Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit
Read the reviews on Amazon plus a more detailed review on another blog. The blog had a favorable review of the book but I can see the bullshit coming from this book- The author literally used a “part-time” neurosurgeon working 40+ hours a week as their first example. Really now? Cutting down to 40+ hours a week is NOT working part time.
I mean, I get it. When I used to work, I worked 80-120 hours during the peak season. Non busy season, maybe 40 hours, but I was generally logging in 60+ on a normal week. No overtime pay as it’s a salaried job. But a neurosurgeon cutting his hours to “only” 40+ hours a week is NOT “working part time.”
1- In my field, 60hrs/wk is standard. If you work 40hrs a week, you get fired. Most professional white collar jobs are becoming like this, with 50-60 hours being the standard.
2- How does one even FIND a job that lets you work only a few hours a week, or “part time” at 20hrs a week that pays you half what you earn at your professional job?
3- The book gives examples, of mostly very select individuals who are at the top of their field/company and the company acquiesced to them leaving by letting them stay on part-time and still paying them a good salary and full benefits. Good luck finding that in the real world. And good luck if you are a normal person with a normal job and you’re NOT the Controller or VP or someone with a in-demand skill.
R&D Director, Controller, Cancer Nurse, Neurosurgeon- these are very specialized jobs. If you’re lucky, you’re one of these people. If not…”work less” ain’t gonna work.
4 It also mentions bar maid, self employed gardener, self employed carpenter- cut hours to 20 hrs/week. Uh…what gardener or carpenter can afford to work 20hrs a week? Not without a husband or wife making good money with insurance to allow the other to work 20hrs/week. Or you’re an older person and your house is already paid for. But even then, living expenses, food and commuting costs more than what you make working 20 hours a week, unless you make A LOT an hour.
5- Good luck finding a job that lets you work 20 or even 30 hours a week that gives you full benefits (ie health insurance). Yeah if you’re married and your wife or husband has full benefits, you can hop on, but what if you’re single? Well then you’re fucked if you want insurance. Many full time jobs don’t even give you insurance these days, let alone a part time gig.
6- Most American FULL TIME jobs pay crap wages and they can barely get by. HOW can these ppl work LESS and still get by? Where are these magical jobs that let you work 20hrs a week and pay enough for you to live on?
7- Work Less, Live More ONLY works if you’re getting paid A LOT of money and saved and now you can cut your hours and work less. Most ppl never got paid enough to save up enough to “work less, live more, retire early.”
I hate these feel-good books. People buy these books and eat them all up. There is no real usable advice. The book according to all the critical reviews- only gives examples or select individuals who were able to do this. Again, see #3. If you’re not a neurosurgeon or Director of your company, “work less, live more” doesn’t apply. In the last decade especially, people are working more and getting paid less.
Anyhow, there’s all these feel-good motivational financial books that give no concrete method to ACTUALLY achieving anything. If you’ve been working and making just enough to pay the bills and have a tiny bit left over, which is most ppl in America, then WHERE can you cut?
Even people making decent money, if they were to cut their hours, and assuming they can even find a PT gig, they’d need to have saved a LONG time before they could do that. Hell, even the guy who wrote a positive blog article on the book says it took HIM 10 years of saving and saving and saving for him to be able to cut his hours.
Anyhow, there’s no point in reading these “be financially free” books anymore. They’re all the same. Feel-good stories with NO concrete method or advice. Just like all the feel-good depression books out there. They all spout the same crap that don’t work- “think positive!”, “go journal!”, “go meditate!”
Yeah, how about we get an extra 50k a year, land on our lap? That would lessen our depression and allow us to “live more, retire early.” Problem solved.
2 comments
There’s a demand side problem; the normalizing of working more than 40 hours a week. There’s a lot of “They over there are working these hours” and I say “bully for them, I’m not.” Because jobs will threaten you and bully you, but either what they want is legal or doable, or it isn’t. I can’t get over 45 hours a week at work right now. I go over, my mental and physical health starts to slide, pretty soon I’m not working entirely.
That’s how a free market works, as long as you’ve got suckers who will work for peanuts and no job security, it’s really easy to run a terrible company/organization. My attitude to that now; that’s cute, you think you can strongarm me with threats? My legal liability is zero, this is an at will employment state, you owe me nothing, I owe you nothing.
One part that any company or employer should be able to understand is a sliding billing scale, it works really well at reducing “waste” hours. For me, as an example; I’ll work for five hours straight at my base rate, last I checked roughly $24 an hour. Then I’m going to need a substantial break, or better pay for additional hours past that. The moment someone wants me to work hours that I don’t, my rate shoots up to $36 an hour, right up until 40 hours a week, assuming that’s during the day and I can go home at night.
So, for me working less isn’t optional, it’s the only game. I don’t have a steady client right now, and that’s the risk of pricing yourself out of the market. The only way to get ahead, the ONLY way is to set some boundaries with employers, and keep them to it. They step a toe out of line; back in line or find yourself another worker.
Which is why there’s a worker “shortage”, most employers don’t want to pay for skilled labor, or provide sufficient benefits to make long term employment a desirable condition. The sad state of math education in the United States makes it so at least half of the working public is unaware of how absurd their work conditions are
I’ve tried to explain it to them, over and over, most of them wouldn’t know the difference between the company riding them to the grave and a stable paycheck, the former being the more common condition these days.
I keep having these French revolution Tale of Two Cities feeling about this country right now. It feels like something is building, hard working people starve while the rich live lives more opulent lives than Louis the 16th could even dream of…..
I’ve heard people from Europe call fair pay what it really is guillotine insurance. They have a massive example of what happens when the top stops caring about anyone else. I imagine the American equivalent, whatever it is, is right around the corner.
“I imagine the American equivalent, whatever it is, is right around the corner.”
–>I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. Americans are too stupid to even realize companies are underpaying them, and that they CAN demand higher wages if EVERYONE were to take a stand and strike/boycott/etc, which sadly, will not happen here for a long while. Just talk to the sheeple. They are either “grateful” for the job they have, or they blame other ppl for being stupid and unqualified if those ppl have low wages. They blame the victims “it’s their fault for not going to school and getting the right degree…” etc
Anyhow, I’m not holding my breath on sheeple opening their eyes or doing a damn thing about it.