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Even through some of the struggles I have had, now has been the best time. These few years, even with layoffs, have been the highest paying years I've seen. I don't really want to go back several decades. I was born in 1986. I know enough about U.S. history to not want to go back several decades. Even the 70s is questionable. 60s, no. 50s, no. The years before, definitely no. Sometimes I get nostalgic for the 90s because I was a kid back then. TV shows were better back then. However, I understand that I could have to endure the dot-com bust as an adult.
Such good times back then. Barely graduated HS, had no direction, had interests but partying and race cars were more important. Started an Auto Body Design program at the local community college, just to make my parents happy. A year into that I was able to get my foot at one of the many design shops as a blue print runner. I took a pay cut from the $12 an hour I was getting at a robotics factory to $10 an hour. Within 3 years I was at $15 with all the overtime I could work. Quit school since I was learning more at work than in class. As the late 90's came, all the die design work washed up...the start of offshoring. I made a jump into product design (which I'm still doing) and that pay went from $15 to $20 an hour , along with all the over time I could work. I eventually worked up to mid $40's an hour bouncing around from job shop to job shop (hence the nickname "jobbie" ) then '07 hit and it all went sideways. Still recovering from then...and about $30k short a year from the "good times"
All through those times from HS to '07 was filled with race cars, snowmobiles, boats, plenty of failed relationships and a lot of partying. Health care was no worry since it was always employer provided with a minimal amount from me. 401k matches were a norm. Met some incredible people, and basically loved what I did for a living. There was no PC, it was close to a blue collar type of job. We would have cocktails at lunch time, smoke at our drafting boards / PC's, porn pics and magazines everywhere, most shops a guy was an FFL on the side, so there was always people bringing their newest firearm in for show and tell.
Now the industry is more white collar, we live in cubicle hell , it's all corporate PC BS and one needs an engineering degree to start in the business. Jobs are not as plentiful because we have to compete with India, China and Mexico. The place i work at now just shipped a bunch of design work to both India and Mexico.
So, "rose colored" glasses or not, things were much easier back then. At least for me.
Yours is a common story, unfortunately. There were a lot of places in the rural northeast and Midwest (the Rust Belt) where ordinary people could get a living wage job right out of high school. They didn’t need four years of college and a lifetime of crippling student loan debt. And they didn’t have to deal with all of the corporate BS, diversity training, cube farms, smarmy know-it-all engineers, clueless upper management, etc.
That is the difference between us and them. One group wants to keep looking back. The other group wants to look forward. Who wants to go back to the 50’s?
Some of things of the 50's were a good thing so why not look back? Some of the things we are moving forward with as a society today isn't so good either. I wish we could combine the best of the two and then we'd have a decent society again.
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