640 effing million

Re: Five hundred effing million

There are about five people I've worked with or under during my career I would track down, find out where they're working, buy the company, and reassign them to cleaning toilets with their tongues.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

We have a lottery pool at the office with 19 people, all of whom would quit if we win the money.

It would take 80 percent of the editorial staff in our bureau and all but one in sales.

I would pay off my house, buy a new car, buy a car for my kid in 18 months when he turns 16, put away money for his college (he's shooting for Ivy League and I can afford community college) and help out my family.

I would like to keep stringing games because I enjoy writing, but no way am I coming to work every day and the only time I'm waking to an alarm is to catch a plane to Hawaii.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I would take the lump sum and buy Cuba.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I have no doubt whatsoever about the truth of this.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I'd hire a bunch of bodyguards for myself and my family, and pay them extremely well.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

HBO did a documentary called "Lucky" in which it tracked the lives of several big-jackpot winners. The wife of one of them was a nurse, and she vowed to keep working, but didn't last very long because she was ostracized by her coworkers because of the money. I'd like to think I'd keep working, because I'd need something to do, but you really don't know how a windfall like that would change the environment in which you work.

I've kind of fantasized about calling a meeting of everyone in my department and having aluminum briefcases filled with cash waiting for them. Generally, we all get along really well, but I could see one or two people skipping out. Whoever blows it off, doesn't get the money.

Another scenario: Buy my siblings their dream cars, load the trunks with cash and drive to them to make the transfer. Not practical, and lord only knows what happens if I get pulled over and have a half-million stowed in the trunk, but it's fun to think about.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

If a journalist won and wanted to keep working at his current job, he'd be first to go in the next round of layoffs because everyone knows about his money stash.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I wonder if coworkers would resent someone who won millions of dollars, especially with so many others out of work.

Years ago, I worked for a family-owned paper that sold the paper for millions. One of the brothers, who owned a 25 percent share and was probably in his 50s, took a job with the water district, which was a pretty sweet gig in our town.

Many felt he was taking a good job away from someone who could really use it just so he could keep busy.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I wouldn't be able to keep working, because I don't think I'd be able to motivate myself to care.

"Ooops, I made a mistake. Oh well, life goes on. Why should I care? I'm rich."

"Corporate wants me to go to ethics training and then donate to the United Way. Fuck them. What are they going to do, fire me?"

I'd become a newsroom cancer pretty quick.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

Every time I win the Lotto, I take the lump sum.


Oh wait ... I've never won.

Never mind.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

I dated a woman who came from a wealthy family. When her parents died and she inherited a large sum, she told me it was her "fuck you money."

The first time her boss pissed her off, she said "fuck you" and quit.

 

Re: Five hundred effing million

"Lucky" was a good movie. IIRC, it also included one of the greatest pranks of all time, when a bunch of guys DVRed the previous week's numbers announcement, bought a ticket for one of the guys with those numbers, and watched him lose his fucking mind about how rich he was. Then they told him.

Also -- 10 people who didn't fare as well as you might think a lottery winner would.

http://www.oddee.com/item_97101.aspx

Note No. 3, Jack Whittaker, a West Virginia man who won $114 million and was broke four years later, with plenty of dead relatives too.