Where did you get your work ethic ?

[blackhawknj]

I have seen this posted on other boards and it ties in with many of our discussions about current events.
In my case-family values. I came from a family, adults went to work, that's how you paid for food, clothing, a roof over your head. My parents divorced when I was 6, my mother had to work to support us. No living off unemployment, disability in my family. And that is what I saw all around. And even back in the "Good Old Days" of the 1950s there were plenty of two income families-somebody's paycheck wasn't big enough-"we can't live on his salary". There was the old fashioned idea that the paycheck belonged to whoever it was made out to and they were the only ones who had any say in how it was spent. If someone else wanted something they had to negotiate or work for it themselves-"Money doesn't grow on trees." Then there was the old fashioned idea that putting a child through college was a matter of family pride and parents were supposed to be the first-and primary-source of financial aid.
Many cited the bad example set by parents and grandparents-living from paycheck to paycheck-or disability/welfare check to check. The food budget what was left over from the drinking budget, cornflakes for dinner, kids earnings always being used to pay "bills", parents whining that the kids were in school-and presumably goofing off when they should be "out working to help support the family." And "All the money goes to Dad."

[Vern Humphrey]

I got mine from my parents. They separated and divorced before I was 2. We lived with my Irish grandparents, who clawed their way into the middle class and were successful businessmen and professionals. My Mom supported us by working as a secretary.

My parents got re-married (to each other) when I was 10. My Dad worked in oil exploration -- he had to leave college when my grandfather, a motorcycle cop, was killed in the line of duty. Dad supported his widowed mother by taking any job he could get. He married a lady who died after giving birth to my half-brother, Bill. Bill was born with a cleft palate and a hare lip, and my Dad was a single parent in the middle of the depression with a daughter in the first grade and a newly born son who would need years of expensive care and surgery.

Dad made a deal with relatives to care for the kids while he earned the money. He went with an exploration crew to Sumatra in what was then the Dutch East Indies. He spent most of his life working in the most remote, hostile environments on the planet -- the upper Amazon, the Ethiopian brush, the Sahara Desert. When Mom and Dad remarried, we went with him and lived in Peru and Egypt.

Dad taught me to work, to save and to invest. He taught me to be responsible for my family. He did a hell of a job.

[Sako]

They were handed down to me by my father from my grandfather whom was a Danish immigrant. I thought I was overworked as a young man but found the value of hard work and it has worked well for me. My four children now in their thirties can see it also and are diligent running the company I built.

[m1ashooter]

My dad worked hard but I didn't get my work ethic from him. I started working when I graduated 8th grade for a family farm. The farm was run by three brothers, one farmed sweet corn, soybeans, wheat and what ever he wanted to play with, the other brother had acreage in turf grass and the other brother was a landscaper. So every summer and after school I did work for the three brothers. By my sophomore year in HS I was operating a fork lift and mowing 180 acers of sod, my junior year I was working the ground plowing, disking, running a corn picking crew and the packing shed. I did this through out HS and College until I graduated College and went into the USAF. I loved what I did. What young man wouldn't at the time. I learned to operated a lot of different types of equipment including a combine, drove a 18 wheeler, learned to weld and operate a cutting torch, rebuilt engines etc etc. I had 2000 acres to hunt and shoot on. I learned to shoot long distance by laying in the barn loft at dusk and killing ground hogs. This is where I learned my work ethic. It was dawn to dusk but I loved it during the summer.

[dryheat]

The usual, a strong father figure.

[Doco Overboard]

My ancestors were eastern European peasants and Irish farmers who both worked the anthracite coal fields when they came to America.
My GIg explained to me how they would piss on their hands to cull infection and toughen them up as child picking slate in the breaker because there were no gloves.

Finally one day as an adult,40 years old- Me and my (older) brother took a ride out across the mountain with dad.
He abruptly pulled over on the side of the road and pointed to a dilapidated building back in the trees.

He simply said, You see that building back in there? We said yeah, he said when your people came here from Ireland they all boarded back in the corner in the same room.
I replied, huh yeah I see it. He spoke forcefully, "And dont you F(EXPLETIVE)n forget it".

Then he drove back onto the road heading towards Tamaqua without saying anything else regarding the matter.

I was told later on by others that he grew up with he could have been a ball player but went into the service because he knew he could count on the money he could send home.
I pray I haven't let him down in any way.
The younger bunch of the family (I happen to be the youngest) Work like dogs and continue to sacrifice to be better citizens and parents for our children.