NeedNewAlphabet
Member
I have been mostly unemployed more than ten years. I have two brothers who have been unemployed several years. My father started a project to remodel a house and resell it so we could have some work and make a little money. He was probably too old for that.
We started with no plan and no procedure for making decisions. I insisted on both, to no avail.
My older brother left the project after a week or so. He claimed the other brother was working to make it a house for himself, although he has no income and couldn't possible qualify for a mortgage. The older brother also felt he was being unfairly criticised and kept out of decision-making. He has AvPD like me, but never diagnosed. He quit to do odd jobs and makes enough money at it to buy pot and gasoline but nothing more.
Over time, I drew the same conclusion about my younger brother trying to make it a house for himself. That was before I knew the first thought that. I told both my parents there was a conflict of interest in that if the house was over-improved and then sold to him for what the marketplace would bring, he would gain the whole value of the overimprovement at almost no cost to him. My concerns were ignored.
My father thinks its just fine if my younger brother ends up owning it, and he accomodates him with nearly everything he wants, like an electrical clothes drier hook-up rather than a gas one like nearly everybody else has.
I am concerned about more than the overimprovement at my expense. I'm pretty sure he intends to talk my father into offering it to him on a contract for deed, which he will not be able to make payments on.
In discussing my brother's inability to pay for the house (actually 40 seconds of discuss and 5 minutes of yell) I said he can no more get a mortgage than I can (as in 0% probability = 0%). He responded by saying I never had a job and never lived anywhere but at home, unlike my brother. The truth about my work and living arrangements history not good, but it's nowhere near that bad.
About two weeks ago, in the 14th month of a 5 month project (with at least 2months left to go) I quit too.
The day I quit, as my father, my older brother and I were driving to the city, my brother let off the throttle just before he reached the top of a very gentle hill. My father began castigating him for what he imagines makes the car get poorer mileage. My brother is not by any means a habitually unsteady driver. He responded by pulling to the side of the road and telling my father he could do the driving. Then my father cut into him about not being able to take criticism.
When we got there my father began taking apart some perfectly servicable electrical work I had done, apparently mostly because he didn't think it looked neat enough even though it would be concealed. He thought that because some details could have been slightly better they needed to be re-done. For instance, there was an outlet box about a foot from the main panel, where I had a cable from the box up toward the ceiling where it ran over and down to another box. He had to take the cable out and instead run it back into the main panel, then out the top of the main panel to the ceiling. I had determined that we needed a sub-panel to accomodate some of the special circuit breakers we needed. We bought and installed it. He had a gut feeling that it was more than we needed, so he took it back out. His gut feeling trumps my actual count. It has been used past the point of being returnable.
Meanwhile, my younger brother was going on with his usual stream of snide comments and petty criticism. A month or so before I had decided to try countering it by piling it on them faster than they could pile it on me until they let up. It worked for a while, but it was no more pleasant than them piling on me and all three of us were getting so demoralized we could barely keep going, so I stopped. It came right back.
I decided I'd had enough. I didn't say anything then. We went home at the usual time and I never went back.
I'm living with my parents, even though I'm only a few years from being old enought to collect Social Security. I don't have a job. I figure with my age, long time unemployment, poor work history in general, with plenty of gaps, firings, and get-mad-and-quittings, inappropriateness for a "must have excellent social skills" job, poor interview ability, and general inability to feign cheerfulness, I will never have a job again. I quit looking seven years ago.
I have been working on a book. It's in a field where I have no credentials, but it's shaping up to be entertaining, accessable and relevant. On the other hand, I know that writing a book is rarely profitable. I help around the house a little, but not a whole lot. Right now I am writing when I should be on my book. Effectively I'm now doing next to nothing.
Did I do the right thing? Any opinions?
We started with no plan and no procedure for making decisions. I insisted on both, to no avail.
My older brother left the project after a week or so. He claimed the other brother was working to make it a house for himself, although he has no income and couldn't possible qualify for a mortgage. The older brother also felt he was being unfairly criticised and kept out of decision-making. He has AvPD like me, but never diagnosed. He quit to do odd jobs and makes enough money at it to buy pot and gasoline but nothing more.
Over time, I drew the same conclusion about my younger brother trying to make it a house for himself. That was before I knew the first thought that. I told both my parents there was a conflict of interest in that if the house was over-improved and then sold to him for what the marketplace would bring, he would gain the whole value of the overimprovement at almost no cost to him. My concerns were ignored.
My father thinks its just fine if my younger brother ends up owning it, and he accomodates him with nearly everything he wants, like an electrical clothes drier hook-up rather than a gas one like nearly everybody else has.
I am concerned about more than the overimprovement at my expense. I'm pretty sure he intends to talk my father into offering it to him on a contract for deed, which he will not be able to make payments on.
In discussing my brother's inability to pay for the house (actually 40 seconds of discuss and 5 minutes of yell) I said he can no more get a mortgage than I can (as in 0% probability = 0%). He responded by saying I never had a job and never lived anywhere but at home, unlike my brother. The truth about my work and living arrangements history not good, but it's nowhere near that bad.
About two weeks ago, in the 14th month of a 5 month project (with at least 2months left to go) I quit too.
The day I quit, as my father, my older brother and I were driving to the city, my brother let off the throttle just before he reached the top of a very gentle hill. My father began castigating him for what he imagines makes the car get poorer mileage. My brother is not by any means a habitually unsteady driver. He responded by pulling to the side of the road and telling my father he could do the driving. Then my father cut into him about not being able to take criticism.
When we got there my father began taking apart some perfectly servicable electrical work I had done, apparently mostly because he didn't think it looked neat enough even though it would be concealed. He thought that because some details could have been slightly better they needed to be re-done. For instance, there was an outlet box about a foot from the main panel, where I had a cable from the box up toward the ceiling where it ran over and down to another box. He had to take the cable out and instead run it back into the main panel, then out the top of the main panel to the ceiling. I had determined that we needed a sub-panel to accomodate some of the special circuit breakers we needed. We bought and installed it. He had a gut feeling that it was more than we needed, so he took it back out. His gut feeling trumps my actual count. It has been used past the point of being returnable.
Meanwhile, my younger brother was going on with his usual stream of snide comments and petty criticism. A month or so before I had decided to try countering it by piling it on them faster than they could pile it on me until they let up. It worked for a while, but it was no more pleasant than them piling on me and all three of us were getting so demoralized we could barely keep going, so I stopped. It came right back.
I decided I'd had enough. I didn't say anything then. We went home at the usual time and I never went back.
I'm living with my parents, even though I'm only a few years from being old enought to collect Social Security. I don't have a job. I figure with my age, long time unemployment, poor work history in general, with plenty of gaps, firings, and get-mad-and-quittings, inappropriateness for a "must have excellent social skills" job, poor interview ability, and general inability to feign cheerfulness, I will never have a job again. I quit looking seven years ago.
I have been working on a book. It's in a field where I have no credentials, but it's shaping up to be entertaining, accessable and relevant. On the other hand, I know that writing a book is rarely profitable. I help around the house a little, but not a whole lot. Right now I am writing when I should be on my book. Effectively I'm now doing next to nothing.
Did I do the right thing? Any opinions?