Are friends/family shocked at your salary?

Agreed. I love living in the city now, but I also love that I'm 90 miles from podunkville, where I can visit my family and enjoy the slow lane every now and then. I like that balance.

 

Don't call your MIL a jackass.

 

That's funny about your in-laws. Sounds like your FIL is a pretty cool guy.

Hey, I think your living situation is pretty cool. I don't ride horses, either, but I do like my open spaces. Sucks that you have to drive so much, but I would rather do that than live in one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods where everyone is right on top of you or right in the middle of some noisy city.

That said, in our field, we don't have a whole lot of control over where we live, do we?

 

Yeah, I feel the same way.

One of the things that appeals to me about bartending is the hours. I HATE getting up early, so one of the things I actually loved about sportswriting is working nights. I'm totally a second-shift person. And I don't even mind working weekends all that much, although since I've been laid off it's pretty sweet to be like "normal" people and be able to do things on Saturdays.

That said, when I gripe about the sportswriting field, the hours and schedule is the last thing I bitch about. I don't have a family yet (getting married in August), but I figure working second shift would allow you to send your kids off to school and see them during the day when they're home. There are disadvantages to any hours, and I don't mind working second shift and weekends, as long as I'm working 5 days a week.

But given my second-shift lifestyle, I figured bartending would be good. I got my license recently and called a couple bars that weren't hiring, but I haven't gone too far with it. I've been busy freelancing and other shit, but I really think I wanna start bartending this summer.

Like you, man, I'd like to have some sort of career, but right now I just wanns make a living and pay the bills. A job's a job.

 

My brother made 40 grand a year easy bartending at On The Border years ago. And despite the economic climate, people aren't drinking any less.

 

Coming from a ranching family, I'll guarantee that no matter what you do, it's easier than ranching.

 

With the economy the way it is, they need to drink more.

 

That would not be fun.
It'd definitely take a while to get used to. But we did it as kids, didn't we?
Yes it did suck, though.

 

Same here. Not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. Always been a night person. To me, graduation meant no more getting up for 8 a.m. classes. So to think I'm going to suddenly thrive in a 7:30-3:30 universe might be a tad unrealistic.

Don't know how it would work at a pm paper or never even considered a morning radio or TV show.

Hmmm, what other second and third-shift careers are out there?

 

I will admit that is one of the ONLY good things about working so much for a newspaper. Generally you don't have to get going until mid afternoon then work all night.

 

Unless you have some kind of complex, you get used to the hours. I was the same way. Hated getting up before 10 a.m.; just didn't function that early.

Now, it's 9:16 a.m., I've been at work for 3 hours and I'm wide awake, nearly halfway done with my workday. All that with NO coffee. Red Bulls every now and then, but no coffee.

 

I figured a person could get retrained to do this. Why are you at work at 6:16 a.m. though?

As far as the lure of the country ... Good bye city life; Green Acres here I am!" One of the best theme songs for a bad TV series ever.