About all that money I made as a rat racer.....my feet are so tired.

It probably scares quite a few potential employers that I made over fifty thousand dollars a year for a little while. What they don't seem to get, is that I don't want to do what I did to earn that. Namely forty-eight to sixty hour weeks, no or little contact with friends and family, and since I worked as a network operator, turning pale as a Morlock.

So, I'm happy up on a ladder, caulking away. If nothing else, even caulking siding leaves something permanent (fifty year caulk) and is doing something for the building, giving it a nicer look by filling the gaps and protecting the value by keeping the weather at bay. Working a severity zero with millions affected at the network operations center, was fun and fulfilling.....until the next day when a severity four would pop up because someone couldn't get to a website. Nothing sucks like single user issues as any support weenie can attest. Fifty year caulking beats that. The pay is far less but so is the stress.

So I bugged out of the rat race. I have no debt. I have no needs beyond food, taxes and bills. My townhouse could stand some work, but at this point, it isn't falling down.

I'm doing this job mostly because I think the guy is pretty neat and reminds me of my great uncle who loved to do fine building. The main reason why my great uncle liked to build houses, was so he could have fun doing the trim work. He would build the cabinets, mill the trim, build actual old fashoned paneling and coffered ceilings. He wasn't a green builder since "green" didn't exist back then, but he was thrifty. He scavenged a lot of old redwood fencing and milled that into molding. He also liked to salvage old paneling out of old office buildings and reuse it. He did make money at it, but the important thing, is that he was doing what he liked.

If that pharmaceutical materials job does pop up and they call me in, ie, shipping, receiving, and whatever, I might plump for it, for I think I know who it is. Good employers and good bennies. Then I could do my forty and and do what my great uncle did, he was a high school history teacher who liked to build. The San Francisco Public School System kept him afloat while he built houses. I am even smaller minded in scope. Just redoing rooms, kitchens and bathrooms. I like taking a room and redoing it so it's nicer. Just a small business working for my satisfaction, not some nameless metric punching tickets.

So back out today on the eaves, more caulking. Beats the snot out of being an HSD network operator.