had a long term career in that field, which could have led to something you liked more.

I went to school, of which I paid for myself by working all of those jobs that now make me a notorious "job hopper." I have 3 degrees. An A.A.S. in Graphic Arts; a B.A. in Fine Arts and a Paralegal Certificate. I don't blame my parents, I made a comment that Sarah Jessica Parker's parents moved to NYC when she was 8 years old because she wanted to be an actress. I said she hit some good luck, by her parents seeing her potential and helping her obtain her dream. I stated, I did not have such good luck, as my parents would NEVER move to LA so I could obtain my dream of working at Disney so I could be a better animator.

Originally Posted by bobspez

When I got my degree I couldn't get work and wound up working part time as a clerk in my friend's parents' liquor store at minimum wage. I lived in a one room dump with a mattress on the floor and a hotplate and a refrigerator and bathroom. Finally I packed my bags and moved to NYC and got a night shift job answering phones for a large corporation. I worked my way up to a decent salary and changed companies for a better position and salary as my wife, a stay at home mom was raising our three kids.
I was 42 when I finally got a job I really loved and worked that job until I retired. Until then I did whatever work payed the bills.

That's good for you. Glad to hear things worked out for you in life. For some people, the whole "working my way up to a decent salary, and then retiring" option never manifests. Truly, it never does. Another reason I job hopped is because for many of my jobs (small businesses), there was no place to "work up to." Unless I wanted to buy the company from the owners. So I moved on looking for new opportunities so I could succeed. But it never seemed to happen. I never got that "lucky break" which propels one to better circumstances. Oh well, water under the bridge...and here I am.

Originally Posted by bobspez

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the choices you made, but it seems like you are saying that they haven't panned out. I know people who have gamed the system and spent most of their lives on public assistance. If they are fine with it then more power to them. But ill health not withstanding, you generally get out of life what you put into it.

I agree, which is why I am animating, because I ENJOY animating. Good or bad, right or wrong, sucky or not, I will animate until I die. People said Vincent Van Gogh sucked as an artist until the day he died, he couldn't even sell paintings, and his brother was an art dealer! Now his paintings are worth millions and he is seen as a genius.

I like my animations. I think they are quite good for the amount of money spent on them ($0.00) and only two people working on them (as compared to hundreds and thousands of people working on commercial animations). If the universe wants to shines its light down on me it will send me good luck and we will succeed and profit with our animations. If not? Oh well.

To get back to the OP comment about hard work being meaningless, that is true to some extent. It is also true one will always be a "victim" to one's circumstances (some circumstances are good and some are bad). It's life. I am just agreeing with him based upon my life experiences.

[peebola]

Originally Posted by Nickchick

Yeah the more I live life, the more I see when I strive so much for a job, I can't control whether they hire me or not. No amount of how much I try to appear employable/likeable it's THEIR decision to hire me or not.

I agree. You can't make someone hire you. You really can't. All you can do is apply, show up for interviews, answer their questions as best as you can and then it is ALL up to the people doing the hiring. I suppose you could annoy the people to death and constantly call them and say you are the best person for the job - HIRE ME! But more than likely they will think you are a nut and maybe call the police on you. That is where good luck comes in...maybe someday after going on hundreds of interviews, you will meet a weirdo who likes your style and will take a chance on you. Right person, right time, right place. Of course for many people, it only takes one interview to meet the right person, right time, right place.

Originally Posted by Nickchick

I think a lot of people think I haven't worked hard because I've never had a formal job but I've been making penny change online for years and I don't do them like other people. I would often do many of them at a time. I would just appreciate minimum wage for the amount of striving I've done to find a job and to do those sites.

I am getting to the point in my life where I don't care if people think I am NOT working hard enough to find a job. I know who I am. I am a good, hard worker, who is intelligent, funny, creative, punctual, and an all around decent honest human being. If employers don't like that because I don't have the correct [fill in the blank] then there is nothing I can do about it. I am sick of trying to determine what employers want. This is who I am, here is my experience, education, skills -- hire me, or don't.

Originally Posted by Nickchick

Since a lot of people have said I'm too pessimistic I've even tried the laws of attraction and it doesn't seem to be doing anything for me.

Many people say I am pessimistic too, which is laughable, because that comment always seems to come from people who are more miserable than me. Oh, but they have a job, so I guess they are more "optimistic" than me...

I tried the law of attraction, it didn't work for me either. What I tried to attract, I ended up getting the opposite. Pretty funny.

Originally Posted by Nickchick

Maybe but as I stated above, I'm not asking to make it big right now. I just want to get started making some money. That shouldn't be a lot to ask.

No it is not a lot to ask. And that is where a little good luck would help your situation. I hope you get some soon, everyone deserves a little good luck in life.

[IamDot]

Originally Posted by bobspez

Peebola,
I went to your website. Looking at your animations, though, I don't see any commercial potential for them. Where would they be useful in a commercial sense? If you look at commercials, or animated movies or TV shows, they are among the most expensively produced pieces of video out there. A one minute commercial can cost a million dollars to produce. An animated TV show like the Simpsons requires a staff of script writers, animators, musicians, editors and voice actors. To be honest, your animations are amateur efforts, good for a hobby, but not for making a living.

I think the animations are great! Funny stuff and much better than what is on television now. Do you think that everyone is born from the womb working on a staff of writers, animators, etc? How do you think people get on such staffs? Hard work? Nah. Luck. Joel Stein knows someone who knows someone, who knows someone. Joel Stein isn't working from home with a staff of five hundred Koreans on his animation and then when it's perfect the world opens to him and he has his own tv show - ALL FROM HIS HARD WORK BY HIMSELF.

Originally Posted by bobspez

But compared to pros, I pretty much stink. There's a reason Bieber gets millions of hits and I get dozens.

Do you stink? Or do you think you stink because Bieber is lucky? Better get that staff of hundreds working with you at home or you'll never get good.

Originally Posted by bobspez

If you really want to work you may have to start at the bottom, maybe as a janitor or office cleaner on the night shift or washing dishes or cleaning grills or some other low paying work, or maybe temp clerical work.

I'm sick of hearing that crap. Peebola has degrees (multiple) and years of skills. No frigging reason she needs to start at the bottom. That's what she went to school for, now ALL OF A SUDDEN HARD WORK IN GETTING A DEGREE AND WORKING FOR YEARS ISN"T WORTH SQUAT? Bah and humbug to that.

Originally Posted by bobspez

When I got my degree I couldn't get work and wound up working part time as a clerk in my friend's parents' liquor store at minimum wage.

Luck. What if you didn't have a friend whose parents owned a liquor store? Huh? Was it hard work that you found a friend that had parents who owned a liquor store and decided that they would take a chance on hiring you for minimum wage? You a person who had a degree but no one else would hire you based on your hard work alone?

Luck, luck, luck. It rules the world. Hard work only occupies time.

[peebola]

Originally Posted by bobspez

Finally I packed my bags and moved to NYC and got a night shift job answering phones for a large corporation.

This is the one step that interests me. Where did you live when you moved to NYC? Apartments in NYC have always been outrageously high priced. Did you have thousands of dollars of savings to live off of while you searched for a job living in NYC? How did you find your apartment? Did you do it all on your own?

How did you find that night shift job? Did you apply to an ad, not knowing anyone and them not knowing you and did you get the job on the spot?

I am curious, because I want to move to LA, and I don't know how to do it by myself.

[bobspez]

When I graduated from UCLA in 1968 I got a good job working for an insurance company as a claims adjustor. I got two nice suits and had a company car and a great salary at the time of $600 a month. Part of the hiring process in LA was to be bonded by a bonding agency. In the 2 months I worked for the company I realized we were there to cheat people out of their claims. A few of us with a conscience couldn't do it and either quit or were fired. The insurance company black balled me and since every job application went back to the bonding agency for a report I couldn't get any work except at the liquor store where I had worked during summer vacations in college. The next year I applied to and attended U.C. Hastings college of Law in S.F., Calif. I worked part time and got student loans to pay my expenses. After completing the year I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer because it didn't sit well with my conscience. The job, once again was to lie and cheat people. Right or wrong, guilt or innocence didn't matter, just the game and winning. So back to the liquor store. By December of that year I called my father who lived in NY and asked if I could live at his house for a few weeks until I got a job. I bought a big bag of food and drinks and spent 66 hours on a greyhound bus to get from LA to NY. I had about $100 dollars when I arrived. I slept on a folding bed in my Dad's living room for six weeks. I applied for work in the want ads in NYC for several weeks and finally got a job after calling and being told to apply in person to an ad for a job at American Express, taking credit card authorization calls on the night shift. They didn't want to hire me because they said I was over qualified, but I lied and said I needed a night shift job for 3 years while I attended law school during the day. They called my friend's father who owned the liquor store and he told them if they didn't hire me to tell me my old job was available for me if I returned.
I got the job and saved up a couple of weeks salary, (I was making $200 a week) and my Dad said it was time for me to get my own place. I spent a night at the YMCA in NYC which was a horror show. A girl a few floors up on a woman's floor jumped out of a window and killed herself the night I was there. I read the want ads for rooms and went to the Bossert hotel in Brooklyn Heights. There I got a private room that shared a hall bathroom with two other private rooms for $35 a week. It was a great room with a view of the harbor and the hotel bar was open when I got home from work at 1AM. I had an ice chest and a toaster oven and made frozen dinners in my room. I became friends with the elderly maid who came in to clean the room and make the bed around the time I left for work every day. After about a year there I was planning to return to LA. But I met my future wife on the subway one night and that changed everything. We were married 15 months later, had three kids, 6 grand kids, and we both retired about 9 years ago. We downsized to a small ranch style house in Southern NJ and have been here ever since.
I found that it was (at the time) impossible to get a job in LA, so I moved to NYC where it was nearly impossible to get a job. But the day I applied to American Express was a brutally cold winter day and I was wearing my LA raincoat and a sweater. I said to myself, if I can't talk this girl into giving me a job I deserve to freeze to death. I argued with her and lied about needing a night shift job while I attended law school in the day, until she gave in and hired me. I spent 7 years at American Express and 28 years at the NY electric and gas utility. My big break was getting a job as a UNIX Sys Admin. in the engineering dept. computerizing the drafting function. I did that job for 17 years until I retired. A year after retiring I was bored as my wife was still working, and decided to go back to work and got a job as a contractor on the night shift 7PM to 7AM monitoring business to business websites for a big pharma company in NJ. In was an hour's drive in each direction and when I got home I had something to eat, slept on the couch for about 5 hours and got ready to go back to work. At work I never took lunch and just got up from my station to visit the coffee machine and the bathroom. We had to come in 20 minutes before the shift and stay a bit after to brief the next person as the desk was manned 24x7, 365 days a year. But I loved the work and the environment of working on my own and being responsible for those websites which processed online sales. The six months I was there 6 other younger people were hired and fired for not being willing or able to do the job. The job got outsourced to India, but I got a call from the utility offering me an 18 month contract to work from home, cleaning up database errors.While I was working at home for the utility I got a call offering me a job for the pharma company serving as a liason between the India operation and the NJ IT department. I had helped train the Indians over the phone diring the one month transition period. It seemed the Indians and the NJ IT department were unable to communicate with each other. I declined the offer and had to laugh to myself at the situation outsourcing had created. I got my first SS check the month the utility contract ended and haven't worked or wanted to since then.

Originally Posted by peebola

This is the one step that interests me. Where did you live when you moved to NYC? Apartments in NYC have always been outrageously high priced. Did you have thousands of dollars of savings to live off of while you searched for a job living in NYC? How did you find your apartment? Did you do it all on your own?

How did you find that night shift job? Did you apply to an ad, not knowing anyone and them not knowing you and did you get the job on the spot?

I am curious, because I want to move to LA, and I don't know how to do it by myself.

[bobspez]

Originally Posted by IamDot

Do you stink? Or do you think you stink because Bieber is lucky? Better get that staff of hundreds working with you at home or you'll never get good.

.... No, I am a mediocre musician and as good as I am ever going to get, and Bieber appeals to millions of fans, and generates millions of dollars in sales. I'm fine with that because I don't want to make money with music. I'm simply an amateur and I can post my efforts on youtube for free....

Originally Posted by IamDot

I'm sick of hearing that crap. Peebola has degrees (multiple) and years of skills. No frigging reason she needs to start at the bottom. That's what she went to school for, now ALL OF A SUDDEN HARD WORK IN GETTING A DEGREE AND WORKING FOR YEARS ISN"T WORTH SQUAT? Bah and humbug to that.

...I can honestly say that 95% of what I learned in college and a year of law school and in getting an MBA at company expense through tuition reimbursement, was pure irrelevant crap. Schools are in business to make money for the staff and administrators, not to educate the students. But, the diploma is used to weed out all those who don't have one, so I stuck it out and got the diplomas, knowing they were just pieces of paper that would let me apply to or keep positions I couldn't have without them.
And to be realistic, if no good paying jobs are available to you, you have two choices: work at whatever you can get for whatever salary you can get, or stay home.

Originally Posted by IamDot

Luck. What if you didn't have a friend whose parents owned a liquor store? Huh? Was it hard work that you found a friend that had parents who owned a liquor store and decided that they would take a chance on hiring you for minimum wage? You a person who had a degree but no one else would hire you based on your hard work alone?

Luck, luck, luck. It rules the world. Hard work only occupies time.

... I'm 70 years old and can honestly say I never met a person in this life who didn't have good luck at some junctures. I know several people who got great opportunities and turned them down because of fear or doubt, or being unwilling to stick it out in difficult situations. And as I have said before, an opportunity can only be exploited and capitalized on with hard work. There are skills to getting and keeping a job that I learned through experience.
Getting a minimum wage job didn't require luck. They are and always have been available. In school, I also worked cleaning kitchen grills for minimum wage and food at night, being a janitor cleaning floors and toilets at night, being an usher, being a banquet waiter, operating a freight elevator, cutting bolts of fabric, gardening, making photocopies, etc. It didn't require luck, just a willingness to work for minimum wages and do a good job.