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Comment by kilpikaarna | Hacker News Reader

Legend! Seems like he might be a bit of a savant type though. Sad to hear that he's working at a supermarket. He started getting attention about a decade ago thanks to social media and had an artbook published, but despite his cult status and having some big name clients he would charge like 30 bucks to draw them a logo.

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> Sad to hear that he's working at a supermarket.

I wouldn't be too hasty to call someone's job sad, unless they actually hated it.

From the article:

> […] Christophe relies on the steady income of his job at the Co-op serving customers. He is contracted to do 12 to 20 hours a week, […]. He said: "The reason I will never be able to fulfil my dream to be living exclusively off my art is because of the competition there now is so I have to have two sources of income.

And specifically:

> "Working at the Co-op also helps me maintain contact with the outside world as otherwise you can be immersed in your own art world. As long as my tummy is full and I have a roof over my head, that is the most important thing."

I worked at a food co-op for the first three years of my career. After spending the next dozen or so years in tech, I'm now reapplying to co-op grocery jobs.

Money isn't everything.

As they say - name checks out. I have been really into the idea of cooperatives lately. It is a topic that deserves more light seeing the extreme centralization of corporate wealth. Sadly most non-legal info about co-ops out there always goes back to Mondragon. There needs to be more media about non-corporate organizations. US farming and electrification was largely driven cooperatives, for example, but one rarely hears much about it.

I personally like cooperatives too. I’ve always wondered if instead of a tech union a cooperative might be a better fit. No solution is perfect, though. Lots of people want to make an income and not deal with the now governance part of their job. You also have people that are attracted to those kinds of organizations who also desire the governance part. Which goes back to the trope about those that should have authority don’t often want it.

Yeah money isn't everything after you made a bunch. What.

Well, our society defaults many people to serving money so having escaped the immediate serfdom of debt and even short term cashflow, people can make more balanced choices.

This was me. I loved my co-op job, but I had no family money and no prospect of ever being able to buy a home on that income.

I worked in tech long enough to pay off debts, put a down payment on a house, and no longer have to live in fear of a minor crisis bankrupting me. I didn't got rich, I stayed long enough that after leaving tech I could continue to work a normal job until normal retirement age - the thing that used to be in reach for the working class, but no longer is. The continue pursuit of money beyond a basic safety net wasn't worth the harm.

I still love technology. I have no love for the tech industry.

Although it's nominally and legitimately a "co-operative", the Co-Op in question is a large national supermarket chain in the UK.

Working there is like working any retail job, and a far cry from a small community co-op.

Traces its roots to the Rochdale pioneers. I'd say it's not just "a" co-op, it's likely the oldest in existence on Earth.

But yeah, working there is not going to be too much different to working at any other store.

Still, don't underplay that. Having something you can go to, walk away from without having to bring home any work, get your 30-40 hours/week (and they'll pay a decent living wage), so you can pay the bills and keep your creative energy for your art... it's not a bad way to be.

The Co-op in Sandwich, Kent is still locally known as the Pioneer!

He does what he loves while without having to be “hungry” or an unstable lifestyle and unpredictable.

That sounds like the definition of success to me.

I wish I worked a simple manual labor job like a supermarket. It's just hard to make a living wage, savings, retire, pay for unexpected high costs for transportation or health care, and I wouldn't be able to travel. Otherwise it would be great. Stacking boxes all day? Helping customers with their bags? Doing inventory? Checking people out at the register? A simple job where I don't have to sit in a chair, can plan, organize, do rote manual tasks, socialize, and help people? Sign me up. Heck I might even do it part time when I retire.

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