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People in the US only look as far as their nose. They are super ok with everybody's wages going down expect theirs. We are on a race to the bottom. At the end of the day engineering wages will fall it is called global labor arbitrage. They will send the jobs to India start a new visa program flood the job market. Hire engineers as contractors no benefits. Corporate America is working to drive everybody's wages down. But white collar people had the idea it would never happen to them. Who cares about Bob at the tire plant. I mean he should have been an engineer. Blue collar workers got the axe in the 1980's and 1990's when their jobs went overseas. Well now it is white collar workers turn the shoe is on the other foot. Even educated people like engineers will see their wages drop before it is all over.
What kind of tech are these people? What do they exactly do for work?
I think nowadays a college degree is too expensive and not worth it. Like my Mech Eng degree... It's so hard to be a Product Design Engineer: you gotta know plastic design, sheet metal design, casting design, GD & T, and sometimes tolerance stackups and now some are asking for Six Sigma. Some of this stuff they never even teach you in college. And I looked at online courses at the Univ of IL at Urbana - Champaign and an FEA course would cost me around $3200 or so... I'm better off buying the best FEA books and teaching myself FEA through bootleg CAD and FEA software. And then most FEA jobs go to a Master's degree ME or so.
It's getting tough and low pay to be an engineer. To get a $65k salary they want you to have lots of skills and experience.
America would recover from this recession if workers were paid well enough, if they weren't permatemps with no health insurance, that people weren't worked severe overtime on salary, and that if companies hired enough people to avoid overtime.
Like I interviewed at both Cozzini and Cummins Alison for a Mech Eng Tech writer and they both lowballed salaries. I guess they didn't hire me because my minimum rate of $48,000 / year was too much for them, or else they didn't respect me because I'm not a good looking white boy that they can hire [- these people get preference].
Blue collar work, you'd have to get your dresses dirty and be a team player. You wouldn't last a day.
By the way, about 50% of our workforce is minority of any different races and colors.
Yeah he was... that was his attempt to hurt my feelings I guess?
Yeah... not sure why the guy was attempting to bash me over it but whatever... I'm quite happy with my blue collar manufacturing job with benefits. $23k in 4 months has me on pace for just under $70k for the year. Compared to where I was at this point last year ($330 weekly unemployment = $17k year) I will gladly take it.
I have no shame in putting on my workshirt every day. In fact, my name is stitched on the front.
My point was you have no sound basis for telling Jesse was he should accept as a wage. He is of higher skill and you have no clue about his situation. So he's making $100/mo disability, so what? So he should be an engineer for $101/mo? That is simply pea-brained logic that deserved ridicule.
My point was you have no sound basis for telling Jesse was he should accept as a wage. He is of higher skill and you have no clue about his situation. So he's making $100/mo disability, so what? So he should be an engineer for $101/mo? That is simply pea-brained logic that deserved ridicule.
This coming from a condescending prick who looks down his nose at others.
. Euphemism for a race to the bottom is "creative destruction."
Nonsense. Horse and buggy men going out of business due to cars was creative destruction. They survived. Its a never ending thing; new stuff emerges, that destroys the need for old stuff.
We don't care about the color of someone's skin or their gender, where they go to church or don't go as the case might be. We care about the quality of their work and if they are a team player. Our workforce ranges from 19 to ready to retire.
As they should. 65k base, with benefits will cost a corp around 100-110k.
My last job as an easy Proe Designer Detailer paid $32.10/hr no benefits, - with O.T. it was $68K/yr. Great job before the recession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annerk
Blue collar work, you'd have to get your dresses dirty and be a team player. You wouldn't last a day.
By the way, about 50% of our workforce is minority of any different races and colors.
I've done dirty work too as a Chicago Downtown bike messenger, but it wasn't profitable.
Lots of minorities are "fill in" for blue collar work. But if you want a manager, Boss, or CEO it is usually a white man. During my short time at Int Jensen I had an after hours talk with one Sr Speaker Account guy who was white and he told me that he admitted he was put there because he was a good looking white guy. And then when I look at the guy in charge of Advent Speakers - he was a young good looking white guy. And my college class project partner who screwed up my brilliant compact transmission design by welding shut the transmsision - he got multiple job offers and was even offered a Plant Manager job because he was a good looking white guy. At Synchro Start they asked me if I wanted to be an engineer but I didn't know Proe, they passed me up for a good looking white guy who played around learning Proe in his first several days of work. They required me to know extensive Autocad to get hired at Platt Luggage but then when they needed an extra engineer they hired a white guy who I had to train him Autocad. More insulting was they paid him more than me and I was their initial engineer who got them increased sales through my designs and process improvements. And then later they expected him to be my boss. And then the Gen Manager of Platt Luggage was a white who flunked his Mech Eng degree in Jr Yr college... - that could never happen to a minority. After I got fired from Platt Luggage years later I visited them and their work was down to need only 1 woman engineer... I guess they miss my great money making suitcase designs. Like I got them a big IBM suitcase order that competed against other companies.
So there is a lot is discrimination towards minorities and preference to hiring good looking white guys. And why are so many CEOs and bosses white guys?
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire
How much did you expect for a technical writing job? I know guys with high school diplomas doing that kind of work around here. CAD work is not something you need a college degree for, most of us on the shop floor do our own CAD work. For a lot of these people, 40K is not bad money right now, especially the older guys who have been doing it for 30 years and don't really need the extra money.
Low level tech writing jobs don't pay much and can easily be done by a person that can write and compose with good grammer. But a high level tech writer that has the knowledge of the stuff you're writing for is more productive and efficient vs a "dumb" tech writer. When I was interviewing at Cozzini I was supposed to take the position of the current tech writer who was an engineer there for 4 years before switching to tech writing and now he was being groomed for a marketing / tech writer / upper level role. So I'm essentially replacing a guy who I'd expect was getting at least $65,000 / year as a former Mech Eng and yet Cozzini was too cheap to pay my $48,000 /yr. And they said my $56,000 / yr was "way out of league." -- I know, the problem is "I'm not a good looking white guy..."
That why sometimes I think I would have had a better life if I was born as a beautiful asian woman. I could just marry a successful guy to take care of me.
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