I hope everyone had a good Labor Day holiday. The weather was beautiful. All the TV weathermen and weatherwomen were heroes and still have their jobs. In other areas dealing with employment, however, the skies are a bit cloudy. UPS has settled their threatened labor strike, and for my money, they deserve it. Ford employees are not happy with their paycheck and the electric Fords are not selling too well so we may have a little problem there. The airline pilots and the writers in Hollywood are still threatening to strike. My personal feeling on this one is: if I get on an airplane, I want a happy pilot up front who likes his job and his check, a lot. The Hollywood writers crowd…I’m not too worried about them.
It's good to have a job but unlike President Biden, I don’t think every job has to be a “good union job.” That’s his favorite expression whenever he talks about the new, wonderful clean-energy jobs. It’s always got to be a good “union” job. How many good union jobs do you think they have over in Russia or Cuba or China or North Korea? The answer is None. Not happy with your job? Try asking Putin for a raise, and good luck. Over there, they call unions “workers' rights organizations” but all the employees in these lovely countries work for the central government. Kinda like Biden, huh? He’s worked for the central government in Washington, D.C. for the last 53 years. It’s the only job he’s ever had. He was a lifeguard once, but I don’t think he was a union man then.
Work is good for you. Anyhow, that’s what my parents and my wife always told me. Every banker I have ever known also repeated that phrase to me as I signed the note. Work makes you get up, get organized, face the world, and stick to a schedule. The psychology folks say when we work, it releases endorphins and dopamine into your system which sounds like something you could get arrested for but really is natural and good for you and doesn’t cost a cent. I’m sure you have all heard the saying that, “if you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. I have always questioned that saying, but I have seen two cases where that did actually work out. Both were buddies of mine long ago in college, and what they really loved in life was mainly taking naps. One of them ended up marrying a girl whose great-great-aunt bought a basket-full of Coca Cola stock way back before the flood, and the other fellow napped his way through law school and then fell into a case where he won one of the biggest environmental lawsuits since Moses practiced law. So, I guess miracles do happen. In real life, however, the best way to look at work is just to accept it as part of life, and like most everything else, you will get out of it what you put into it. Work is important to your self-respect and to your perception of and satisfaction in the world around you. Obviously, most of us need it to get by in this life and keep a roof over our head and food on the table. But, in all honesty, probably the best thing about work is reaching that point where you don’t have to do it any more if you don’t want to. A.K.A., RETIREMENT. So, from all of us who have reached an increased number of years and a decreased level of energy, hang in there and you will make it just fine. Oh, and don’t work too hard.
