Author Topic: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?  (Read 173998 times)

MoMan

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #350 on: May 02, 2019, 02:38:01 PM »
I want to go hiking on a Wednesday because the weather is gorgeous. I want to take a month-long road trip out West and not be made to feel guilty. I want to work in my woodshop during the daylight hours. Are those reasons petty? I really don't think so. Honestly, I don't think I have any petty reasons for wanting to FIRE. I just want to reclaim my humanity.

Oh shit, I think someone stole my identity! I will add that I never want to watch another fucking gorgeous spring/fall day slip through my fingers while I watch helplessly from a beige, corporate cubicle under fluorescent lighting behind a plate glass window.

middo

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #351 on: May 02, 2019, 05:23:21 PM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #352 on: May 02, 2019, 06:39:26 PM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #353 on: May 02, 2019, 09:56:31 PM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.
yup, I'm in that crowd!

Raenia

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #354 on: May 03, 2019, 06:19:33 AM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.
yup, I'm in that crowd!

Our IT is wise to this - new password is not allowed to be too similar to the last several old passwords.  I don't know how they judge that, maybe no more than 5 characters in a row match or something like that?

Slow&Steady

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #355 on: May 03, 2019, 07:12:45 AM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.
yup, I'm in that crowd!

Our IT is wise to this - new password is not allowed to be too similar to the last several old passwords.  I don't know how they judge that, maybe no more than 5 characters in a row match or something like that?
One of my previous jobs stopped this by not letting 2 numbers be next to each other, you could only go up to 9 and then had to change something else about the password.  There were a bunch of other rules too, the letters couldn't match your first or last name, I don't think it could start with a number, it couldn't match any of your previous like 25 passwords.

I hate passwords!

Sailor Sam

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #356 on: May 03, 2019, 07:35:13 AM »
I'd like to gather all my uniforms up, and then gather all the uniform appurtenances up, and burn them in a gigantic bonfire of rage and destiny fulfilled.

I look forward to the moment with the rapine of Smaug on his loot pile.

Tris Prior

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #357 on: May 03, 2019, 11:34:14 AM »
Yes, I do same password + number, counting up.

Boyfriend once had to change his password at work and included the f-bomb in the new password. That's how he learned that his workplace monitors his keystrokes. Oops. That was an embarrassing conversation with HR.

dougules

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #358 on: May 03, 2019, 11:43:40 AM »
I want to go hiking on a Wednesday because the weather is gorgeous. I want to take a month-long road trip out West and not be made to feel guilty. I want to work in my woodshop during the daylight hours. Are those reasons petty? I really don't think so. Honestly, I don't think I have any petty reasons for wanting to FIRE. I just want to reclaim my humanity.

Oh shit, I think someone stole my identity! I will add that I never want to watch another fucking gorgeous spring/fall day slip through my fingers while I watch helplessly from a beige, corporate cubicle under fluorescent lighting behind a plate glass window.

I don't think I would classify that as petty, though. 

markbike528CBX

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #359 on: May 03, 2019, 01:02:48 PM »
Yes, I do same password + number, counting up.

Boyfriend once had to change his password at work and included the f-bomb in the new password. That's how he learned that his workplace monitors his keystrokes. Oops. That was an embarrassing conversation with HR.

Not a very secure password then is it?  I think IT should win this one (Jesus, did I just say that?). 
My work password root was bad language and I updated it with 3 numbers (ie 111, 222, 333, 444 etc) every 90 days and had a sticky with the current 3 numbers on the monitor (40", owned by me, just because, and it did a good job on synthesizing 4K from 1080p). 
They required that the password did not match the last 13, so sometimes I dropped it back to the 2 number variations.   WTF, if your system remembers 13 old passwords, that has gotta be hackable.

ON topic- I had a close colleague who was fired for searching a word in German (not a language he knows, trust me ) that was apparently a bad word in German.  So uncool. 
His  boss, bosses-boss, bosses-bosses boss, put in an effort not to loose him, but HR had a bug up their ass, and he was canned.  Now  happier at another place. 
Not a place I want to work again (good reminder, now that I'm FIRED from that place).

ON topic- the old workplace has instituted ID badges (20 people max) because the SemiBigCorp policy.  If I had been there as the policy was instituted, it would be really petty, but a clear reason to FIRE.

RyanAtTanagra

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #360 on: May 03, 2019, 01:35:31 PM »
WTF, if your system remembers 13 old passwords, that has gotta be hackable.

If they're hashed properly it's not insecure to store X number of previous passwords, although 13 is excessive.  However, checking to see if a password is SIMILAR to a previous one means that the passwords are not hashed, and are retrievable by the system/a user, which is a BIG no-no in password security (password hashing is one way, even the system itself can't get a password back from it's hash).  That's a way worse security violation than reusing a password, or using a similar password.

AlanStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #361 on: May 03, 2019, 02:50:51 PM »
WTF, if your system remembers 13 old passwords, that has gotta be hackable.

If they're hashed properly it's not insecure to store X number of previous passwords, although 13 is excessive.  However, checking to see if a password is SIMILAR to a previous one means that the passwords are not hashed, and are retrievable by the system/a user, which is a BIG no-no in password security (password hashing is one way, even the system itself can't get a password back from it's hash).  That's a way worse security violation than reusing a password, or using a similar password.

Could the system store hashes of consecutive subsets of the passwords charters?
ie: "mypass12" would be hashed in full for login validation but hashes of "mypass1<null>", "mypass<null><null>", "<null>ypass12", etc, would be stored for checking new password uniqueness. 





RyanAtTanagra

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #362 on: May 03, 2019, 03:06:08 PM »
WTF, if your system remembers 13 old passwords, that has gotta be hackable.

If they're hashed properly it's not insecure to store X number of previous passwords, although 13 is excessive.  However, checking to see if a password is SIMILAR to a previous one means that the passwords are not hashed, and are retrievable by the system/a user, which is a BIG no-no in password security (password hashing is one way, even the system itself can't get a password back from it's hash).  That's a way worse security violation than reusing a password, or using a similar password.

Could the system store hashes of consecutive subsets of the passwords charters?
ie: "mypass12" would be hashed in full for login validation but hashes of "mypass1<null>", "mypass<null><null>", "<null>ypass12", etc, would be stored for checking new password uniqueness.

Yea you could store a hash for every substring in the password, then for the new password hash every substring to see if any of them match up, but man that'd be super convoluted, and in my experience anyone with super strict and annoying password policies don't actually know how to do password security properly (hence the overcompensation), so most likely they're just storing the password in a retrievable way, or just plain text, which still happens a scary amount, especially for internal systems.

ApacheStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #363 on: May 13, 2019, 06:50:46 PM »
Looking forward to FIRE so I no longer need to hear the new guy sitting next to me aggressively clear his throat every 5 minutes. FFS man, get a lozenge, tea, water or something. Hearing him chew his food with his mouth open and scarf down his lunch like a ravenous food-deprived lion is also a big motivating factor.

Dicey

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #364 on: May 14, 2019, 12:18:56 AM »
Looking forward to FIRE so I no longer need to hear the new guy sitting next to me aggressively clear his throat every 5 minutes. FFS man, get a lozenge, tea, water or something. Hearing him chew his food with his mouth open and scarf down his lunch like a ravenous food-deprived lion is also a big motivating factor.
I call bullshit, ApacheStache. Those reasons aren't petty at all. Justifiable homicide, IMO.

By the River

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #365 on: May 14, 2019, 07:52:40 AM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.
yup, I'm in that crowd!

Our passwords expire every 60 days.  I'm up to mypassword57 and planning to leave before it hits three digits. 

Chranstronaut

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #366 on: May 14, 2019, 10:57:00 AM »
Looking forward to FIRE so I no longer need to hear the new guy sitting next to me aggressively clear his throat every 5 minutes. FFS man, get a lozenge, tea, water or something. Hearing him chew his food with his mouth open and scarf down his lunch like a ravenous food-deprived lion is also a big motivating factor.
I call bullshit, ApacheStache. Those reasons aren't petty at all. Justifiable homicide, IMO.

My nightmare!  Throat clearing and *sniff*.... *sniff*.... when there are tissues IN THE KITCHEN DAMNIT you don't even need to excuse yourself JUST GO!

Freedomin5

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #367 on: May 14, 2019, 04:33:05 PM »
Looking forward to FIRE so I no longer need to hear the new guy sitting next to me aggressively clear his throat every 5 minutes. FFS man, get a lozenge, tea, water or something. Hearing him chew his food with his mouth open and scarf down his lunch like a ravenous food-deprived lion is also a big motivating factor.

My first question was going to be if you live in China, and then I realized you live in a Denver. What you describe is so common here I’ve become desensitized to it. Only the really really loud chewers and slurpers bother me.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #368 on: May 14, 2019, 05:11:17 PM »
I guess if I were to point out one thing, it's meetings.  We had so many that essentially amounted to so little and took up valuable work time just to stoke some ego or fit in some weird idea of an operational schedule. 

Korrywow

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #369 on: May 25, 2019, 07:49:09 AM »
Re. meetings. So true.
I always needed a pint or 2 of a good crafty after Board meetings, especially if there were lawyers or megalomaniacs in expensive suits involved.

FLOW

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #370 on: May 25, 2019, 08:05:10 AM »
I hate small talk. 

Zikoris

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #371 on: May 25, 2019, 11:20:23 AM »
Never having to train computer-illiterate new hires how to send couriers again. My god.

rantk81

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #372 on: May 25, 2019, 11:30:02 AM »
I am SO FUCKING TIRED of the phrase "sync up"

Jeez, you would think we were all iPhones connecting to iTunes or some shit like that....

GermanStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #373 on: May 25, 2019, 11:32:44 AM »
I want to FIRE so I can knit the entire day every day. And so I can make ALL my food from scratch and spend the days cooking and baking .

kanga1622

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #374 on: May 25, 2019, 02:20:03 PM »
When I came back to my job after a leave of absence, my windows password was reset to "SomeWord1".  Per IT policy, I am forced to change that password every 90 days.  Each time I change that password, I just add one more to the number at the end of the password.  I'm currently at "SomeWord49".  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

I love this.  A job I left 2 years ago, I was up to "Mypassword31".  I thought it was hilarious that the IT system made us change, but allowed such petty changes.

I got out at 31....I wonder just how many people use the countdown/countup method.
yup, I'm in that crowd!

Our IT is wise to this - new password is not allowed to be too similar to the last several old passwords.  I don't know how they judge that, maybe no more than 5 characters in a row match or something like that?

One of our systems make you change the password every 90 days and the new password cannot have more than 2 characters in common with the previous 5. It is a ridiculous time trying to come up with a new password. I started using zoo animals followed by a different sequence of numbers.

sol

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #375 on: May 25, 2019, 02:29:43 PM »
I want to FIRE so I can knit the entire day every day. And so I can make ALL my food from scratch and spend the days cooking and baking .

What do you do now?

I find it almost comical how enthusiastic many of us are for adopting the drudgery of our grandparents.  I'm a PhD scientist who spent his career in federal service, sitting behind computer screens and presenting to academic audiences, and now that I'm retired I swing a hammer.  Suddenly I have calluses on my hands, and tendonitis in my elbows, and dirt under my fingernails.  I gave up a decidedly white collar life to pursue decidedly blue collar hobbies.

My grandpa told everyone to go to school and get an office job, so that his family would not be poorly-paid manual laborers forever.  He wanted to see us all rise above our humble ancestors, to pursue a better life than he had.  And yet, two generations on, many of us who took his advice and managed our money well now cherish the tools he used to make a living, and remember him fondly when we break a sweat using them.

Maybe his life of manual labor wasn't so bad.  I'm rather enjoying emulating it now that I'm retired.  But of course I recognize the differences inherent in the necessity of that labor.  I get to enjoy swinging a hammer all day because I don't have to swing a hammer all day.  He couldn't take rest days, if his kids wanted to eat.

I suspect the desire to cook and bake from scratch is similarly motivated by a certain sense of nostalgia.  My grandma was an Iowa dirt farmer who spent her early years cooking from scratch for 15 farm hands every day, and hated it.  She made a mean cherry pie, but never stopped complaining about how much she despised butchering and plucking chickens.  She might be just as mortified by my love of cooking and baking as grandpa would be of my calluses. 

Zikoris

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #376 on: May 25, 2019, 03:08:31 PM »
I want to FIRE so I can knit the entire day every day. And so I can make ALL my food from scratch and spend the days cooking and baking .

What do you do now?

I find it almost comical how enthusiastic many of us are for adopting the drudgery of our grandparents.  I'm a PhD scientist who spent his career in federal service, sitting behind computer screens and presenting to academic audiences, and now that I'm retired I swing a hammer.  Suddenly I have calluses on my hands, and tendonitis in my elbows, and dirt under my fingernails.  I gave up a decidedly white collar life to pursue decidedly blue collar hobbies.

My grandpa told everyone to go to school and get an office job, so that his family would not be poorly-paid manual laborers forever.  He wanted to see us all rise above our humble ancestors, to pursue a better life than he had.  And yet, two generations on, many of us who took his advice and managed our money well now cherish the tools he used to make a living, and remember him fondly when we break a sweat using them.

Maybe his life of manual labor wasn't so bad.  I'm rather enjoying emulating it now that I'm retired.  But of course I recognize the differences inherent in the necessity of that labor.  I get to enjoy swinging a hammer all day because I don't have to swing a hammer all day.  He couldn't take rest days, if his kids wanted to eat.

I suspect the desire to cook and bake from scratch is similarly motivated by a certain sense of nostalgia.  My grandma was an Iowa dirt farmer who spent her early years cooking from scratch for 15 farm hands every day, and hated it.  She made a mean cherry pie, but never stopped complaining about how much she despised butchering and plucking chickens.  She might be just as mortified by my love of cooking and baking as grandpa would be of my calluses.

I find it kind of funny how the desire to cook from scratch kind of skipped a generation in my family. My grandparents were all excellent cook-from-scratchers. But neither of my parents, or my aunts or uncles are any good at it - they came of age during the time when convenience foods became really popular and common, so that was the way they learned to cook, and the type of stuff we were fed growing up. I wonder sometimes if the move away from home cooking was almost a form of rebellion against traditional homemaking, and then the next generation was like "Fuck this nasty convenience food, I want to make stuff that tastes good".

I do think it's kind of awesome how many young people these days are abandoning what they grew up eating and going back to "old school" cooking. I know a lot of people around my age now who have amazing cooking repertoires.

GermanStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #377 on: May 25, 2019, 03:13:39 PM »
Another petty reason for wanting to FIRE - I want the time to cook sourdough bread properly.
YES!!!! Me too :-)

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #378 on: May 25, 2019, 03:43:24 PM »
My grandma also hated cooking.  She cooked and baked but from necessity in order to feed 4 kids. A lot of household chores were much harder when she was young though from plucking chickens, to boiling the laundry in a huge tub to knitting socks and making clothes for the entire family. My parents cooked because they had to in order to feed us but both worked full time in all consuming jobs.  When I was in my teens I took an interest in cooking (partly because I was sick of the fish sticks and powdered mashed potato that my mother served up) and I had basically taken over family cooking and shopping by age 15-16.  My mother was a single mother who worked long hours.  For a while, I entertained the idea of becoming a chef, but working part time as a kitchen hand in a restaurant cured me of that desire. 

GermanStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #379 on: May 25, 2019, 03:45:01 PM »
I want to FIRE so I can knit the entire day every day. And so I can make ALL my food from scratch and spend the days cooking and baking .

What do you do now?

I knit for maybe one hour a day and manage to make some foods from scratch. I do not have time for more since I am away for 12 hours a day including my commute.

I don´t quite understand what you are getting at with your post... maybe because english is my second language. Do you find my reasons stupid or funny??

GermanStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #380 on: May 25, 2019, 04:19:25 PM »
when I say cooking from scratch I mean this not in a Laura-Ingalls-kind-of-way. Cooking from scratch today has nothing to do with the tedious ways our grandmothers had to do it every single day. Neither do i boil my clothes in a pot nor do I HAVE to sew clothing for the family.... But I enjoy sewing but don´t have the time to do so. That was my point which apparently didn´t come out right by the comments this prompted....

Trifle

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #381 on: May 25, 2019, 05:52:26 PM »
@GermanStache, I think your points about knitting and cooking came across very well.  I think the comments were just exploring why many of us (myself included) long to do more manual labor.  And often (almost always?) that longing is felt by white collar/professional workers who didn't have to do it as part of their paid work. 

I just retired a short time ago, and I spend at least four hours a day working in my garden and orchard.  But professionally I worked a desk job.  All those years staring at a computer at work, I dreamed of getting my fill in the garden every day.  But if I had instead worked for pay as a farm laborer, I might be spending my retirement differently.

ETA I think "petty" might be the wrong word for this interesting phenomenon . . . Personally it feels deep and fulfilling.  A bit ironic maybe?   
« Last Edit: May 25, 2019, 05:56:02 PM by Trifele »

sol

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #382 on: May 25, 2019, 07:29:42 PM »
I want to FIRE so I can knit the entire day every day. And so I can make ALL my food from scratch and spend the days cooking and baking .

What do you do now?

I knit for maybe one hour a day and manage to make some foods from scratch. I do not have time for more since I am away for 12 hours a day including my commute.

No, I meant what kind of job do you have now, that prevents you from knitting and cooking?  I ask because I have found that many working people aspire to do things that are different from their regular day jobs.  If you are a short order cook in a diner, you probably don't dream about cooking from scratch for fun.

Quote
I don´t quite understand what you are getting at with your post... maybe because english is my second language. Do you find my reasons stupid or funny??

No, I do not find them stupid or funny at all.  I also look forward to spending my free time doing things that my ancestors considered tiresome chores.  That was kind of the point I was trying to make, that many of us now do this stuff for fun.  We have learned a different set of values than what my grandparents had.

EscapeVelocity2020

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #383 on: May 25, 2019, 08:11:18 PM »
One of the biggest ironies of ER is that folks feel a need to rush to retirement because time is so precious.  Then, once they retire, they do things like ride a bike instead of get that thing done quicker in a car, grow food instead of grab fresh produce, walk and contemplate how fast life is nowadays...  I guess I understand that time is easier to waste when you are 'free', but I totally get Sol's comment about 'why can't folks enjoy all this time the modern era has given us' while we are working as a gateway to enjoying ER.

But as a disclaimer, I'm FI and not ER and it is working out pretty great for me.  These forums and the online community in general isn't like the real world because failures don't voluntarily let themselves be known.  If a future society looks at Facebook and Instagram, they will be really confused as to why Humanity did not protect this beautiful planet and our fantastic existence on it.

Zikoris

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #384 on: May 25, 2019, 08:47:59 PM »
My grandma also hated cooking.  She cooked and baked but from necessity in order to feed 4 kids. A lot of household chores were much harder when she was young though from plucking chickens, to boiling the laundry in a huge tub to knitting socks and making clothes for the entire family. My parents cooked because they had to in order to feed us but both worked full time in all consuming jobs.  When I was in my teens I took an interest in cooking (partly because I was sick of the fish sticks and powdered mashed potato that my mother served up) and I had basically taken over family cooking and shopping by age 15-16.  My mother was a single mother who worked long hours.  For a while, I entertained the idea of becoming a chef, but working part time as a kitchen hand in a restaurant cured me of that desire.

I did the same as a teenager. The funny thing is, well into adulthood I still believed I was just a super picky eater, because I hated and refused to eat nearly everything my parents cooked, and mostly subsisted on sandwiches, cereal, and raw fruit/veg from our garden and fruit trees/bushes. Well, it turns out I'm not a picky eater at all, they're just terrible cooks!

Metalcat

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #385 on: May 26, 2019, 04:40:03 AM »
@GermanStache, I think your points about knitting and cooking came across very well.  I think the comments were just exploring why many of us (myself included) long to do more manual labor.  And often (almost always?) that longing is felt by white collar/professional workers who didn't have to do it as part of their paid work. 

I just retired a short time ago, and I spend at least four hours a day working in my garden and orchard.  But professionally I worked a desk job.  All those years staring at a computer at work, I dreamed of getting my fill in the garden every day.  But if I had instead worked for pay as a farm laborer, I might be spending my retirement differently.

ETA I think "petty" might be the wrong word for this interesting phenomenon . . . Personally it feels deep and fulfilling.  A bit ironic maybe?   

I get this, but the opposite way.
I work with my hands all day and after a few years of doing it full time, it got pretty tedious...and physically exhausting.

My FIRE fantasies were filled with consulting work for non profits and academia, executive committees, proposal writing, and presentations.

I have zero romanticism about working with my hands, it's just what I do to get things done. To this day I deeply despise stacking firewood, and can't wait for my parents to finally move to the city so that I never have to haul insect covered logs ever again.

I do cook everything from scratch, but you couldn't pay me to garden.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #386 on: May 26, 2019, 05:00:56 AM »
My grandma also hated cooking.  She cooked and baked but from necessity in order to feed 4 kids. A lot of household chores were much harder when she was young though from plucking chickens, to boiling the laundry in a huge tub to knitting socks and making clothes for the entire family. My parents cooked because they had to in order to feed us but both worked full time in all consuming jobs.  When I was in my teens I took an interest in cooking (partly because I was sick of the fish sticks and powdered mashed potato that my mother served up) and I had basically taken over family cooking and shopping by age 15-16.  My mother was a single mother who worked long hours.  For a while, I entertained the idea of becoming a chef, but working part time as a kitchen hand in a restaurant cured me of that desire.

I did the same as a teenager. The funny thing is, well into adulthood I still believed I was just a super picky eater, because I hated and refused to eat nearly everything my parents cooked, and mostly subsisted on sandwiches, cereal, and raw fruit/veg from our garden and fruit trees/bushes. Well, it turns out I'm not a picky eater at all, they're just terrible cooks!

Ha ha - same here.  Actually each of parents is not a bad cook when they put in the effort but the problem was that they are both kind of workaholics so their work always came first.  Food was just a way to keep body and soul together.  My parents each put in some effort and made nice food for holidays though.

I'm more of a "llive to eat" kind of person.  I remember as a teenager making home made pasta, pad thai, 7 layer cakes, osso buco, chicken liver pate and quenelles.  I used to pore over recipe books and attempt to make the foods that appealed to me.  As a side effect, I became a pretty good home cook so I started making dinner most nights for the family as a teenager.  My mother often worked late or travelled for work so she was very happy to let me do the shopping and cooking.

mstr d

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #387 on: May 26, 2019, 05:20:01 AM »
I don't want to have any clue what day of the week it is.

This is awesome. But it also has some downsides. I know exactly when it's my girlfriends birthday, I just didn't know what day it was when it happend to be that day :p. oeps sorry my love.

My reason to fire because I disn't like that other people had control over me what I had to do or coudn't do.

I still can't do sirten things by law. But I don't mind those things.

Money Badger

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #388 on: May 26, 2019, 06:15:25 AM »
(Sub)Human Resources. 

People who exist solely to perpetuate HR legal CYA evidence and distracting corporate compliance BS to protect the asses of the wealthy from the “revenue generating units” actually creating value.   

johndoe

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #389 on: May 26, 2019, 07:02:18 AM »
* Not feeling watched by coworkers if I dare to have Youtube playing music in the background.
* Not staring out the window at the sunny day I am missing thanks to working hours.
* Not scanning Reddit because I am required to be in that seat, even if I don't have work to do.

My reason is to get away from people who think things like these are acceptable on the clock (frequently).  I work at a public org, so I can't help but think the tax money becoming their salaries is a waste.  I have to hear them blabber on for hours per day about non-work issues, only do the bare minimum, and complain 24/7 (especially when they actually have to do something above and beyond) .  I've come to accept that I'm in the minority to feel this way, but if you aren't motivated by your job why not quit?  Pull on the rope, buy some headphones, get to work, keep yourself mentally stimulated, feel some pride from achievement.   Don't bring the rest of us down.

In other news, I should probably learn to accept their behavior as "normal" so it doesn't go from my "petty" reason to a serious motivation for FIRE!

Metalcat

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #390 on: May 26, 2019, 07:17:58 AM »
* Not feeling watched by coworkers if I dare to have Youtube playing music in the background.
* Not staring out the window at the sunny day I am missing thanks to working hours.
* Not scanning Reddit because I am required to be in that seat, even if I don't have work to do.

My reason is to get away from people who think things like these are acceptable on the clock (frequently).  I work at a public org, so I can't help but think the tax money becoming their salaries is a waste.  I have to hear them blabber on for hours per day about non-work issues, only do the bare minimum, and complain 24/7 (especially when they actually have to do something above and beyond) .  I've come to accept that I'm in the minority to feel this way, but if you aren't motivated by your job why not quit?  Pull on the rope, buy some headphones, get to work, keep yourself mentally stimulated, feel some pride from achievement.   Don't bring the rest of us down.

In other news, I should probably learn to accept their behavior as "normal" so it doesn't go from my "petty" reason to a serious motivation for FIRE!

It really, really depends on the job.

For some jobs, some people can actually deliver at a much higher level of they aren't focused all the time. I have a job where time is money. If I'm not focused and working, I'm not billing. However, DH has a job where taking a 20 minute break to grab a coffee and go for a walk outside is critical to his brain being able to generate the ideas he needs to generate. Sometimes he will just zone out at his desk with headphones and music or read articles, but it's all to let the brain percolate in the background.

Anyone who does anything even remotely creative will tell you the same thing: the break minutes are even more important than the work minutes.

If someone is highly productive, it's not a waste. For some, trying to force every minute to be productive will actually tank their ability to produce.

It depends on the work.

ApacheStache

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #391 on: May 26, 2019, 08:40:14 AM »
Looking forward to FIRE so I no longer need to hear the new guy sitting next to me aggressively clear his throat every 5 minutes. FFS man, get a lozenge, tea, water or something. Hearing him chew his food with his mouth open and scarf down his lunch like a ravenous food-deprived lion is also a big motivating factor.

My first question was going to be if you live in China, and then I realized you live in a Denver. What you describe is so common here I’ve become desensitized to it. Only the really really loud chewers and slurpers bother me.

It's funny you say that, this new guy is from China. He's good at what he does, but man alive his "table manners" could use some grooming.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2019, 08:51:57 AM by ApacheStache »

sol

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #392 on: May 26, 2019, 08:41:18 AM »
Quote from: Malkynn link=topic=103598.msg2381787#msg2381787
If someone is highly productive, it's not a waste. For some, trying to force every minute to be productive will actually tank their ability to produce.

It depends on the work.

Now that I am retired, I am ever so grateful that I no longer have to think of my time in terms of my "ability to produce".

I get to live instead, and I truly appreciate doing so without any sense of obligation or guilt.  I'm still busy, and productive, but only because I genuinely want to be and not because I'm supposed to be.  It's just such a dramatic change in the narrative of my day, from the other side, but it wasn't at all obvious to me while I was still working how much of my time I spent managing myself for reasons like this, for someone else's benefit. It's another one of those little wonderful surprises of retirement that I was not expecting.  It's changed my perspective on so many unexpected things.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #393 on: May 26, 2019, 09:42:40 AM »
I don't want to do no more OOD rounds. Ever, ever again.

johndoe

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #394 on: May 26, 2019, 10:06:52 AM »
Anyone who does anything even remotely creative will tell you the same thing: the break minutes are even more important than the work minutes.
...
For some, trying to force every minute to be productive will actually tank their ability to produce.

Good points, and I'm sure everyone is wired differently even if they're creative / problem solvers.  I imagine it's a "shades of grey" issue; everyone is going to have 5 minute conversations, use restroom, stretch, go on a walk around the building, etc.  What I take issue with is the people who have these 5 minute conversations with 20 people, always have time for walking breaks, complain about company issues, complain about personal issues, talk about films for hours, blah blah.  In my mind if the company says "you get x minutes per day to break" .... that's it.  When you're supposed to work 90% and break 10% I have a problem if you work 10% and break 90%.

I guess one part of me wants the organization / all tax money to be spent as efficiently as possible.  The other part of me says "just accept that people aren't going to live up to your expectations".  I think personally I need to meet in the middle somewhere, but am not sure how to convince myself =)

2sk22

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #395 on: May 26, 2019, 10:12:53 AM »
I'd like to spend more time with my Lego, to be honest.

Heh - I keep several trays of LEGO technics piece on my desk and play with it when I'm thinking about a hard problem. I find that keeping my fingers busy really helps !

Metalcat

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #396 on: May 26, 2019, 02:13:51 PM »
Anyone who does anything even remotely creative will tell you the same thing: the break minutes are even more important than the work minutes.
...
For some, trying to force every minute to be productive will actually tank their ability to produce.

Good points, and I'm sure everyone is wired differently even if they're creative / problem solvers.  I imagine it's a "shades of grey" issue; everyone is going to have 5 minute conversations, use restroom, stretch, go on a walk around the building, etc.  What I take issue with is the people who have these 5 minute conversations with 20 people, always have time for walking breaks, complain about company issues, complain about personal issues, talk about films for hours, blah blah.  In my mind if the company says "you get x minutes per day to break" .... that's it.  When you're supposed to work 90% and break 10% I have a problem if you work 10% and break 90%.

I guess one part of me wants the organization / all tax money to be spent as efficiently as possible.  The other part of me says "just accept that people aren't going to live up to your expectations".  I think personally I need to meet in the middle somewhere, but am not sure how to convince myself =)

I have no doubt that you have plenty of legitimate examples of people wasting company time. I only objected to you generalizing that it's universally somehow wrong, since you were initially responding to someone else whose workplace conduct you categorized as unacceptable, which I felt was unfair as a generalization.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #397 on: May 26, 2019, 02:50:33 PM »


  All those years staring at a computer at work, I dreamed of getting my fill in the garden every day. 



When my sister retires she wants to spend lots of time in her garden.

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #398 on: May 26, 2019, 06:33:00 PM »
Time in the garden can not be considered a petty thing!

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Re: What is your most petty reason for seeking FIRE?
« Reply #399 on: May 26, 2019, 07:07:17 PM »
I don't really like wearing pants.