The reasons for my actions. (long)

[Otherside61]

Sorry for another lengthy post. Cliff notes at bottom.

First off I would like to say that I really enjoyed writing everything that I have written and I have enjoyed all your responses. Some of your responses have actually given me ideas on where to go from here. Everything that I have written is happening as we speak. I realize that there are some things that I have written that have painted me out to look bad and look like a spoiled brat. Or at least that is how some of you look at it. Whether or not I am a spoiled brat is beside the point, because it is something that I have heard my entire life since I was 6 years old. I became a spoiled brat in peoples eyes when my poor single mom married some random guy that was twice her age.

The vast majority of people that I know have great relationships with their parents and I’m sure most of you do as well. I on the other hand have an extremely strained relationship with my parents. Here’s why.

My mom grew up in a really poor Mexican family and is one the youngest of 10 children. She married my dad one night in Vegas while they were eloping. She was 19 and he was 35. Let’s just say that my dad was a pimp. My dad pulled my 19 year old mom by telling her he had money, could protect her, and he was driving a corvette. The reality is that my father was a womanizer, a cokehead, and couldn’t put the bottle of Jack down to save his life. Shortly after the marriage he knocked my mom up. When I was 3, my dad left us and we were broke. When I was 6 my mom married my step-dad. I have no memory of anything before I was 6. When my mom remarried I went from living in an apartment to living in a mansion with my mom and this new man that I didn’t know. My new step-dad was a successful business man and a millionaire. My mom was now driving a brand new BMW, didn’t have to work a day for the rest of her life, and got to spend all the money she wanted. As a result, she did and to this day does anything he wants. When they first married, he immediately took control of disciplining me which he felt he had to do a lot of. He basically had free reign to be my new father. It turns out that my step-dad is a very cold, unemotional man, and is not good to talk to because he doesn’t really make a good conversation. He is the stereotypical businessman. We have never really been close and the closest we ever get is when we watch sports together. He is a crazy sports bettor. On NFL Sunday, he has 9 bets on every game. When I was 11, I could tell you the difference, between a parlay, a teaser, and the moneyline. I have been gambling since I was a little kid.

When I was 8, my step-dad made my mom have a kid and they had a daughter who is my sister. They flowered her with everything a little girl could ever want. My parents and everyone else called her a little princess. I was pretty much ignored and was told by people that my sister was planned and is special and that I was my mom’s accident. As you could imagine I hated my sister and had major issues because of my sister being born. I started seeing a therapist and saw him until I was 19. I wasn’t seeing him when I was 19 because of my sister. Those issues went away many years ago. My sister and I are starting to get close because I’m the only one who knows what she is going through right now. She is 14, and is having the hardest time of her life, because my mom treats her like [censored].

My step-dad taught me discipline, how to make money and how to gamble. He taught me none of the other things that a father should. Meanwhile my real father is around but he and I have an estranged relationship and we see/talk to each a couple times a year which usually occurs around the holidays and birthdays. Growing up when I was around him which wasn’t very often, he was always coked out and drunk and talked down my mother. My mother would say the same about him as I was growing up. Growing up with my step-dad, we lived in a house where he was God and no ever dared to challenge his authority. He even refers to himself as God. In my life he is the closest thing there is to God, and lets just I am Godfearing.” He is very strict, and has a scary temper when you set him off. I was always an unruly kid, a Bart Simpson type so as a result I was getting in trouble all the time. He would stand for nothing other then orderly conduct at all times. My mom was told by doctors that I had ADD, but she refused to believe it and I never took any medication. I don’t know if I have ADD but I do have anxiety problems which have calmed down over the years and my only medicine for it is to smoke weed. Anyway, whenever I got out of line, I was usually punished, had things taken from me, and would get belted really hard on my bare ass. He use to smack the [censored] out of me until my ass was bright red and this probably happened a couple times a month until I was about 12 or so. My mom meanwhile had no say in the matter and this is important for later. I have never had a grudge on my step-dad for this as I realize that I deserved quite a few of those ass kickings.

From the time I was six years old, my step-dad would wake me every Saturday at 6:00 in the morning to go to a job site. My step-dad runs a paving business and we would go to his paving jobs. Right from the beginning he was raising me up for the company. I use to hate going to these “jobs” as I called them because it was just really boring and too early in the morning especially for a little kid. Going to these jobs was like watching paint dry. It was the most boring thing ever and I hated Saturdays. To this day being around this business is like watching paint dry. I find it incredibly boring, and there is nothing interesting about construction in my mind. The money in this industry is absolutely incredible but that isn’t enough of a draw for me to want to pursue it as a career. I just don’t like the lifestyle. It is the typical 9-5 lifestyle except its more like 5-5 and goes 7 days a week depending on how hard you work. I loathe the thought of working a 9-5 type job for the rest of my life. I have no problem working 60-90 hours per week when I’m doing something that I find to be exciting. I have great work ethic. I have that because my step-dad had me working on his jobs from the time I was 10 until I was 16 when I got a “real” job at a supermarket. I have worked every summer since I was 10 years old so I am very to use to working. I just don’t want to do it in a 9-5 environment.

As for my mom, she is just as big of a hard-ass as my step-dad. My poor sister is currently going through what I went through as she is no longer the princess. My mom is the most superficial person I have ever known and I loathe her for that. When my mom hit her jackpot, it changed her forever. My mom’s family is very resentful of my mother and I. They resent her because she changed and because she got money for no reason and they are jealous. They have always resented me but not as much because everyone thought I became a spoiled brat when I started living in a big house.

She did change and it was because she was now living with a man old enough to be her father. A man who expects things to be a certain way and if she wanted luxury she had to follow it. As a result my mom is 43 years old and acts like she is 64 which is how old my step-dad is. She is a prude and just a boring person as she has no hobbies or interests other then spending money. My mom and I fought like cats and dogs from the time I was 10 until I was 18 when I finally couldn’t take it anymore and moved 1,000 miles away from home. Growing up, my mom was obsessed with my education and was insane about my homework and grades. I don’t think I can explain to you how crazy my mom was with this crap. For years my mom would spend several hours a night with me helping me doing my homework and studying even though I have been smarter then my mom since I was 13. Literally, my mom has no education and just isn’t bright. She’s always relied on her looks. But she was always just a complete nut and it made me hate her. My sister is currently undergoing what I went through with the school and my sister claims she hates my mom and my mom always complains about my sister never talking to her. My mom and I do get a long better now then when I was a kid, but things are definitely strained between the two of us.

Before I left for school, my parents and I got in a huge fight and they were telling me that they basically couldn’t afford to pay for me to go out of state for college. We went to New Orleans which was the second time I had ever traveled with my parents. (My parents never travel. Ever.) We were there to buy expensive European paintings and they dragged me and my sister. To make a long story short I watched my step-dad spend around $200,000 on pictures for his house but he couldn’t afford $20,000.00 to send me to the University of Colorado.

They eventually paid for the school and it was the first time that my parents had ever spent money on me. No, I didn’t get whatever I wanted when I was a kid and I had the same things as all my other friends who all lived lower-middle class lifestyles.
I left for school when I was 18 and was never happier in my life. I couldn’t believe how happy I actually was. I thought I was happy at times during my youth but I never knew what true happiness was until I went to school at 18. When I was 19, my mom saw how happy I was and out of desperation of not wanting to lose me to Colorado she offered me a really good job at the company. A job that pays $40,000-$50,000 per year but I could only take the job if I completely dropped out of college and would never be able to think about college. I didnt really want to work for the company as I had worked a real job with the company the previous summer. I also worked all those summers when I was a kid and I just didn’t like working there. The office politics that I have deal with are horrible. I turned down my moms offer with that knowledge and was having an absolute blast in college. Plus I was already pursuing another career interest. (Not poker) Things crashed and burned my second year of college and I decided to leave. There’s a couple years of stuff in the middle that’s explained in the other post. Fast forward to now, and I am working for my step-dad trying to take another shot. I needed a job and I was desperate and I told him that I wanted to start from the bottom. I started working with the laborers and did that for six months. I worked during this most recent California summer and it was the most grueling summer ever. I woke up everyday at 4:30 in the morning to go work all day in the heat. I was paid the base salary of $14.5 per hour and I made the most money I’ve ever made at a job. My typical take-home was between $500-$700 per week. I am really grateful for the experience I had doing that work because everything else is so much easier and I’ve never enjoyed a day off or a weekend then I do now.

Here’s why I’m the most disgruntled employee at the company.

At the end of October, I took my vacation and went to Colorado to visit some old friends. When I came back I was informed that someone who had been there for 20 years quit and he left everything a mess. They told me that they wanted me to come in and fix the problem and to take over his duties. I now had a new job! It couldn’t have come at a better time because I was really tired from the hard labor. I went into my new job very enthused and within a couple weeks I had everything back to the way it was suppose to be and was offered the position permanently. I didn’t receive a raise and was told that I was now getting better job security because our industry was slowing down. The lack of a raise didn’t bother me as the job security did make me feel better. Fast forward 4 months later to now. The job I have is complete BS. It was good at first because I had so much to do. I now work maybe a total of 3 hours a day. The rest of the day I’m just BSing around and not really doing anything productive. It’s easy money but it’s so BORING. I need constant stimulation. Hence why I love poker. I have taken on some of my bosses duties and as a result he now gets to do other things which landed him a job promotion and a raise. I am still making the same hourly wage and my average paycheck is now $400.00 since I don’t get to work overtime anymore. I have basically been given a “better” job and am the envy of my former co-workers yet I have taken a pay-cut.

A couple weeks ago I was told to go through some files and when I go through files I usually read all the paperwork just out of curiosity even if I’m not suppose too. I found paperwork with all the laborers wages and I come find out that I have been screwed out of most of my prevailing wage pay which is $29/hr. Weeks that I made $600, my co-workers were making $1000.00-$1700.00. I also notice that in the last couple of months all of my former co-workers have been bumped up by $2 an hour. I also have read that the minimum wage is going up $2 nationally. I have never once asked for a raise, and have never brought the issue of my pay up. I have also been told that I will be getting paid what I’m paid for the next couple of years. The next job up that I am working for right now is a job that I don’t even want. That is the job I need to work if I am want to make the MILLIONS. It’s a job that works 60+ hours per week and pays about $50,000.00 per year. It’s a job that I’m expected to hold for 20-25 years give or take depending on when certain people step down.

To make things worse, now that I am constantly around the offices, the office politics that I have to deal with are unbearable. I put up with a lot of [censored] for no reason other then the fact that I’m the bosses kid. People know that I won’t have any real control for a really long time, so they don’t have a problem with giving me [censored].

My buyin at my limit of play is $400.00. I have no fear of losing money even though my buyin=a paycheck. Yes I have a bankroll that is separate from the money I make at work. Since I only play live poker my bankroll is in a safe at my apartment and my liferoll from work is in the bank.

There is no negotiating in this company. Things are done a certain way. My step-dad runs his company the way he ran the house I grew up in. (I hated the house I grew up in) He is God and there is no negotiating or ever questioning anything. (Yes, he has a superiority complex and goes on crazy power trips.) I cannot ask for a better job, or a raise, or try to go to school and come back and get a better job. If I do any of these things he will kick my ass into the street in a matter of minutes. My mother has no say in this situation so she can’t tell him to hook me up better.

If I keep working for my parents, they will have full control of my life. That is what I have been trying to get away from my whole life. If I put up with the crap that I have put up with the first 22 years of my life and then some for the next 30 years then I am guaranteed to be a multi-millionaire. That’s the price that I have to pay if I decide to go that route.

I feel that I am in an impossible situation at work. I think my job is BS, the office politics are brutal, I don’t make crap, I was told 2 days ago that I am overpaid for my position (WTF?) and I will be in the spot I am in for at least 2-5 years before I can start the job that makes around $50,000. The job that pays $50,000 maxes out at around $75,000. As I said I don’t like the job that pays $50,000 and don’t ever want to work it.

I told my mom that I wanted to go school full time and quit my job on Monday and she freaked out. I am making the choice that I am making because I think it is well worth the risk. And I want nothing more then to get out from under my parents thumb and this is the best way to do it.

I still expect a lot of you to disagree with me because 90% of the people in my life think I’m a fool for going to school at 18 when I could have just started working for the company. A lot of you will still probably think I am a moron but I am no moron.

Cliff notes: A lot of you think I’m stupid for turning down the opportunity to become wealthy one day to play cards and finish school. I fully explain why I am choosing this path. My step-dad is a hardass, my mom is crazy, and I need to get out from under my parents grasp.

[Jobless23]

No one should reply to anymore of your posts until you post a picture of your mom.

[Otherside61]

Haha, I don't have any pictures of my mom. She is good looking but believe me she's nothing special. She was good looking back in the day but was never super hot. My stepdad went with her, because it was the best he could do and because she was so much younger than him.

[Beesnuts]

I understand what you mean when you say you want to get out from under your parents control. I think that is something everyone should do. One thing you have to realize is that financial times are probably going to be harder than ever if you plan on packing up and following your own path. You will be probably be working a $10-$15/hour job until you finish college, then once you get a job associated with your degree, you'll probably be making $30K to $40K annually(maybe more depending on your degree), so you wont really be any better off for at least another 5-10+ years until you start to see some major salary increases.

I 100% agree that you shouldnt try to make a career out of something you dont enjoy, so if the construction industry isnt for you, then so be it. What kind of money do you expect to be making when youre 40 (in 2007 dollars)? For me, I would be very happy with 150K a year as a Mech. Eng. I dont need millions of dollars to be happy, and Im sure you dont either.

If you do plan on foregoing the construction job, then have a fierce passion for something else, something that you can work a full day at and come home with a smile on your face. (not everyday, but in general...every job has sh.itty days)

[mindflayer]

Thanks for filling in the details.

You have a good head on your shoulders.
I agree with your decision.
Run hard/Run fast. Do the things that a
21 year old college student would do.
Your family will still be there,
when you finish school.

I like the part about the 3 hours per day of real work.
Sounds like my family business job.
I almost went insane the first year..
then I started my own company.

[justscott]

Dude, save up ten grand.
Enroll in university of choice.
Get job bartending/waiter.
Drink alot, play poker, screw cocktail waitresses, get a degree that gives you some intrinsic rewards and be freaking happy.
You are depressing me.

[SplawnDarts]

Sounds like time to walk away.

One thing I will say: I think it's a bad idea to "go pro" at the same time you're making another life change. If both go badly, you tend to be totally [censored].

So go to school, get settled, and THEN do the pro thing if you want.

[Otherside61]

I'm not sure how clear it is because it looks kind of vague. But I am referring to the part where I said that I told my mom.

I haven't actually quit the job yet. I am here for another few months or so and it is during that time that I will be trying to save up as much money as humanly possible because its time for me to go. I only applied to the school 3 days ago. If I don't get into the school, then I have a whole other problem to deal with.

[UncleKraut]

I would leave the company and go back to school as well. You seem like you're bright, and there will be plenty of opportunities out there.

Life isn't about taking the safe route. (i.e. working for your parents) I've been in the exact same situation where I had to work a boring office job that only entailed about 2 hours or less of actual work per day. It was easy, but it also killed my soul. So i quit.

Get out there and carve your own path. You should definitely finish college. Even if your parents won't pay for it. Get a loan. You'll be a much happier person in the long run if you don't let your parents dictate you to live a life you don't want.

[govman6767]

Seriously if you want to get out from your parents here's an idea.

Go to CPOL it's the government site where you post for jobs.
Take a job in Iraq for 6 to 12 months. While overseas you will break from your parents grasp.

The money you make will be outstanding for this time frame.

Use it to build a monster bankroll.

When you return from Iraq you will have a fresh start on life. A 6 month stay in iraq might net you around 50k.

With that bankroll you could be playing 8-16 for a living anywhere there is a B&M casino.

6-12 months of your life for a fresh start.