Taking Care of Business - Part 4

I'm here to tell you that there is a super-duper-secret way to making good money and doing absolutely nothing. Actually there are three. So read them all and feel free to pick which one you like best.

1. Be born into old family money. Oh, too late for that?
2. Win the lottery. Oh, not lucky enough for that?
3. Start your own pyramid scheme. Oh, don't want to be vilified by all of humanity?

Then I suppose you'll have to join the rest of us and do a little bit of work. Unfortunately this multi-part series is about maximizing your money and minimizing your work... not eliminating work all together. If that were possible I wouldn't be blogging from my office. I'd be blogging from the Bahamas.

So in the spirit of "nutting up" and accomplishing something Part 4 is called:

- It's not just wallpaper... It's also a meal ticket -



It doesn't really matter what you want to do with your life. I recommend getting a degree, be it high-school, college, or anything in between. Most people don't use their degree but it isn't about how useful American History will be to you when you are driving a cab, or how important College Calculus is when you are the manager of a hotel. It's about maximizing choices. If you want to work less and get paid more you want to be able to have as many choices as possible and for every degree you achieve the more choices (or options) will be at your disposal. The choices could be anything.

Perhaps you want to become a manager. Maybe you want to change careers. Unlike me you may actually want to be something specific when you grow up. A degree is the first step to having these options at your disposal. In this day and age a college degree can feel like a must and in many professional fields it is. Hell, you still don't have to know what you want to do when you grow up. I can't tell you the disparity in college degree disciplines amongst my co-workers and we all do the EXACT same job.

Equally important is the asinine perception that the more degrees you have, the more you are worth... and therefore are compensated accordingly. Of course this is relative to the field in which you work but, by in large, the people with paper on the wall have more paper in their bank account.

Of course it isn't all about money. A degree can give you credibility and some breathing room in your work. Say you slack off a little and only do a half-arsed job on a particular project. Perception is 9/10 of reality and you're going to be given some latitude because the boss is going to assume you know what you are doing. Why? The degree is the preconceived evidence that you know what you're doing.

Finally there is the beauty (or curse) of the EXEMPT job. What am I talking about? I'm talking about being salaried. This little perk doesn't have a clock-in and clock-out time. This is why all the dress-shirt types come in late, take long lunches, and leave early for the golf course? They aren't being paid for the number of hours they put in so why put any more than you have to. Of course the double edge on this sword is that when the job must get done, you have to stay late without compensation. Or you could be like The Q and be a salaried employee with overtime. But that's like the Holy Grail of jobs and those don't come along very often.

So that's it for Part 4. It isn't always fun and games and Lord knows I worked my tail off for my education, but I do feel very strongly that while I don't always USE my education in my work it IS the reason why I am able to do what I am doing today... and some days not doing!