Socien's Blog

I hinted that one needs a work plan that can only give him an absolute break from work in the article: How to become rich from scratch? I gave two examples: A teacher and a security guard. The former has a job which some kids in a class have been taught to say they want to do once grown up. The latter can’t even let neighbours know what his job is.

When teachers are done with the work of the day, dismissing a class. They still have some work relating to the class to do. Papers that need to be marked, exams that must prepared, modules and notes. They need to read and warm up on one or two topics to stay in sync. Their break from work at the end of the day, coming of the weekend and holidays can only be said to be partial.

A security guard is different. He may earn way less than a teacher but he has what I wanted to keep doubling my monthly incomes. His job can offer an absolute break from work. To me this is part of a flexible work plan. He cannot alter or change duty slip but when off duty he is off duty.

In my defence to why I opted for such a job even I had a choice to become a better paid teacher I can list as many factors. One is the freedom you get after work to strike on anything that can help you to generate more money. I hinted that I intended to position myself at the bars after work with my barbeque equipment and exchange my services with cash from salivating drinkers. But of plans happened. I decided to write more on this blog. Either way no marking of books interfered with what I had to do to get to my next double.

Secondly, although I was punished with a six-day-work week for the first three months, the job was mostly of a four-day-work week. If given a night duty I would spend the rest of my days on something. At my first premise, I would send the three months seated in a chair doing nothing much. I was supposed to monitor a queue and protect a cash collection point of remitted money. Slight changes by World Remit in their terms and conditions left a third-party collection point I protected with no clients and no queue to monitor. My phone in my hand, I wrote as many articles as I and read as many e-books as I could.

Thirdly, a formalised and skilled job locks you in a certain doing of things and environment with nothing much to observe. Routines are the same. The people you deal with may be the same. But as a guard I could observe, among other things, a food outlet going broke and the things that would have been done to turn it profitable again. I had my eyes on big corporates and their stuffing; small businesses and problems they faced. I needed this cheap lecture.

Jobs that do not win the society’s approval and do not offer you with a shell of dignity can wash away your shyness. Indeed our trainer said, “In life there are only two things that will pull you down: Fear or shyness.” I needed this kind of job to wash off my shyness. I reduced myself so that I scoop every potential dollar within my reach without fear or shyness. If digging through trash was all it would take to walk out of poverty. I now had the guts.

We are taught to choose dignity over freedom. But you will find out that to play this doubles game a lot of the plausible options you might have do not give you that shell of dignity. Being a taxi driver in the middle of the night after your break from work is one such thing. You can’t preach about it to a group of educated friends who think that you should be working at a big job, a job your country does not have. But you can do it to add more figures to what you are worth at the end of the month and what you have to place your bid for a takeoff.

In an article on salary as a debt system I hinted that jobs with a salary that makes you feel comfortable fail to offer an absolute break from work. Once you are comfortable you are trapped as you will not have any chance of doing anything else and expand that way. The passage of years won’t bring back your joy.

Edit: My employer did not pay me as agreed. Having worked from 20 June, I got paid on 03 and 08 August a total of $120 (figures in USD). I quitted the job. Looking ahead, I diverted my efforts to a list self jobs; writing assignments, working as an independent property agent and learning joinery.