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This reminded me of an old friend from school. He finished high school and decided to work any type of job would land in front of him. Meanwhile, his closest f
by stephen82 7y ago
This reminded me of an old friend from school. He finished high school and decided to work any type of job would land in front of him.
Meanwhile, his closest friends would finish school, go to colleges and universities and they would come back really proud for having a bachelor or masters degree.
One day they met at a crepe shop. He was making his orders along with the other folks that were behind their crepe pans.
"So...you work here mate?"
"Yep."
"Ah...shame. We make very good money, thanks to our degrees. Isn't a sad thing that you are forced to work in this shitty job?"
"First of all, I enjoy doing this job; and second of all, how much are you earning annually, if I may?"
"Around 35K euros".
He burst to hysterical laughter.
"I happen to make the least 1000 euros daily and this 'shitty job' happens to be mine; yep, I own the place. At my highest peak I earned 1 million euros and these guys you see working next to me are my employees which are getting paid more or less the same amount as you."
I happened to be there when this incident took place; it was the best day of my life! ^_^
- draw_down 7y agoIt turns out money is a good way to measure a person’s value! Oh, hang on a second...
- floatingatoll 7y ago(FYI, using code indents for non-code here mostly prevents reading your story on mobile.)
- stephen82 7y agoThank you for letting me know. I fixed it. +1
- floatingatoll 7y agoThank you and OMG that story
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- duxup 7y agoGood business sense is something that some folks just have it seems. People of a particular experience level see careers, money, life as a set of prescribed paths for everyone where in life things are far more random and unpredictable.
- stephen82 7y agoWise and truthful words my friend. You spoke the truth.
- atourgates 7y agoDid everybody clap?
- stephen82 7y ago"Guys, anything you have ordered or planned to order, is on me." More than clapping :D The "friends" left completely humiliated. It's a day that I will cherish for the rest of my life! :D
- wingerlang 7y agoI believe that 'did everyone clap?' means that he does not fully believe your story.
- true_religion 7y agoThe particulars are believable. Even the idea that it'd happen directly to the guys face is believable. I've seen it happen. One of my friends felt sorry for another because he was merely a "mechanic" and we had gone through university, but as it turns out he was a Porsche mechanic pulling 68k which was a lot more than what a recent grad international studies intern makes.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoI guess I'm very fortunate that I'm not aware of anyone I've met being able to say something like this to someone: "Ah...shame. We make very good money, thanks to our degrees. Isn't a sad thing that you are forced to work in this shitty job?"
- scarejunba 7y agoYeah, I literally cannot imagine anyone even saying that. As in "there does not exist a human being I've spoken to in my entire life who would use that sentence". Not exaggerating.
- 7y ago
- ip26 7y agoPerhaps we are missing a more complete picture of this individual. The sort of person who graduates school and resolves to take whatever job lands on his doorstep often has zero ambition, drive, or work ethic. However as we know he is successful with his crepe shop, he must in fact have some of those traits.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoI think you have that the wrong way around. The person who graduates school and has zero ambition, drive, or work ethic is usually the one who won't take whatever job lands on his doorstep.
- dvtrn 7y agoThis exchange just makes me think of a letter Hunter S. Thompson once wrote to Hume Logan: https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/ https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/ Seems like a bit of reading that fits, right now.
- chasontherobot 7y agoSpeaking as someone who had very little ambition, drive, or work ethic, going to university seemed like a perfect opportunity to put off doing something with my life
- refurb 7y agoYour story sounds made up.
- learc83 7y agoTo me it just sounds like the OP is paraphrasing and getting the point of the story across without being word for word accurate. The story is not that outrageous--Out of the thousands of people on hacker news, it seems likely enough to me that something close to that actually happened to one of them.
- benjohnson 7y agoI'm sort of that story - however my high-school class mates are generally nice people and are more curious than condescending. I'm glad I chose to start my own small business as they share their woes of collage debt, office-politics, and dead end jobs that seemingly suck the joy out of life. I would say that for some, a family centered life and a humble trade could be better than chasing after what I perceive* to be vanity. * I'm probably mistaken in motivation, but life does present us with choices that are seemingly easy yet are full of hidden costs.
- stephen82 7y agoI wish so I could add extra spices to it lol. What I know for sure is that my old friend has accomplished more things than our entire classroom as a whole. I don't care whether people believe the story or not, or whether he actually paid his staff the money he said he had. All I did was to share with you people his story as I have witnessed it myself.
- prawn 7y agoI don't think it does. Just sounds like a retelling where some readers focus on specifics rather than the essence.
- reificator 7y agoAnd everyone clapped. And that man's name? Albert Einstein...
- ngngngng 7y agohttps://reddit.com/r/nothingeverhappens https://reddit.com/r/nothingeverhappens
- c0vfefe 7y agohttps://reddit.com/r/ihavereddit https://reddit.com/r/ihavereddit
- sergiotapia 7y agoYou have to go back.
- HAL9000Ti 7y agoWhat a silly story
- johnnydoe9 7y agoYou're friends with Einstein?
- Gpetrium 7y agoThis is certainly a feel good story, but there is a certain balance to be had regarding the 'moral of the story'. For example: * The owner of the crepe shop may be 1 in 100,000 with the business acumen, drive & luck to reach the success he had. * In the long-run, it continues to be beneficial to have a degree [1] since it is nigh impossible to determine whether the business will remain successful for decades. * The 'degree' kid didn't have to be disrespectful to raise a point and in most cases, people are better off asking more questions before creating a picture of the situation. * It is difficult to determine whether the 'owner' was actually the owner and whether the salary of the employees were what he said it was. When folks are driven into a corner, they either respond by fight-or-flight. [1] https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/education-pays.htm https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/educa...
- cm2012 7y agoDegree success is not proven to be causative as opposed to a correlation. You get even stronger correlation to income from the colleges you apply to rather than graduate.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoI strongly suggest that this is due to being colleges that you can afford if you get in which directly correlates to your parents' incomes, connections, and support which greatly increases your odds to becoming a richer adult.
- cm2012 7y agoYes, parental income has a greater correlation than anything else.
- barry-cotter 7y agoParental socioeconomic status has a greater correlation than income, and IQ has a greater correlation than that. If your parents are Syrian refugee doctors in Germany you’re going to do better than the average German even if your family arrived with no money and not speaking German. If you’re an American with two parents with JDs working as public defenders you’re not going to grow up rich bit the chances of ever being poor are quite slim.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- c0vfefe 7y agoHe may have grossed that amount, but is that really take-home pay? Otherwise, we're comparing applies & oranges (& crepes).
- notafraudster 7y agoNapkin math: One million Euro a year gross would imply more or less 3000 Euro a day. Open for 12 hours a day, that's 250 Euro an hour. At 15 Euro a crepe, that's a customer every 4 minutes the whole day. That would be a truly phenomenal success. And that's gross. If you assume 50% margin on cost (insanely high) and that cost includes the apparently very high employee salaries. Then they need a customer every two minutes for the day. Let's say taxes take half of their net before taxes. they now need a customer every minute for 12 hours every day of the year to hit a million Euro net. All under a series of assumptions that are extremely generous to the firm. It's hard to imagine that this story, if true, didn't involve an embellishment of scale.
- Stevvo 7y agoCrepes do not cost 15 euros... at the max 5 euros. But you misread the post; he didn't claim the guy made a million euros in a year, he just claimed 1 million, so it could have been spread over 10 years.
- incog-neato 7y ago"At my highest peak" is meaningless to apply to a running total. It must be some period of time. A year would be implied, given the context of the conversation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- grecy 7y agoDo you honestly believe crepes are the only thing sold at a crepe shop?
- notafraudster 7y agoI believe it would be reasonable to assume that the combination of crepes and whatever else is sold would work out to be, generously, 15 Euro a customer. By all means feel free to disaggregate customer orders into crepes, tiramisu, and fancy coffee if you think it makes the math better.
- quickthrower2 7y agoThat old ambiguous word “make”, could be revenue, could be profit. Most likely revenue on a good day. But your point stands money is made by businesses. For every smart person getting 500k a year salary there’s a business behind that salary with investors making even more.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]