oski003 said:
This was on the football forum from another poster.
"For people today that are willing to put their phones down and work fairly hard (even room for some "work-life balance"), there's a lot of opportunity out there. Guy working on the house next door to mine, immigrant ten years ago from Mexico, started a one-man construction demo/hauling company. Has a Bobcat; does it all himself. Hires out to general contractors and gets all the work he can handle. Not easy work, but making huge money, working 40-50 hours week."
It is a good example of how hard work from an individual (and possibly a culture) can lead to success. The recent immigrant's actions are much more constructive and rewarding than actions that lead you in and out of jail (even if nowadays nothing hardly is prosecuted).
That was my post, so let me elaborate a bit. I've been watching this guy work every day for the past few weeks and we know each other by name now. I've been having my 14 year old son, who would be on his phone 12 hours a day, if I let him, watch the project and the workers and we've been crunching the numbers about how much these guys make. The laborers make, I'm sure, minimum wage. The guy with the one-man demo/hauling business has been making upwards of 200k/year (profit, not gross). He works about as hard as the laborers.
It's been interesting. I wasn't trying to make any cultural implications, except to show my son (who is white) that there are different ways of making a good living and that many do not entail technology expertise, or even education, just some experience and hard work. At a similar project down the street, the guys are mostly API. At one near our elementary school (daughter's friend's house, so I see him a lot), it's a Black guy. They all seem really nice and are making more money than I ever made, good for them.
It was a football thread that somehow digressed into "young people don't want to work anymore". Well, some don't, but many do. Before you go over there and read exciting threads like this, let me warn you that initial digressors are being cajoled into making donations to Calegends.com and one post (not that one, 'cause I didn't start the digression) cost me a hundred bucks.