I don't think that any of the time I've spent in college was wasted. Many jobs require degrees now. The old "work your way up" E36 M3 simply doesn't happen that often anymore.
I don't think that any of the time I've spent in college was wasted. Many jobs require degrees now. The old "work your way up" E36 M3 simply doesn't happen that often anymore.
I spent five years at a technical university, and I can rattle off a number of classes I had to take which I feel were either a waste of time and money, or added little of value to my marketable skills. Having a prestigious school on my resume has opened doors, but most of what I've done professionally in the decade since school I taught myself or learned on the job. I'm guessing that a lot of other guys here are in the same boat.
No one in my wife's family has a degree, but several of them have worked their way up to very enviable and lucrative IT jobs. It can be done, if you are willing to step up and learn an in-demand skill.
NOHOME wrote: All you know for sure is that the plumber does not live here.
First off, I have that poster hanging on my wall. It lights up. There are newer versions of this poster, but from what I have gathered, this is the ORIGINAL version of it. I loves it 
Second of all, in Alberta here, it is a bit different. I know plenty of tradesmen who have that (minus the oceanside view). As in, I know them personally, and they have a family, 2 acres of land with a 2000+ squarefoot main level, 4 + car garage, and a shop. My parents own land next to a lot of them...
I don't think it is fair to pigeonhole people as others have said, blue collar, white collar, who cares? I will freely admit I've always wanted to break out of the blue collar mold both side of my parents families have inhabited for the past couple generations for various reasons, hence why I personally have done what I have done. And that poster, surprisingly enough, is a big influence 
Raze wrote: There, I've said my piece, and I agree with Mike Rowe, but the fundamental issue is that we don't have hard working people who want to take responsibility for a skill...
I think that's a lot of the problem right there. No one knows how to work hard anymore. My father's and grandfather's generation seemed more curious as to how and why things worked. We had heighbors that were tradesmen and some were docs and on lawyer, but they all had a basic understanding of how most everything they used worked, and none were afraid to get their hands dirty. I can count on one hand the number of friends I have that have done more then changed a lightbulb.
NOHOME wrote: here is the reason why there are no tradespeople. When you are 18, do you picture yourself as the guy with all this stuff or as the service/tradesguy guy who comes around to maintain his stuff? All you know for sure is that the plumber does not live here.
The REALLY ironic thing is, I bet that entire garage of cars could be had for about 50k in the market right now. The ferrari is the wild card.
NOHOME wrote: here is the reason why there are no tradespeople. When you are 18, do you picture yourself as the guy with all this stuff or as the service/tradesguy guy who comes around to maintain his stuff? All you know for sure is that the plumber does not live here.
Must have been the higher education that made him put the garage so far from the house. I can promise you that those of us that "work" for a living would have made it attached.
It's a joke, lighten up. 
NOHOME wrote: All you know for sure is that the plumber does not live here.
Nah, the plumber probably owns the place and rents it out for a few thousand a month profit to the chump executive who has to spend money he barely has convincing everyone else how rich he is.
I always thought that poster was really tacky.
z31maniac wrote: Hey old guys that have never worked in corporate america before..... Try lying about your skills/education/work history on a resume or application now. If your applying for any kind of job with real money and benefits attached, all that stuff is actually checked out now. Where I work currently, all three references were called, a call to OSU to verify my education was made as well as my two prior places of employment. Sure, you could get away with that for a job at $10/hr driving a crummy forklift. But not a good job with a good company.
Condescend much?
I attended a vocational school for my Junior and Senior year of high school. Thirty years later some of those blue collar bound guys are extremely successful.
Most of the guys learned auto mechanics, auto body, welding, carpentry, machine shop, or food service. I strongly believe in these programs.
z31 so you dont think other jobs call references? when i was managing shops i called references on people i was thinking about hiring. then id call around to friends and see if they have ever heard of the person. and now in my 7.75 an hour stress free job guess what they called all 5 of my personal references and all 5 professional and 2 of my past jobs.... and lastly i do have a friend who drives a forklift at a loading dock.....22.50 and hour mon to friday 4 weeks paid vaca 10 days sick time. and they match his 401k contributions dollar to dollar up to 25% of his income. may not be great money but sure isnt bad. and 6 am to 5 pm hours 5 days a week sounds good to me.
rotard wrote: I don't think that any of the time I've spent in college was wasted. Many jobs require degrees now. The old "work your way up" E36 M3 simply doesn't happen that often anymore.
And another "reality TV" show, clearly illustrates why that is a bad idea. Undercover Boss
Requiring a degree as proof that you can apply yourself to something is asinine.
A friend of mine has his B/A in theology and he says that it's pretty much useless unless he wants to be a pastor.
I've got my grade 12 and I beat that charts figure for a person with a bachelors degree.
I'm self-employed a mechanic and I work restoring 1930's luxury cars. Buried in a '34 Packard V12 coupe convertible right now. The Packard's owner is sending us a '32 Deusenberg dual-cowl phaeton next week.
I've got three highschool shop teachers (mechanics, metalwork and drafting) and a highschool english teacher to thanks for it all.
I'll take my job over just about anything. I like to tell people I'm retired since it sure doesn't feel like work.
Shawn
Too many people go to college with no plan or clue. They waste 10-100k and leave with virtually nothing. They have a "degree", but no real skills.
So then they find it hard to get a job. Any job.
The fact is there are some people that are not college material. They don't want to spend hours in classes, but would rather learn real world skills. There are few craftsman these days. These are the people that don't like books or numbers, but would rather use their hands and construct things. These people are not valued as they should be are job are being outsourced.
It will cost this country in two ways. First losing a generation. All the people that should be in trades as a craftsman are doing what? Probably under employed some place. Second once we lose those skills they will be hard to regain. You don't learn welding in a text book. You don't lean metal forming a text book. You don't learn how to free stuck bolt in text book.
My father was an auto technican for many years. I am a mechincal engineer. I went to college, but I got something out of it mostly because I went in with plan. Since my freshman year in high school I knew I was going to be an engineer. So for me the path was clear. However once I graduated I did two things. First was to get a day job as an engineer. Second a couple years later was to essential become an apprentice auto technician to my father. We took and old 84 944 and a wrecked 87 924S and as a father/son project we rebuild the 84 into a race car. Over the past 11 years I have done just about every job on the car. I can diagnose issues and turn wrenches. Without that skill I could never afford to race. I have also learn basic body work, painting etc.
My major deficiency right now is in welding.... I need to learn that. Point is however that what I learn from my father is stuff you don't lean in books. My father is 75 right now and can't do much physical work any more. However his mind is sharp and he know hows to do things. It still consult him on techncail work as the tricks he has learned over a lifetime are invaluable.
My father was never a college educated, but he was and still is highly skilled.
One thing that hasn't come up is how unions play into this. I run a non-union shop, but honestly appreciate the union for putting an upward pressure on wages, and providing a quality training program. An awful lot of the good blue-collar jobs are tied into union situations. As unions wane, it will become increasingly difficult to find qualified people in select trades.
Many service business (HVAC and plumbing to name 2) offer very good wages if you are also a good salesman. That furnace repair guy who comes to your house is probably paid to a greater or lesser extent on commision, so if he changes a filter he doesn't make jack. If he sells you a furnace, OTOH he makes great money. Personally I hate this part of the trade and refuse to take part. With that much money at stake, how can you expect to be given the straight scoop?
I think that the poster depicting the advantages of a higher education speaks to a mores serious issue that affects the country: There is a sense of entitlement that educated people have. We pump it into our kids heads that if they can tough it out and get through a college education, they wont be forced to do menial manual labour for the rest of their lives. In order to drive the point home, we will reference their summer jobs at McDonald's or some factory as examples of how miserable life will be if they don't go to college.
The problem is that many from the last generation and a half of post secondary graduates are expecting "finish line" rewards for having graduated. The thought is that they have proven their value by graduating and should no be able to slide into 2 SUV lifestyles with a million dollar house; after all, they have higher educations and MUST be entitled to a better living than their old friends who went from high school into a trade four years ago.Not good.
University and College does have its purposes. It is a good place to sharpen learning skills, make contacts that will be useful along the way, and acquire a broad knowledge base of how the world functions in your area of specialization. All this while drinking mass quantities of beer and meeting girls; not a bad gig as I recall.
I agree with the sense of entitlement being a HUGE problem, but I don't think it's limited to the educated. I haven't met many people under age 30 that escaped the message of " of COURSE you can have a big home and a Mercedes." (Disclaimer, I already knoe most of the younger folks here don't fit in that category, that's why I'm here, so don't take offense.)
I'm not sure if pop culture is a result of, or the cause of, the view that everyone should have all the nice things. Call it the "Cribs" effect, or Paris Hilton Social Syndrome, I don't know.
It chaps my ass to hear someone say "I deserve to take that vacation, even if I have to put it on credit." Well, no, jackass, nobody says you get to do that stuff because you're breathing. You have to actually EARN it.
Okay, stepping off the soap box now, sorry..
KATYB wrote: z31 so you dont think other jobs call references? when i was managing shops i called references on people i was thinking about hiring. then id call around to friends ...
Not to hijack or anything, but is Facebook a consideration when hiring?
If an employee put something on Facebook less than flattering about you or your company, is there retribution?
Dan
Trans_Maro wrote: I'm self-employed a mechanic and I work restoring 1930's luxury cars. Buried in a '34 Packard V12 coupe convertible right now. The Packard's owner is sending us a '32 Deusenberg dual-cowl phaeton next week. I'll take my job over just about anything. I like to tell people I'm retired since it sure doesn't feel like work. Shawn
Let me state for record we (well those of us with sh1tty desk jobs) hate you.
There's a big old Packard hearse at my mechanic's shop right now (alongside a 70 Challenger, a 9 second big-block Dart... and my MX3). Their house is much nicer than mine.
914Driver wrote: Not to hijack or anything, but is Facebook a consideration when hiring? If an employee put something on Facebook less than flattering about you or your company, is there retribution? Dan
I know one company I applied with does check Facebook. Not sure if it can officially be cause for not hiring someone but it is checked. If someone is going to put information in the public domain they should be careful about what they say.
I think the second question is dependent on the company manual and whether it's true or not.
When I was in high school all "manual labor" jobs were discouraged by my counselors. I really wanted to be in auto shop but was ushered to engineering drafting instead. I had to learn auto shop techniques on my own.
NOHOME wrote: There is a sense of entitlement that educated people have. We pump it into our kids heads that if they can tough it out and get through a college education, they wont be forced to do menial manual labour for the rest of their lives.
I hate it when I hear people complain "but that's not my job!" I've run into this so many times, even with members of my family. My attitude is that it doesn't matter what my title is, when work needs to get done my employer has every right to ask me to do it. I'm an IT manager, but I've also spent time stuffing envelopes, answering the phones and assembling furniture. When there's a pressing need, make yourself useful and fill it.
nderwater wrote: I hate it when I hear people complain "but that's not my job!" I've run into this so many times, even with members of my family. My attitude is that it doesn't matter what my title is, when work needs to get done my employer has every right to ask me to do it. I'm an IT manager, but I've also spent time stuffing envelopes, answering the phones and assembling furniture. When there's a pressing need, make yourself useful and fill it.
Only do that if you want to keep your job. I run into "not my job" types all the time and it drives me nuts. Usually they can't even do their own job correctly. If you're in a union house this does come up and the rules must be followed but it certainly isn't prohibited to find the right person to get the job done.
nderwater wrote: I hate it when I hear people complain "but that's not my job!" I've run into this so many times, even with members of my family. My attitude is that it doesn't matter what my title is, when work needs to get done my employer has every right to ask me to do it. I'm an IT manager, but I've also spent time stuffing envelopes, answering the phones and assembling furniture. When there's a pressing need, make yourself useful and fill it.
Amen. I run a department at a TV station... and change the burnt out light bulbs on the third floor. We had to lay off the guy who used to do it, so I said I was happy to help. Yeah, sometimes I'm really busy and it has to wait. But most of the time I can work in a 10 minute job here or there. I'd rather loose the guy who changed the light bulbs than one of my producers. So I'll help pick up the slack.
This is a really complicated issue that novels can be and are written about. I think a lot of good points have been touched on; pop culture & the Cribs movement, outsourcing and how it affects viewpoints of all sorts of jobs, unions and wage pressures, et cetera et cetera.
I went to college the first time because it seemed like the right thing to do. I was fed a bit of a line about how I could become an automotive engineer with a bachelor's of science in automotive technology from a university here in the Midwest. After a while I started to notice that we weren't taking classes like calculus or kinematics or other seemingly esoteric classes that it seemed like engineers needed. "Oh, yeah, you'll need to go to a different university for a mechanical engineering degree after you finish here," was the story from my advisor. Great.
So I fall out of love with my degree and just float through it. Poor grades, no real ambition, everything that people in this discussion have decried. Eventually I graduate and go back to an old summer job. But through a convoluted turn of events, I decide to go back to college and get an Electrical Engineering (in Technology) degree. And suddenly I'm getting good grades, I'm taking a lot of hours to get done in a timely fashion while killing old C's and turning them into A's, getting my transcript into better shape. So obviously having a goal and seeing 'the real world' and being exposed to other students helped.
And how things changed. I was an undergraduate for nine years, with a 'year off' in the middle, so a decade of time passed between my first semester and last. Tuition had doubled. My last year I ended up living in freshman dorm and the students seemed very foreign for the most part. Girls seemed much more interested in that 'Mrs. Degree' while taking business classes. Heard multiple cranky phone calls from boys yelling at a parent to send more spending money, tantrums effectively, and later congratulating each other on being 'grown men' while talking about what they were soon going to be doing with all the money they would some day have.
Just strange things. And a lot of them just did not want to be there. I remember in 1996-1997 a couple guys left my dorm floor because of grades and they seemed to understand they needed to figure something out. 2005-2006, it was freshmen just flailing through life. So I think the coddling of children by their parents it somewhat to blame.
I really hope Mike Rowe's message gets the right attention but I fear it won't take hold in most homes across America. Probably the best thing to do is kill the TV. After that I don't know what to suggest.
p.s. I now work as an engineer at a company that wouldn't hire the company's founder today because he had a 5th grade education. The corporation just removed the company CEO; he'll take home many millions of dollars. And had been called out on national news in years past for having a degree he paid for via mail order, but he wasn't removed for that at all, he had been here for about a decade and is now off to do other things. Something seems very odd about that to me.
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