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I ran across three videos yesterday. Two from Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, and the other from Jay Leno.
The second video talks about castrating lambs, so if you want to skip past that, go 9 minutes into the speech. But it is pretty funny. Near the end he talks about the cold war against jobs in this country.
The point is the fact that there is very little interest in trades such as plumbing, welding, carpenters, etc. These industries are not lifted up in the media and there is little motivation to do these jobs. However, because the culture flows away from these trades, there is much money for those who can teach and perform this labor.
Today, young people are interested in becoming professional athletes, music icons, media stars, or office cube workers with a college degree (a degree that puts them into huge debt in most cases). No one is interested in manual labor - but we need people to perform these functions.
I think they hit the nail on the head with this. What do you think?
Mike Rowe Speaks To Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee [05-11-11]
I started my working career as a very skilled metal worker that could machine, weld and form metal to build prototype machines. I could repair anything. I worked at that for a couple of years until I realized, and had the opportunity to attend college, that working as a bureaucrat for most of the next forty years paid more and was a lot less demanding. I have found that working in a cubical paid a lot more and was more respectable than machine building and repair.
This is why we have a shortage of machine builders. You have to take a long time learning the theory and developing the skills. Then you have to actually work to get good at it. All the time you are doing this you are likely to be required to work a lot of overtime in a dim shop on a leg destroying concrete for not all that much money. While you are doing this the suits working on the carpeted offices that think they are the kings of the world and let you know it every time they show up in the shop are coining the money and the bennies.
So instead of putting out all the effort to be a craftsman you just get a simple business degree and work on the carpet making three times as much as the guy actually making the product. Why would anyone knowing the reality of manufacturing, building or repair (aircraft mechanics start out around here at $8 an hour) want to bother? Our economy simply pays the posers instead of the builders.
PS: There are very, very few shops like the big dog Garage that are owned and operated by someone as aware as Jay Leno. I can only think of one. His.
The annoying part is I like to build things, fix things and make metal do what I want it to. What I cannot tolerate is some ignorant boss telling me to hurry up, go faster, cut corners, and do it cheaper as if I wasn't already doing all those things except cutting corners. That is the main reason I do not work in industry.
That is the problem. Noone wants to pay them for the skilled craftsmen they are. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to become a journeyman, but in the last 15 years the rewards have dropped off precipitously. Owners now think it's fair to pay a guy with twenty years of experience and expertise just apprentice wages.
This country has become to "white collar" / business only oriented when it comes to education. There are a glut of people with business and finance degrees who can't get jobs, or who are earning $12 an hour working in an Accounts Payable job, thousands of dollars in debt.
We need more apprenticeship type programs or study programs at community colleges or designated trade schools that are cheap, where someone can work towards a nationally recognized qualification in electronics or plumbing, for example. These would be affordable and therefore, would not leave you thousands of dollars in debt, if it didn't work out.
The problem is also that such jobs have become unpopular, or looked down on as "blue collar". This isn't so much the case in other countries. A friend of mine in England makes a very good living as a plumber. The company he works for paid for his certification. Over here, he would most likely have fallen through the cracks, or would have been working a minimum wage job.
Trade schools = the way to go. The problem in this country is that everyone wants get rich and there are too many people with business-related degrees, chasing jobs that aren't there.
That is the problem. Noone wants to pay them for the skilled craftsmen they are. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to become a journeyman, but in the last 15 years the rewards have dropped off precipitously. Owners now think it's fair to pay a guy with twenty years of experience and expertise just apprentice wages.
The pay; well, one problem specific to this country is that "union" has become such a dirty word that employers can get away with paying crappy wages for jobs which are actually highly skilled and jobs that many of us wouldn't have a clue how to do. It's the whole blue collar vs. white collar thing. Maybe we should do away with those terms completely to make such jobs less unappealing and not looked down on?
Funnily enough, I'd actually like to learn one of these skills and train in something else. The corporate rat-race is not for me and it's got even more competitive and dehumanized over the last few years.
Last edited by TheViking85; 12-04-2011 at 11:43 AM..
The point is the fact that there is very little interest in trades such as plumbing, welding, carpenters, etc. These industries are not lifted up in the media and there is little motivation to do these jobs. However, because the culture flows away from these trades, there is much money for those who can teach and perform this labor.
I quit college after my first semester, and started my own asphalt maintenance business. I'd been exposed to the trade over the course of the previous year. I had originally intended to pursue a degree in special education, however after weighing the pros and cons, I opted to start my own business instead. I've never once regretted that decision over the course of the past 14 years. I've had my ups and downs in my business, but I attribute most of my difficulties to reckless spending and immaturity. It was nice to be able to have money to actually be reckless with though. I won't argue with that.
After 13 years in the business in my home state, I decided (pretty much on a whim) to pack up and move across the country to California. I'm now starting the same business all over again out here....from scratch....pretty much for nothing more than the "fun" of it. I've secured a business partner back east who will handle most of my recurring business. This will keep my business "alive" back there if and when I ever decide I want to return to it. I probably won't though...I kinda like it out here.
Man, I love what I do. I love the fact that I taught myself a trade at a young age, got all the **** and vinegar out of my system early, and have the ability and knowledge to do this business anywhere I want. It's an awesome and empowering feeling, being able to move across the country and almost immediately set up shop without "finding" a job. Starting as young as I did (19 years old) really gave me a leg-up. I'm only 33, but I feel like I've experienced as much as a typical 66 year old. I've religiously followed the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid) from day 1, and will continue to.
I feel so sorry for so many of my old friends and acquaintances who bought into the whole "follow-the-herd" mentality, got their degrees, and are now stuck in a hole for their efforts. A few of them made it to the suburban tract home lifestyle (as if that is something to aspire to...no thanks), but not many. Most of them are broke, scared, and stuck in ****. There but for the grace of God go I.
It is all well and good to say "we need to pay more" when on the other hand people will go shopping for the lowest price. For an expensive American to work on such things automatically brings a business to a disadvantage. That's why a lot of Americans won't go into the dirty jobs because people aren't stupid. Not only can they get better paying jobs in similarly demanding technologically oriented jobs, but they can avoid having to compete against the illegal workers who are willing to get less than minimum wage pay for the same work. See Georgia. It just passed some of the toughest anti-illegal immigrant laws in the nation. Suddenly billions of dollars of business will be lost, crops are rotting in the fields, and businesses and farmers are demanding that some sort of amnesty program be started.
Funny how the very same hooting and hollering "demographic segments" in some corners of the nation suddenly want what the opposite "demographic segments" want when they actually practice what they preach and realize it isn't very smart.
Just reinforces what Winston Churchill said about Americans: "You can count on Americans to do the right thing ... after all other options have been exhausted."
Anyway, *off soap box and back on topic* the reason why nobody wants these jobs is exactly because they are tough and don't pay well. And they never will because people and customers cause price competition. Try telling a metalworker in the Seattle area, in a county with an AVERAGE income per family of ~$75,000, that he can work for $9/hr when a busboy earns more than that in wage and tips. It just don't add up.
Long term, the outlook isn't good either. Engineers thrive on making stuff better and less maintenance intensive while also making it cheaper. That drives people out of business. Technology also helps that. And people are slowly realizing that we can't just support continuous exponential increase in consumption to prop up the lower wage workers.
So I basically say that it isn't a problem. There exists an equilibrium and eventually it will be found.
Here's my worthless opinion (Based on my experience)
EVERYONE should start with labor or some type of grungy work, say right after high school for a few years, while attending some community college or having a part time schedule at a state college.
Then after that, take things more serious. But, the prob is people just can't all do this. Too in need to party/club and just want some bling bling.. It is something about society, some greater overlying ideology we got.
I don't take all that c**p I hear because i lived it. i did it... I know it can be done. I partied in high school and I'm partying NOW, years and years later, but I didn't in that crucial time after high school until just recently.
But, I know, I cannot preach.. even if I did, because nobody likes a preacher. What we need is to show those professions in unique ways (we're "trying" by making them appear hip and cool on shows like dirty jobs/ice road truckers/mythbusters/etc) but what kids are really looking at are kids in real life, see what they're doing.
This is the responsibility of each, individual parent, an no one else's. NO TV show can replace that.
It would be NICE and idealistic if each and every single parent in the United States thought this way, but they don't.
I know this.
So, we gotta use the spoiled puppy dog trick.
Show some tasty food.
And they will come.
Give rewards, incentives, for parents who put their kids into fields like engineering and sciences, after doing some more labor intensive hard work, like doing some plumbing for a few years.
Kids need to party. Let them do that in high school. Make them work after. Then do something college/corporate.
The problem is, deciding whether to continue or to shift focus on the college/corporate hopes.
I made that transition but I admit, "I" had certain things I felt made that transition a bit easier. I realize other kids didn't, or don't.. and I understand that, from a humanistic point of view.
I honestly just believe, the people I found the most rounded out, partied hard as children and some were maybe, slightly 'bad kids', but had EXCELLENT parents that kept them in check, so those kids were now OVER their need to party by age 21-28, and devoted that to working hard jobs, while going to school for a real job, then turning around and being so rounded as adults.
Again.. I can't preach, I understand there's variables concerned, but I just felt that should be the "goal" regardless.
I started my working career as a very skilled metal worker that could machine, weld and form metal to build prototype machines. I could repair anything. I worked at that for a couple of years until I realized, and had the opportunity to attend college, that working as a bureaucrat for most of the next forty years paid more and was a lot less demanding. I have found that working in a cubical paid a lot more and was more respectable than machine building and repair.
This is why we have a shortage of machine builders. You have to take a long time learning the theory and developing the skills. Then you have to actually work to get good at it. All the time you are doing this you are likely to be required to work a lot of overtime in a dim shop on a leg destroying concrete for not all that much money. While you are doing this the suits working on the carpeted offices that think they are the kings of the world and let you know it every time they show up in the shop are coining the money and the bennies.
So instead of putting out all the effort to be a craftsman you just get a simple business degree and work on the carpet making three times as much as the guy actually making the product. Why would anyone knowing the reality of manufacturing, building or repair (aircraft mechanics start out around here at $8 an hour) want to bother? Our economy simply pays the posers instead of the builders.
PS: There are very, very few shops like the big dog Garage that are owned and operated by someone as aware as Jay Leno. I can only think of one. His.
The annoying part is I like to build things, fix things and make metal do what I want it to. What I cannot tolerate is some ignorant boss telling me to hurry up, go faster, cut corners, and do it cheaper as if I wasn't already doing all those things except cutting corners. That is the main reason I do not work in industry.
A million times this. I work in the aviation industry (parts specialist/ A&P mechanic) and its tough being in an industry that requires years of experience before you can even break the $15 an hour mark. Of course, our DOM makes $200,000 a year while the mechanics actually doing the work, going on the callouts and doing the majority of the actual work are getting $18 an hour.
It sucks, but it's the price I pay for doing what I enjoy. My best friend is a welder and she's excited to get $12 an hour after 6 years of experience. Desk jobs pay, real jobs dont.
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(Based on my experience)
