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I have did them both. While they are both valuable to society the fact remains that it's not as easy to find people that has the skills needed to perform the duties needed in many office environments than it is to do heavy labor.
Thank goodness for illegal immigrants and homeless people.
All jobs pay replacement value. You are paid based on the relationship b/w how many can/will do the job; in essence, the harder YOU are to replace at the same level of competency, the more you make.
All jobs pay replacement value. You are paid based on the relationship b/w how many can/will do the job; in essence, the harder YOU are to replace at the same level of competency, the more you make.
This sentiment gets weird when you introduce a debt-based economy in order to avoid market corrections.
What's troubling is that, technically, replacement value should mean that even the "lowest" worker (uneducated, low skill level required) should still have a chance because if they do a good job then they shouldn't be easily replaced. Work ethic, for instance, is valuable. However, such a thing is meaningless if doing a good job is not considered valuable to the employer... that they'd rather cycle though a bunch of easily-replaceable crappy workers than keep one good worker for a higher wage (or rather, the good workers often won't stay in such conditions, unless, as I said, they are desperate). If that employer can be successful on that model, others will adopt it as well... which is where we mostly find ourselves. We complain about crappy products and services but still buy them (credit makes that easier).
Then you have to think: If getting up every morning, working hard, doing your best, pursuing all the opportunities you have available to you isn't good enough to feed and clothe yourself, or be respected as a person, then you can come to two conclusions: doing your best and pursuing your opportunities is not valuable and you must find a way to play the game and get what you want, or, that something is wrong with the system you've adopted that dictates your value.
I knew someone that tried to live as debt free as possible. He didn't have a college education but was highly skilled and intelligent. He worked three jobs, 80 hours as week and lived in a basement "apartment" that had a hole in the middle of it that rats would crawl out of (which he filled with cement himself). He worked as a machinist and was not easily replaceable, at least, not without accepting inferior products and wasted time. Despite providing quality work, once he was fired for not being a biker (didn't fit "company culture"). He did not have enough money to eat regularly and didn't accept any welfare. Who deserves that, no matter what job they have?
I would rather keep sound principles than be at the mercy of these supposed economic efficiencies; as they are generally all just lies we tell ourselves, anyway.
My advise would be don't just focus on the major, take SKILL CLASSES for electives. I would be way better off had I taken AutoCAD class and been CAD certified. If I could put that at the top of my resume along with my degree I'd get 10X more call backs when applying. Geography of North American cities, Ancient Roman art, etc were interesting but no employer cares that I took those classes. The only reason I have any job is six hours of GIS.
Another problem is some job fields are highly concentrated in certain areas. If you want to stay in your podunk little town nursing is a better field. I assumed my region was overflowing with good GIS jobs and I was wrong. If I was in Denver, Dallas, or DC I'd have much better career options
Please dont come to dc. Its competitive enough as it is with 300 applicants for a mere secretary or cashier position!
College graduates statistically do earn more over their lifetimes than just someone with a high school diploma. I'm sure there are plenty of liberal arts majors in that mix. Besides skilled labor trades or going off to the oil sands, it's very difficult to make a living wage with just a high school diploma. I think any 4 year degree from an accredited college is worth it because most living wage jobs require such.
The thing is those with high school diplomas have those with bachelors beat since many join the military which gives them automatic best candidates for govt jobs or instead of studying they work their way up to a higher position.
I make $9/hour as a retail worker but I live very cheaply. Being a freegan does help quite a bit (why pay for something if you don't need to) and not having kids also is good. I know that not everyone has the same ability to live as I do so I won't be as nasty as some people are on this forum. Around here $15/hour is damn good money; you won't make this wage unless you either are in medicine (you might make more than that if you are a physician or kiss their butt) or you sell your soul to the credit card phone banks out here. Most jobs pay under $15/hour because employers get away with it. Expecting $30/hour work quality and quantity for 1/3 the pay just doesn't work. And people wonder why there's so much job turnover in Amurica? The average job tenure is supposedly 3-4 years from what I heard.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by masmartbottom
I would sit and sip an iced tea while watching them do that heavy labor for a few days, enjoying every minute.
They wouldn't last an hour.
And most of them wouldn't last 15 minutes in my job.
It makes me SO angry when people say "Oh, brilliant minds are worth more" What about the strength to go on in a physically demanding or emotionally draining job? Those brilliant geniuses sure don't have that.
Both kinds of jobs are of value to those that need that service. Hard labor that also requires specific skills can pay well, such as welding, diesel mechanics, electric linemen, CNC operators, firefighters. I have never seen a monkey dig a ditch, but even if one could, they cannot be trained to avoid other underground utilities. Such "unskilled" labor jobs don't pay well simply because there are so many more in the applicant pool and demand goes up and down.
Simply being an expert in Excel is not a reason for paying someone a lot of money. It's what you use it for, the analytical skills that come from not only education but business experience that demand higher pay.
I bet a monkey's cost benefit analysis would yield about the same results.
I'd like to see all these people announcing how much more difficult and valuable their kind of job is to actually go out and do heavy labor for a few days, and then come back and say anyone can do it and that's why the labor is so cheap. I couldn't do it. You can sit there and justify your lifestyle until your cloud is so high you run out of air, but that doesn't change the fact that less fortunate people breaking their bodies allows your cloud to exist.
No one wants to spend their life digging ditches, which is why only desperate people take such jobs. It doesn't have anything to do with how smart you are. It's because desperate people will devalue themselves when they have no other options. If you were really smart, you'd find as many desperate of people as you could, work them into the ground and then take all the profit ('Merica). But no, you continue believing Microsoft propaganda that if you can check off "experience with Excel" as part of your skill-set that you're somehow intrinsically more valuable than someone who has never used a computer.
Thanks for the excellent example of how disgusting humans can be to each other.
This. But you can't beat this into a coddled person's head. They will literally never get it, and probably wouldn't try their hand at it if their life depended on it. Can't get that designer suit dirty! This forum is full of people who haven't had to experience the lows of life and society. They are the quickest to jump in and give their two cents about things they will never experience.
This. But you can't beat this into a coddled person's head. They will literally never get it, and probably wouldn't try their hand at it if their life depended on it. Can't get that designer suit dirty! This forum is full of people who haven't had to experience the lows of life and society. They are the quickest to jump in and give their two cents about things they will never experience.
And to make it worse, they think they know BETTER than us.
I swear, some people here are practically reciting from a book about how people stuck with the public every day are SUPPOSED to be that has no practical application in the real world. Oh, always smile, always act happy, always be nice. Said every person who never had to work customer service ever.
Oh and the people who say they worked customer service and were perfect? Lies. They either never did that work or were far from perfect and got annoyed with customers a lot. Why? Because nobody likes getting treated like crap.
I make $9/hour as a retail worker but I live very cheaply. Being a freegan does help quite a bit (why pay for something if you don't need to) and not having kids also is good. I know that not everyone has the same ability to live as I do so I won't be as nasty as some people are on this forum. Around here $15/hour is damn good money; you won't make this wage unless you either are in medicine (you might make more than that if you are a physician or kiss their butt) or you sell your soul to the credit card phone banks out here. Most jobs pay under $15/hour because employers get away with it. Expecting $30/hour work quality and quantity for 1/3 the pay just doesn't work. And people wonder why there's so much job turnover in Amurica? The average job tenure is supposedly 3-4 years from what I heard.
Please tell me what a freegan is. I am very curious.
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