4 ms·

I think this short story resonates because probably most people know an Aaron - the type that is incessantly looking for some kind of scheme, some kind of get r

I think this short story resonates because probably most people know an Aaron - the type that is incessantly looking for some kind of scheme, some kind of get rich quick thing, and will spend exponentially far more effort and misery suffered avoiding real employment than it would take actually just sucking it up and working, and often (usually) with much, much worse results. Yet they persist. A few of them become successful founders, probably, depending on their background. But most don't.

JohnMakin 1mo ago
When I was around that age, my Aaron was this kid who matched a similar description, very bright but utterly averse to any kind of work whatsoever, never finished his education, did okay in school but underperformed a lot. I remember a few of his dumbest schemes - one, he would get gift visa cards, run the balance down to pennies, then as a restaurant server for some crappy chain, would charge a customer with a big tip, put it on the drained card, and due to some weird quirk with the way they processed tips back then, the money would hit his paycheck before the decline would happen. I pointed out it was stupid easy to get caught by the bank and his restaurant but he insisted it was genius and foolproof. Got caught in a month or two, fired, nearly got in a lot of legal trouble but somehow got out of it. His all time dumbest 'scheme' was when a major automaker was going into bankruptcy at some point during the financial crisis, the stock was pennies. So he invested all his savings, some thousands of dollars, into buying the stocks. Even being so young and barely financially literate at that point I was aghast, tried to explain that when the bankruptcy finishes, his stock will be worth nothing. No, no, he assured me - imagine - this stock was $20 before, when it's $20 again I'll be a gazillionaire. I tried very very hard to convince him that was not correct and of course he lost everything. Shortly after he got into dealing marijuana but by that point I had determined he wasn't worth hanging out with anymore. No idea what happened to him.
- tyre 1mo ago
  What’s funny is that there was a bankrupt auto company that was memed back into existence. Hertz, by all logic, was absolutely doomed. Retail traders brought it back from near-certain liquidation and could have made a ton of money. Not sure how many actually sold.
  - HappySweeney 1mo ago
    They saved themselves by reporting rented cars as stolen and having them towed back to the lot so they could double-dip.
  - JohnMakin 1mo ago
    This was GM and as I roughly remember it there was no chance of this happening, because they just formed a new company and issued new stock after bankruptcy. Maybe hard for a young person at that time to understand, and the SEC probably shouldn't have allowed trading by the point he got into it, but it was all over the news and google was in its hayday, the information was easily available.
  - xp84 1mo ago
    That's a shame to hear about - Hertz is one of the shittiest companies I know. It would have been great for the world if they had been liqudated!
- satvikpendem 1mo ago
  I wonder how he'd have fared in the 2021 meme stock era, no doubt talking about how we still need to HODL and his apr diamond hands strong.
Krei-se 1mo ago
Don't listen to the quitters here kids, go chase your dream, it's worth it. Employment is just helping someone else reach theirs for a pat on the back. You can do it, be resilient and stubborn, go against the grain and things start to work out.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- margalabargala 1mo ago
  This is bad advice to give. It sets a lot of people up for failure with unreasonable expectations. The correct advice to give is "don't do it. It's really hard and you'll probably fail". Anyone who quits after receiving that advice was never going to make it anyway.
  - jongjong 1mo ago
    [flagged]
  - trompetenaccoun 1mo ago
    "Most people fail, so better don't even try." Is this genuinely the advice you'd give to someone who's less experienced in life? No wonder society is the way it is, most people have extremely low ambitions and then don't even bother working on those.
    - AnimalMuppet 1mo ago
      I think you're ignoring the GP's last paragraph. Maybe an intermediate position is to say, "Before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you." Because the odds are, they will.
      - trompetenaccoun 1mo ago
        This is more of a question of personal philosophy/mindset, not logic. When you set yourself (or someone else) up for failure you've already failed and at that point there's nothing one can do. If you don't believe you can do something you won't do it. It's a loser's mindset. At the bare minimum you have to believe in yourself to be able to do things, no one else is going to do them for you.
alphazard 1mo ago
[flagged]

JohnMakin 1mo ago

When I was around that age, my Aaron was this kid who matched a similar description, very bright but utterly averse to any kind of work whatsoever, never finished his education, did okay in school but underperformed a lot. I remember a few of his dumbest schemes - one, he would get gift visa cards, run the balance down to pennies, then as a restaurant server for some crappy chain, would charge a customer with a big tip, put it on the drained card, and due to some weird quirk with the way they processed tips back then, the money would hit his paycheck before the decline would happen. I pointed out it was stupid easy to get caught by the bank and his restaurant but he insisted it was genius and foolproof. Got caught in a month or two, fired, nearly got in a lot of legal trouble but somehow got out of it. His all time dumbest 'scheme' was when a major automaker was going into bankruptcy at some point during the financial crisis, the stock was pennies. So he invested all his savings, some thousands of dollars, into buying the stocks. Even being so young and barely financially literate at that point I was aghast, tried to explain that when the bankruptcy finishes, his stock will be worth nothing. No, no, he assured me - imagine - this stock was $20 before, when it's $20 again I'll be a gazillionaire. I tried very very hard to convince him that was not correct and of course he lost everything. Shortly after he got into dealing marijuana but by that point I had determined he wasn't worth hanging out with anymore. No idea what happened to him.

tyre 1mo ago
What’s funny is that there was a bankrupt auto company that was memed back into existence. Hertz, by all logic, was absolutely doomed. Retail traders brought it back from near-certain liquidation and could have made a ton of money. Not sure how many actually sold.
- HappySweeney 1mo ago
  They saved themselves by reporting rented cars as stolen and having them towed back to the lot so they could double-dip.
- JohnMakin 1mo ago
  This was GM and as I roughly remember it there was no chance of this happening, because they just formed a new company and issued new stock after bankruptcy. Maybe hard for a young person at that time to understand, and the SEC probably shouldn't have allowed trading by the point he got into it, but it was all over the news and google was in its hayday, the information was easily available.
- xp84 1mo ago
  That's a shame to hear about - Hertz is one of the shittiest companies I know. It would have been great for the world if they had been liqudated!
satvikpendem 1mo ago
I wonder how he'd have fared in the 2021 meme stock era, no doubt talking about how we still need to HODL and his apr diamond hands strong.

Krei-se 1mo ago

Don't listen to the quitters here kids, go chase your dream, it's worth it. Employment is just helping someone else reach theirs for a pat on the back. You can do it, be resilient and stubborn, go against the grain and things start to work out.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
margalabargala 1mo ago
This is bad advice to give. It sets a lot of people up for failure with unreasonable expectations. The correct advice to give is "don't do it. It's really hard and you'll probably fail". Anyone who quits after receiving that advice was never going to make it anyway.
- jongjong 1mo ago
  [flagged]
- trompetenaccoun 1mo ago
  "Most people fail, so better don't even try." Is this genuinely the advice you'd give to someone who's less experienced in life? No wonder society is the way it is, most people have extremely low ambitions and then don't even bother working on those.
  - AnimalMuppet 1mo ago
    I think you're ignoring the GP's last paragraph. Maybe an intermediate position is to say, "Before you attempt to beat the odds, make sure you can survive the odds beating you." Because the odds are, they will.
    - trompetenaccoun 1mo ago
      This is more of a question of personal philosophy/mindset, not logic. When you set yourself (or someone else) up for failure you've already failed and at that point there's nothing one can do. If you don't believe you can do something you won't do it. It's a loser's mindset. At the bare minimum you have to believe in yourself to be able to do things, no one else is going to do them for you.

alphazard 1mo ago

[flagged]