Good life with his wife

One of my employees told me he was getting ragged by some of the other employees about his tremendous work ethic. He is a master carpenter and works enormously long hours in an effort to meet our intense deadlines, and in his effort to earn a ton of money for his family. The way he looks at it is while this construction work is available to him he is going to take advantage of it, because it just might not last forever and I also think he just likes to work hard and accomplish great and beautiful things.

One of the other guys chided him in a meeting about working all of the time and “not having a life” and perhaps “not loving his wife”.

Hmmm I remember hearing the same thing from some of my co-workers when I was just starting out in my career. One guy told me that my hard work ethic was making the rest of them look bad. As you will read in my book I angrily told him that I was the one who had to feed my family and I was going to give it all I had in order to do so. I also informed him that if he wanted to sit around on his tail and barely get by that was fine with me, but warned him to keep out of my way and if he didn’t like what I was doing I’d meet him and all of the rest of them out in the parking lot and I’d beat the crap out of all of them. (Yes I was and still am a redneck!)

As it turned out I got promoted eight times in two years all of the way up to top management and when I left that company he was still in that same department still living his good life and still making peanuts.

I wonder if those who work the minimum and say “they have a life” really have such a great life, or if they live paycheck to paycheck, struggling financially as they plod along doing just enough to get by and barely keeping their heads above water. It seems to me that someone with such a work ethic doesn’t love his wife and kids all that much if he will not even work hard to provide for them.

I worry that part of the problem in this great country is that people, youngsters in particular, are beginning to believe that they don’t have to work hard in order to “earn” a better life for themselves and their families and that they are entitled to a good life despite their lousy work ethic. Europe has gone to a 30 hour work week, three months of vacation, and they want to retire at age 50, all at government expense.

Huh?

I suppose that would be nice, but the world does not work that way.

If you were an employer and things went south at your company, who would you layoff, a worker with the tremendous work ethic, or a worker who is doing the minimum but is living the “good life” with his wife?

Hmmm.

God worked six days and then rested on the seventh. Doesn’t sound like a thirty hour work week to me. Give it all you got!

Exodus 20:11
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.