Since all the RW grifters are posting their “I worked for $10” hustle stories I thought I’d share my journey with anyone who’s interested and how it informs my views.

I started work at 14 under the table for a landscaper, but below begins at HS graduation

Longish thread ahead I started working for $8 an hour as an inside salesman in building supplies at 18. A year later I got bumped to $10/hr. This was 2001. No prospects for housing, lived at home with parents.

I toiled around a bit and found another job that paid $16/hr ($33k/yr) BIG BUCKS

I’ve been unemployed for about five months now. It’s been some of the best and worst times of my life; allow me to share some of my story. In the fall I was let go from a job that I absolutely hated. I had only been there about a year and a half and it was one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had since college.

A strange thing about achieving professional success after being brought up in a blue-collar household is that while you may earn $200,000 a year your whole family will think that you’re rich but it doesn’t feel rich and it turns out you’re comparing yourself to a new circle . But the people you grew up with, will never quite understand your perspective and no matter what you say you always come off as a douche bag. To them earning a high income, and not feeling rich seems unfathomable.

I am traveling through New England on a family excursion.

I don’t know how to say this but the predictions of America’s doom may have been dramatically overstated.

Every time I log off for a bit and see the world as it actually is around me I’m usually shaken by the fact… That we may be injuring our own psyches by spending so much time on twitter in a chamber of catastrophe and hyperventilation.

The real world experienced off line really doesn’t seem bad at all but this could be highly dependent on locations I’ll admit.