What do you do fora living [WARNING: Numbers included]

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k1rage wrote:

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astraph wrote:

I work as a music teacher on private schools and private lessons. In post-crisis Greece this translates into hardly 10 000 euros per year (depending on the year it could be as low as 8000 per year). And consider the fact that i am midway of finishing my second master's degree in education, on the side of several other certifications outside the university :/. In the past i also used to work as bartender during the summer, i did some office work in my Uncles office (he is a lawyer), and i played guitar on terrible Pop cover bands for the paycheck. I hated all of them. I love being a teacher and i do not wanna keep doing other things.

I have no issue with the money not being much. I am happy with what i earn. I am not happy working on the private sector though, cause there is little no to no stability. Eg. i have no income during the summer (unless i do another job, as in, working in a bar), and while private schools do have some stability, the pay is extremely low and the biggest chunk of my income comes from private lessons, which are not stable at all. 1 year i can have 15 students, the next year they might be 5, and since i am getting payed by the lesson, my survival relies on if the student feels like doing the lesson or not this week.

My dream -ironically- is being employed in a public school. The money will be the same, but it is as stable as it can get. You are hired for life, you know exactly how much you will earn every month and nothing can change that, and of course being a teacher has other advantages as well. Lot's of free time, and you get payed the 2 months during summer vacation without working (which makes sense since you are forbidden by law to take up another job if you work for the government).

how in the world does one survive on such wages?

is the cost of living super low over there?

Housing (both rent and buying) is indeed super low compared to the US. And i own a house so i do not have to pay rent. Also eating in restaurants is far cheaper (more than 50% cheaper, significantly more on some cases). However super market prices depend on if its imported or not, so a product could be significantly cheaper or the same price as the US. Electronic devices and pretty much everything imported is not cheaper at all.

Thing is that we have a different mentality on spending in general.It is common to keep the same car for 15, even 20 years. Generally we keep stuff for a long time, while in the US (at least in LA which i have visited and talked to people), they seem to get a hard on on getting new shit and upgrading all the time, which makes sense to a degree.

To answer your question in relative terms, since one of my best friends has been living in L.A. for the last 5 years or so, we calculated that to live pretty much the same life, 10000 euros per year in Greece (roughly 11 700 US$) with your own house, translates to 45 000$ - 50 000$ a year in LA if you pay rent. But that's just for LA.

I ran a printing press while I was going to school in the 90's. It paid well with overtime 35-40k), but meant I had to drop a major to survive.

When I went to grad school, the drop in pay really sucked. Stipend was 15k, so that took some time to adjust.

These days I am an analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. It is boring as hell but pays over 70k. Could do better, but my wife wanted to be near family. That particular mental illness seems to be abating, so hopefully we can move somewhere with more interesting culture/people.

Farner Ted, why is it boring? I'm probably in the minority here but I LIKE chemistry. But what makes your job boring? Just curious as I have never talked to someone with that position.

Like any job, you start to do the same things over and over. Some people like a repetitive stable work environment. I prefer more research oriented/problem solving jobs. My last job was like that, but mergers and site closures happened. The current job doesn't require much thought. Most of the stuff I work on has gone generic so a quick google search can get me a method faster than developing one. I build in efficiencies but it requires very little thinking.

I like a lot of different things about chemistry. Just not the things I currently do for a living.

Got a new job doing maintenance. I get free rent on a 1 bedroom apartment. It's what I'd call a borderline area, but it's not too bad. The pay is good (especially considering free rent), and it fits my skill set nicely. Pretty much anything (95%) you need fixed inside of a house, I got you covered.

If there is one thing I've learned from dealing with tenants, is most people don't have a lick of common sense. People seriously can't change light bulbs, remove a tub stopper to clean the hair out, change their air filter, expect dish washers to clean off caked on crud, etc. We're talking really simple shit here, or stuff you should learn through life experience.

My mom bought a freaking $800 dishwasher, a Bosch model, and even with the best cleaners you can get, it still won't clean caked on stuff off pots and pans. Yet people expect low-end whirlpool models to do it, or halp! Dishwasher not working!

People giving their pets baths in tubs with no tub stopper inserted, and wonder why their tub doesn't drain, etc. Really fucking dumb. I mean herpaderpaderpderp.

The only real challenge for me is to resist the urge to berate some of these people.

Another thing is, if you trash your fucking apartment, then I'm going to give less of a shit about fixing your stuff, or recommending a new fixture or appliance. People who're just gonna trash stuff don't deserve new appliances. Someone wanted a new dishwasher the other day. I ran it, and it had a small leak from around the door. Adjusted the legs so it would tilt backwards more, and screwed it back into the counter top, ran a cycle, no leak. It was a really old dishwasher on its last leg, but these people trashed their apartment. If their place was clean, I would have recommended a new dishwasher, but fuck em.

MrSmiley, I have a mysterious leak in my dishwasher. On again off again. Mostly off. Do you think it its unbalanced? I checked the seals, they seem intact. Actually hasn't leaked in a couple months but why would it fix itself? (sorry for making you talk about work stuff. Feel free to pester me with insurance questions in retribution).

I believe you! I was talking to a guy that does maintenance in an apt building near where I live and he said they can't change lightbulbs too! I just stared. Been changing them since I was in my didies. People are idiots, for real!

Well, farmerTed, I see what you mean. Repetitive work is fun for me. To a point but then I can't take it anymore.


I have done quite a few jobs in my time, some really interesting, some boring. I used to be a trader at a discount brokerage. I worked for a famous bank (the private section of it) in securities pricing etc. That was boring as fuck but it paid incredibly good for virtually no work at all.

I have done other stuff too.

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鬼殺し wrote:

God damn it, I really wanted to believe you were a farmer, ted.

Also, got any juicy printing press near-death-experience stories? The GF worked at a dodgy printing press for a few years back in the late 2000s and never seemed to lack for a mix of 'fucking customers asking the impossible and why do they always want fucking gradients!?' moments and 'so the guy who runs the printing press isn't all there...physically' reminders.

I started with a company that had just moved into the area, so we built all the shelving and benches and helped install the presses (roll to roll). Early on when we didn't have benches, we were using trash rolls for step stools. One day I had a web break and was trying to feed paper through the perforation unit when the roll wobbled. To keep from falling I grabbed onto the unit and hit the go button. Ran my finger into the metal cylinders and came a hair's breath from chopping off first joint. As it was, burst the finger. Looked like hamburger. Didn't hurt until they took me to the hospital and gave me a shot for pain. The schedule was also wacky as we worked 4 days on and 4 days off, so your work days changed each week.

While I was there, two other people went into the machines with more serious injuries, but nothing life threatening and no lost body parts.

Yeah. Some customers sucked. Color matching, or magnetic ink, or weird perforation patterns. Others sent us cakes, so I guess it balanced out.

The people at the shop were something else. Lots of varied types of chemical abuse. We worked 12 hour shifts, so some people would come down and take a 3 or 4 hour nap (cause night shift). For awhile, my press was in between this volatile couple who would have fights all night. One manager ran off with his brother's wife, and his wife ended up marrying the brother. It was bizarre, made even more so, because I was going to school, so I didn't always get much sleep. I try to believe most of what I saw was just sleep deprivation hallucinations.

Edit: If it helps, I lived on an alfalfa and cattle ranch while growing up. We did things like hunt and fish for dinner because the closest store was 70 miles away. And I have driven a combine tractor.

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kolyaboo wrote:

Well, farmerTed, I see what you mean. Repetitive work is fun for me. To a point but then I can't take it anymore.

At my previous job, sometimes I would get loaded up with 3-4 new projects with tight timelines that needed a bunch of methods developed. That can get pretty intense, especially because processes in client departments might not be locked down yet. After a few months of thinking until my brain bleeds, I would start to pray for a stability pull so I could spend some time on autopilot.

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kolyaboo wrote:

MrSmiley, I have a mysterious leak in my dishwasher. On again off again. Mostly off. Do you think it its unbalanced? I checked the seals, they seem intact. Actually hasn't leaked in a couple months but why would it fix itself? (sorry for making you talk about work stuff. Feel free to pester me with insurance questions in retribution).

A lot of things can cause odd leaks. Could depend on how heavy you load the dishwasher, and what kinda stuff you stick in there. Something could have clogged the drain and worked its way loose.

- Dishwasher is supposed to tilt back slightly, so the water drains better.

- You should check the drain occasionally, to make sure nothing is stuck in there. I've found hair, cigarette butts, legos, marbles, etc in dishwasher drains.

- Don't overload dishwashers. You don't have to fill every single space with shit stacked side by side before you run it.

- If you have a garbage disposal hooked up, there is a breather valve that comes up through the sink right next to your faucet. You might have one of these even if you don't have a garbage disposal, and dirt, grime, and grease can clog these up, and cause dishwashers to not drain properly. I've pushed some really stinky grease turds out of these before. But these are only a problem if you got a garbage disposal hooked up.

- Is the leak coming from the door, or from below the dishwasher? The dishwasher could have got jarred, and the water line loosened up. Either that, or the drain hose. Leaky drain hose can cause links under your sink too, or anywhere along the way. They can get clogged, or kinked, and back up and cause your dishwasher to leak around the door too.

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I believe you! I was talking to a guy that does maintenance in an apt building near where I live and he said they can't change lightbulbs too! I just stared. Been changing them since I was in my didies. People are idiots, for real!

Yeah, someone needed a freaking air filter today, I knocked on the door, and it was a 70 year old lady, and she said she could put it in. Mind = blown. She's a rare one.

Small update, I went from the lazy ~20 hour work week on page 1 to a stressful ~60 hour work week. I increased my effort because I felt pressured to work more the more money I made. Funny how opportunity cost works, I always imagined I'd become lazier with more money. Once I feel like I'm working myself to death I'll hopefully stop.