When I was about 12 or 13 I helped my daddy manage a small 6-plex apartment building and I sure learned a lot about people at a real early age. It was a great experience for me and it did keep me busy; we painted the units, rented them, collected the rents and we also had to deal with all the non-paying tenants. When I graduated for high school I had plans to attend college in the fall but I had landed my first real job at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, MS as an electrician and I was enrolled as an apprentice. It was a 3 year program at that time. Not only did I have to work but I had to go to school 2 days a week after work. It was a real change from mananaging the small complex and collecting the rent... lol. Now the year was 1979, I was such a young lad and I really didn't know about the real world of working a public job. As I had mentioned in my earlier posts my daddy started working at Ingalls in 1939. He was born in 1920 an he always told me about how he was reared. He told me about the depression and how he went to bed at night with nothing to eat as he was growing up as a child. He always had a way of explaining things. Once I got the job at the shipyard he really did not want me to quit to go to college. He said that I had a GOOD JOB and I better not quit. At that time Ingalls had an attendance bonus in place that worked like this: If you worked 40 days without missing any time.... you received a bonus of about 2 days pay just for showing up to work!!! My daddy had such a great work ethic. He never ever missed work. He would work when he was sick. He worked his vacations. He worked overtime. He worked...... He was no slacker. He was never lazy. He was not a bum. He never asked anybody for anything. He never owed anybody money. When he had his property paid off he would not ever put a mortgage on the property. He was an honorable man and he lived within his means. He was responsible. And one of the things he taught me and my brothers is that we were going to work. He would tell me all the time when we got the attendance bonuses that we are getting paid just to go to work; we had to go to work anyway!! They are paying us just for showing up to go to work.... He wanted to see how many of those bonuses he could get. I got lots of those bonuses too. I really learned something from my daddy that has stuck with me all these years. Work is honorable. Work is good. Working and taking care of your family was what its all about. And because of his example... I have never been without a job. I have always had something to do... in fact I have always had too much to do... lol... Of course you must find something that you are excited about and once you do... you will never work another day of your life. My recommendation is to find that something that you have a passion for and do it... and your attendance bonus will be there for you too!!
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