Did no one else find Tony's hypocrisy regarding work insane?
One of the more pernicious things on the show is the concept of "no show construction" jobs. These are pernicious because they are causing great damage in silence. While robbing someone to their face is brutal, traumatic and memorable, robbing from the taxpayer in silence leaves little trace of its damage. These are entire career salaries, which could support a wife and kids with benefits and a pension, being siphoned away into Tony's pocket for no gain to society at all. This means the construction in your town holding up traffic takes that much longer. That means the people actually working have to do more themselves and put themselves in danger. It means someone looking for a job so they can support a family wont get one. It means society gets a little shittier on many levels so that tony can think hes a king. And then the ironic part, he tries to make aj a man by getting him to actually do the construction job he gets paid to not do. So while he wakes up at 11am and collects money for nothing, AJ is expected to wake up at 6am and go bust his ass all day for less. And then he wonders why AJ would never want to work like him.