If you won $6.5 million, what part of your job would you pay someone else to do?
Nine coworkers in Guelph just won $60 million in the lottery and quit their job. Which is reasonably what everyone who wins the lottery should do.
Of course, they shouldn’t get crazy and spend all the money in a year or two as tends to happen. But I can’t see the value in continuing to work with about $6.5 million in your bank account.
Even if you love your job, there are tasks you’re not fond of, so why do them? I know for me, I love being a journalist but the day I come to work with $6.5 mil in the bank and they ask if I’ve input my daily quota of event listings, I’m going to peel off two crisp $50 bills from the stack I’ll presumably carry, and pay someone to do it for me. I’ll still even turn a profit that day just for showing up.
Life’s too short, and if I was rich, I wouldn’t work weekends or holidays or the summer. I’d get up naturally, particularly because starting at 9 is an arbitrary decision, and I’d clock out early, since 5 is also an arbitrary time. Studies show 80 per cent of the work is done in something like 20 per cent of the time.
I already know this doesn’t make me sound like an ideal employee, but why would I be rich and not enjoy the benefits of my money?
At present, to earn a million dollars, I’d have to work about 20 years, more like 30–40 if I wanted to see it in my account if you consider taxation and living expenses. Saving $6.5 million dollars would take me 130 years.
So what would be the point, my annual income would be a drop in the bucket. Plus, I could buy a house, cars, I could travel. If I just paid myself a salary from the money, not factoring interest on my investments, I could double my salary and live comfortably for 65 years.
The only thing a lottery winner has to be careful about is running out of money and having to go back to work. After a 10 or 20 hiatus from the 9 to 5, you’d be pretty much useless.
It’s not that I don’t love work. I do, but money is the main objective in all jobs. There are plenty of things everyone would rather be doing than work as it is laid out in a job description.
I could appreciate that this much money might actually be depressing. It would be like using cheat codes in The Sims. Now that you have access to everything, what is there to do.
With that kind of money, I’d write every day. I’d read everything I could get my hands on. Magazines, newspapers, and books. I could afford to have a bad day of writing. I’d still work in some capacity, but on my own terms.
In some piece of Gary Vee’s prolific empire he was saying the other day that most people don’t have cash but they’ve got time. With that kind of money you’d have both. The only problem would be not enough hours in the day.
I guess the real question is: what would you be doing if you didn’t have to worry about money. You could essentially create your own job. If you really like where you work you could modify your position to do whatever you like. Your co-workers would be spiteful, but you’re rich, and they are comparatively poor. Give them $1,000, you can afford it.
