Slap MessageBoards
Skateboarding => Skate Questions => Topic started by: Monkeybusiness on July 03, 2014, 01:50:50 PM
-
For those of you have make your own living - whats your job? how much do you skate and when?
i know im a creeper.. i just thought it would be funny to know how other people "make it work"
-
i posted my job in the lifes ambition thread, so it's out there. depending on the job i'm working i typically only have saturday and sunday to skate. i'll work 12+hour days monday-friday, with an hour drive to and from work. sometimes i don't even get to skate on the weekends. it could be three weeks without skating, then two weeks off from work skating every day. i had a three and a half week break between jobs a few months ago and skated everyday. up at eight, out skating by ten, and come home well after it was dark. it's weird, but i work as much as i can when it's available in case i go through a dry spell and there's no work for three months
-
I don't work, yet I find reasons to not skate. It's a damn shame.
-
Development Coordinator at a digital fabrication shop for art & architecture. Usually 40 hours a week but occasionally more when the job demands (travel, etc). But it's actually fatherhood that scuttles my skate plans more than work. I try to skate street 2 or 3 nights during the work week weather permitting, and have begun a Sunday skatepark routine where my lady watches the lil man first half of the day. At 30 yrs old, I find that if I don't skate for a whole week it sets me back a good deal. On the other hand, if I skate 5 days in a row, that's no good either. It's all about finding that balance...
-
got a mon-fri 9-5 but i usually get out on my plank at least one or two nights during the week and for a large chunk on saturday or sunday, occassionally family or other stuff crops up and cuts in to the skate time but i always manage at least 2 skates a week
-
Skatin' and Twerkin'...
Twerking at the Skate Park (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ThYwKkK-0#)
-
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
-
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
The struggle is real.
-
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
You seem pretty picky on footwear given your situation. Not trying to talk shit or anything I would just think you'd be down to spend a little less every now and get a cheaper shoe. I just bought my first Dunks today for 25 bucks btw.
-
Expand Quote
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
or maybe stop smoking weed......or get apply for a part time job. i thought i was king shit when i got my first $120 paycheck. suddenly everything i wanted i could just get now and then. boards? shoes? pizza? money to somehow get beer? everything was suddenly possible. don't be an idiot and bleed your parents and grandparents dry. how else are you gonna take a girl out?
-
I teach at a University and only have weekends to skate. I'm not trying to be the best dude out or go pro or anything, so that's enough for me.
-
I stand behind a stove and a cutting board for 8-12 hours a day. 5 x wk.
But as sore as my legs are, I have slappy red curbs on the way home.
-
Skatin' and Twerkin'...
Twerking at the Skate Park (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ThYwKkK-0#)
Just another reason why Paines might actually be the best park on the east coast for street skating. :')
I work freelance doing assistant camera and post production stuff, i also shoot and edit a bit, also help at a flower shop on occasion..Half of the job is sometimes finding work...i get to skate 2 maybe 3 days out the week it would be more but on days where i'm looking for work and not working i dont step out till 5 and by then i just wanna push to the store and come home..maybe a full time job would be slightly less stressing
-
Development Coordinator at a digital fabrication shop for art & architecture. Usually 40 hours a week but occasionally more when the job demands (travel, etc). But it's actually fatherhood that scuttles my skate plans more than work. I try to skate street 2 or 3 nights during the work week weather permitting, and have begun a Sunday skatepark routine where my lady watches the lil man first half of the day. At 30 yrs old, I find that if I don't skate for a whole week it sets me back a good deal. On the other hand, if I skate 5 days in a row, that's no good either. It's all about finding that balance...
Duuude.. You sound like me. I was off board for about 10 days while we adjusted with the baby. Boy am I struggling with basics. Maybe I am just sleep deprived. I feel like a fat ass on my board when, in reality, I am tall and in shape.
-
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
just playn calm down players
im pushin thirty with two kids working 60 hrs a week at a restaurant, skate once a week if lucky.
-
Electrician/Student, I'm busy about 40 hours a week. No wife or kids. I skate about 4-5 times a week for an 1.5 hours
-
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
im pushin thirty with two kids working 60 hrs a week at a restaurant, skate once a week if lucky.
So....no dunks?
-
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
philly is awesome, bet those chicks kids/parents were sittin courtside.
i dont work and my parents pay for college but its really hard cause they only give me a food allowance right now so i have to split it up between weed and skateboards and then ask my grandparents for money when i need new dunks(only shit i skate) and clothes and they only send me like thirty a week for gas so i cant even barely drive no where.
im pushin thirty with two kids working 60 hrs a week at a restaurant, skate once a week if lucky.
and here i was thinking you were an asshole. i also realized a usual work week for me can be 60-80 hours with 10-15 hours of driving in between
-
Expand Quote
Development Coordinator at a digital fabrication shop for art & architecture. Usually 40 hours a week but occasionally more when the job demands (travel, etc). But it's actually fatherhood that scuttles my skate plans more than work. I try to skate street 2 or 3 nights during the work week weather permitting, and have begun a Sunday skatepark routine where my lady watches the lil man first half of the day. At 30 yrs old, I find that if I don't skate for a whole week it sets me back a good deal. On the other hand, if I skate 5 days in a row, that's no good either. It's all about finding that balance...
It gets better. Sort of.
-
Expand Quote
Development Coordinator at a digital fabrication shop for art & architecture.� Usually 40 hours a week but occasionally more when the job demands (travel, etc). But it's actually fatherhood that scuttles my skate plans more than work. I try to skate street 2 or 3 nights during the work week weather permitting, and have begun a Sunday skatepark routine where my lady watches the lil man first half of the day.� At 30 yrs old, I find that if I don't skate for a whole week it sets me back a good deal. On the other hand, if I skate 5 days in a row, that's no good either. It's all about finding that balance...
You guys both sound like me. Turned 32 a few weeks ago and I'm 6'4" 180 but if I don't skate for a couple weeks I swear gravity gets stronger. On average I skate about 2x a week. On my way home from work I stop at a park for 45min or so once. Then I also go skating with friends for a few hours once on the weekend. Only skating once a month in the winter means that I never make much progress. Just relearning the same tricks every year by the end of summer. I work 4x 10hour days at a low impact but with lots of walking job.
-
I teach at a University and only have weekends to skate. I'm not trying to be the best dude out or go pro or anything, so that's enough for me.
This combined with reading all your posts in Kirk Van Houten's voice only deepens my fascination of you shit for brains.
-
It can be hard but as you age there are always ways to get skate time in. A few years back I was working regular 70+ hour weeks at Lucasfilm. Had to drive through the SF marina and downtown on my commute back home in Oakland and when it was after 10 PM I'd make a point to stop and bomb a new hill a few times/wk. On days off I'd do day trips to my favorite spot, the Ben Lomond skatepark.
Nowadays I work a steady 40hr week now, middle management at a small mobile game developer in Austin TX. In the middle of the work week I go out with a group of guys, mostly in their 30's-40+, and we hit up different parks or private ramps. I try to get in a weekend session when possible or at least skate some flat and picnic tables while my kid plays at the park.
To the guys with babies, the first few years are the hardest to find a balance between work, parenting, and skating, but it eases up once the kids are a little older. I take my son to the skatepark with me and if he isn't riding his board or his bike then there's other shit for him to do. Finding skate buddies with kids around the same age as yours is a win-win, we skate while our sons play together. To combat the sluggish feeling I make sure to do things like skate to the store a couple times a week and ollie up some curbs on the way. Pushing and cruising, even if just a few minutes here and there helps prevent your on-board comfort from dwindling and keeps you working the muscles you need to skate so your physical response time doesn't get out of wack.
I wish I skated more (especially long street missions) and like most skaters it's in my mind almost 24/7, but life/family obligations are important so just gotta find the right balance and make the most of every session. I hardly sit down anymore, up skating from the time I get somewhere until it's time to leave. If you can include your wife/kid(s) into it sometimes then it'll work out better. When the kids can play and wives can chat while the guys skate then everybody wins and nobody looks at your time skating as time away from them. Different dynamic than when I was young and single but as long as I get to skate then I'm happy with it.
-
It can be hard but as you age there are always ways to get skate time in. A few years back I was working regular 70+ hour weeks at Lucasfilm. Had to drive through the SF marina and downtown on my commute back home in Oakland and when it was after 10 PM I'd make a point to stop and bomb a new hill a few times/wk. On days off I'd do day trips to my favorite spot, the Ben Lomond skatepark.
Nowadays I work a steady 40hr week now, middle management at a small mobile game developer in Austin TX. In the middle of the work week I go out with a group of guys, mostly in their 30's-40+, and we hit up different parks or private ramps. I try to get in a weekend session when possible or at least skate some flat and picnic tables while my kid plays at the park.
To the guys with babies, the first few years are the hardest to find a balance between work, parenting, and skating, but it eases up once the kids are a little older. I take my son to the skatepark with me and if he isn't riding his board or his bike then there's other shit for him to do. Finding skate buddies with kids around the same age as yours is a win-win, we skate while our sons play together. To combat the sluggish feeling I make sure to do things like skate to the store a couple times a week and ollie up some curbs on the way. Pushing and cruising, even if just a few minutes here and there helps prevent your on-board comfort from dwindling and keeps you working the muscles you need to skate so your physical response time doesn't get out of wack.
I wish I skated more (especially long street missions) and like most skaters it's in my mind almost 24/7, but life/family obligations are important so just gotta find the right balance and make the most of every session. I hardly sit down anymore, up skating from the time I get somewhere until it's time to leave. If you can include your wife/kid(s) into it sometimes then it'll work out better. When the kids can play and wives can chat while the guys skate then everybody wins and nobody looks at your time skating as time away from them. Different dynamic than when I was young and single but as long as I get to skate then I'm happy with it.
This is my biggest issue. My Skate muscles get weak. The thing is, I just got a new "normal" 9-5 job with only a half hour lunch. My old job was 3pm-1am shifts and I could take an 1.5 hour lunch. I would skate every break for at least an hour. Now that I'm not doing that anymore, I have lost a lot of skill because I am going 5 days without being on board for family/other obligations. end of pointless rant.
-
Schismatic gets it, and so do you, but the struggle is real either way. I too got lunch chopped down to half an hour (the fuck?!) which means that for the 75% of the year that it isn't summer here in upstate NY, I skate 90% at night and alone. Yeah, cool! Night skating is rad" you say. But when it's all you do, it sometimes gets tedious. When I was still learning the streets and alleys of my crusty little city I would regularly find myself on the wrong side of upright simply because I didn't see some pebble or cavernous crack or hung up on something because I mistook a portion of it for its shadow :-/. But it is what it is. We all make do with what we got I suppose. Now that it's summer and the kid wakes up and goes down early, I usually get a good 2 hrs plus of evening light to roll around in, and I'm all the more grateful for it.
-
Until recently I would skate on the commute, about 2.5 miles/day between bus stops, and my office had a little place behind the building where I would skate flat on my breaks. Even had a little slappy curb. During that time I got more comfortable and re-learned several tricks. My company is casual, wear almost the same attire for working as I do when skating and nobody looked twice if I walked in from lunch dripping sweat and carrying my board. Then we moved to a nicer office with heavy security, killed my lunchtime skating. I started riding a bike too just to reduce wear on joints. Anyway, a short half hour lunch sucks, sorry to hear that.
The earlier lunch sessions though, I kinda forgot about. When my son was 0-2 I worked for Atari, right up the street from Sunnyvale skate park so I'd rush down there during lunch. Mid-day, any given weekday the place was almost empty aside from guys like Jason Adams, Jerry Hsu, Louie Barletta, sometimes Weiger VanWhatever, even a couple Kenny Anderson sightings and a bunch of Enjoi ams and ripping San Jose dudes who all seemed to be flow for someone. It was a little intimidating at times with everyone there skating at such a higher level than me but with a new baby those were some of the only small blocks of time I could focus entirely on skating. Again, it just came down to working it in whenever you can and in a way that doesn't bum out the wife or take away from time with the kid during critical years. I love skateboarding like crazy but my son always has to come first. Now he's old enough to understand that I need to skate sometimes and if he can't go then I make it up. If I skate on Saturday then on Sunday I make sure we do something that he wants to do.
-
Expand Quote
I teach at a University and only have weekends to skate. I'm not trying to be the best dude out or go pro or anything, so that's enough for me.
I give lectures. I wear a little microphone sometimes. People listen to and respect me. It doesn't make any sense.
-
Expand Quote
Expand Quote
I teach at a University and only have weekends to skate. I'm not trying to be the best dude out or go pro or anything, so that's enough for me.
I give lectures. I wear a little microphone sometimes. People listen to and respect me. It doesn't make any sense.
Again, read in KvH's voice make this Slap gold.
-
Pretty cool reading up on some of you. The whole bumming money from grandparents to buy dunks joke was lost on me, but other than that I've enjoyed reading.
I work in Manhattan doing number crunching. It's a 7-day a week job, sometimes it sucks more than others. I don't work 8 hours Sat/Sun, but I almost always have to put in at least 30 minutes every single weekend day. I thought I had too little time to skate while completing my degree, in hindsight, those were the glory days.
These days I'd be lying if I said I skate as much as possible. Some times I get home from work and a beer sounds better than skating by myself. I always thought living in NYC would be a dream for skating, but sometimes I just wish I had a skatepark near me that wasn't overrun at 6:30 PM on a weekday. I got a flatground spot right near me, which is indeed a blessing, but all these fair-weather fans are out when the weather is nice, which blows, the flatty spot is full of middle aged goons playing softball, oh well.
The upside of living here and being increasingly anti-social is it's helping me transition into becoming a morning person. I go to the skatepark early, sometimes as early as sunrise, just to roll around w/o dealing with other people. On the up side, it's kinda a fight-club type thing to skate early early morning and see someone else there. "The nod" is heavy at skateparks in the morning. Not like I'm against chit-chat, but I go there to skate, do my thing, and leave, and it's somehow social to share that w/ another human. As an aside, my biggest skating pet-peeve is when people "want to skate" and talk my fucking ear off instead of actually skating. You can skate w/ your mouth shut, give it a try.
All in all, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the window is closing, and I'm trying to get it in while I can while still improving my future outlook.
Pardon the soul baring
-
Whoa sunrise huh? That's impressive. I try for 7:30 or 8 most Sundays. I'm usually the only one there.
-
On the up side, it's kinda a fight-club type thing to skate early early morning and see someone else there. "The nod" is heavy at skateparks in the morning. Not like I'm against chit-chat, but I go there to skate, do my thing, and leave, and it's somehow social to share that w/ another human. As an aside, my biggest skating pet-peeve is when people "want to skate" and talk my fucking ear off instead of actually skating. You can skate w/ your mouth shut, give it a try.
I struggle with that a little when there's a bigger session. I neverewant to come off like a duck and worry that I do. I'm not boisterous in the first place but when I have 3-4 hours to skate (45 min warming my ragged ass up) and might not get to skate for another 5-7 days, then I want to make the most of every minute. I guess its always been kinda like that, when people sat to bullshit I'd be zoning out skating alone, but much more so nowadays.
Anyway, is the window really closing that fast? A couple of the guys I skate with are 50+ and tear it up, one dude I see around is in his late 60's. I look at that as a glimpse into the future. I still have shit I wanna learn but I'll keep pushing as long as possible in some capacity.
-
Whoa sunrise huh? That's impressive. I try for 7:30 or 8 most Sundays. I'm usually the only one there.
Where abouts?
And Schimatic, by window I mean the chance to progress. Sure, I'll be skating til the wheels fall off (literally and figuratively) but I've most definitely peaked/plateaued. I'm scrambling to maintain my repertoire instead of pushing the boundaries. That was a sobering realization. Will skating always be fun? Of course it will. But will I ever learn regular fs heels? Doesn't look like it :P
-
Expand Quote
Whoa sunrise huh? That's impressive. I try for 7:30 or 8 most Sundays. I'm usually the only one there.
Where abouts?
And Schimatic, by window I mean the chance to progress. Sure, I'll be skating til the wheels fall off (literally and figuratively) but I've most definitely peaked/plateaued. I'm scrambling to maintain my repertoire instead of pushing the boundaries. That was a sobering realization. Will skating always be fun? Of course it will. But will I ever learn regular fs heels? Doesn't look like it :P
I'm a couple hours north of NYC on the Amtrak in a city called Hudson. Half antiques stores half hood. I been skating saugerties or Chatham lately. The first is 20 minutes south, the second is 20 minutes north.
-
I started to work with people with disabilities about 1 1/2 years ago. i only work around 32 hours a week, but work is split up through the day! i try to get 1 or 2 sessions in per week going at least for a couple of hours. it?s weird kinda, when i think back a couple years- back when i went to school or didn't have a job i would skate everyday. the positive thing now is, that when i finally have time to go skate i enjoy it more than ever and nearly never stress or freak out. i even still learn tricks- nothing special but still things i wanted to learn for years. it's great, and it's not a terrible thing working a job!
-
I work 8 to 5, monday to friday. I wake up at 4:30 every morning to be at the skatepark by my house by 5:30-5:45 and skate for an hour or so. I like skating in the dark, it's a challenge. But I skate for a few hours on saturday and sunday. so collectively, 10-12 hours. But I will be out more now that the weather is getting better. Arizona summers are dreadful in the afternoon.