Men skipping college

Quote: kenarman

Physical jobs keep you in good physical shape. You get paid for your work out instead of paying to go to a gym.

Yes, there are indeed advantages.
Examples:
The young man who worked in a steel mill: made good money and when he decided he wanted to go to law school all the girls called him 'body beautiful'.
The Cleveland YMCA member: He works out, eats meat and potatoes, has a job loading 80 pound bags of cement onto shipping pallets. Still makes use of his lifetime YMCA membership to exercise twice a day. He is in his seventies.
The young man who joined a rail road work gang for a few years: After being graduated from law school he opened up a solo law practice and contacted his union business manager. Injured railway workers flocked to him.

However, accidents do happen. Whatever punnett square of genetics you have, whatever environmental insults you encounter can rob you of your physical abilities. A carpenter who had a spider bite or tick bite rob him of his strength to lift a hammer, a tree cutter who fell and broke a leg, a bar tender who had a mean drunk sucker punch him, etc. These people suddenly have a lack of resources and perhaps lack the ability to retrain. The steel mills in Pennsylvania close, some union men retrain as low paid drones, some union men move to Spendocino County and get high paying jobs in "agricultural security" (guarding pot fields).

Sure there is insurance but disability policies only pay sixty percent of income, not tips, not whatever a bar tender takes from the till, not annual bonuses that he paid himself since he was the owner, just sixty percent of declared income. And many people become disabled gradually with five or ten years of contradictory diagnoses and impaired income, the policy only pays sixty percent of the previous year's income, not the potential income had the insured been healthy.

One luggage lugger in Vegas decided college was not for him. His father had worked at the White House for twenty years with just a high school education; he climbed the union ladder taking guests luggage from their cars to their rooms. Never regretted it. Did regret that one semester of college though.

Quote: Evenbob

He could easily gotten a doctorate but never did because he thought it would over qualify him for what he really wanted to do.

Over qualified is a term applied by HR drones who do not want to hire smart people or short timers.

One woman took her degree in the classics from Harvard and became a farmer. Was she over qualified? The crops never told her that.

Quote: Fleastiff

Over qualified is a term applied by HR drones who do not want to hire smart people or short timers.

I used to pass on over-qualified people. One guy's wife called me about it (yeah!) She said "but he would be willing to do the work!" I told her the issue is way over-qualified people rarely last, and you are asking me to spend $6,000+ to train someone who will not last.

Different time I had a guy with an MBA working a pest control route. Guy could not manage to use the corporate gas card without messing it up.

So it goes both ways.

Quote: kenarman

I have tried to talk many of the high school grads into going up to Fort MacMurray the centre of Alberta's oil patch. Even with no skills but a decent work ethic they can make $100,000 plus a year.

A few decades ago New England fraternity kids would often sign on to a Tuna boat in Alaska because the money was so good. They could drown, they could get a tuna hook in them but most just came badk with seventy grand for a short stint at sea.

One man got out of rehab and went to the oil shale over thrust belt to get work as a truck driver... he couldn't get hired because even when jobs go begging he was always asked about church attendance and arrests.

Central California had oil field workers who often drew a "double tower" (two shifts back to back) they went from high school to 80 grand a year, but it was hard work and often dangerous work. One drilling boss had a split second to throw in a clutch and save the drilling rig but instead he pushed a coworker out of danger thus saving his life but losing the rig. He lost his job too.

Things change but for those who are inately resilient there is always hope, for those who were 'domesticated' such as by schools and parents, its often more likely they did not learn resiliance but instead contracted 'learned helplessness'. These are the ones who suffer misfortune once and never recover from it.

The man who decides he wants to live in the Redwoods can be a pot dealer or a carpenter. One can bring in some real money fast the other can bring in some real money slow. Its a choice.

Quote: AZDuffman

Attitude was they will never pay off student loans, so why not live it up?

A common attitude and perhaps a sensible one. Its when half the town is in that situation of low wage jobs or nothing that the only alternatives are the bottle, wife-beating and drugs. With no hope heroin is their only relief from reality. Many millionaires jumped from skyscrapers when the market crashed, but they often landed on decent working people who were just as dead as if they had been careless with their money.

Quote: AZDuffman

I told her the issue is way over-qualified people rarely last, and you are asking me to spend $6,000+ to train someone who will not last.

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That is exactly what I think when I hear overqualified. We hire people for I.T. support type jobs and I immediately throw away the resumes with a Computer Science degree because they are not going to stick around making $16 an hour.

Quote: DRich

That is exactly what I think when I hear overqualified. We hire people for I.T. support type jobs and I immediately throw away the resumes with a Computer Science degree because they are not going to stick around making $16 an hour.

People think it is unfair but it is true. In 2008 I was so dead broke and career dead I interviewed at Chick-Fil-A. Guy said he would hire me but kept putting me off. I did say "maybe it works out maybe it doesn't but you get a good employee meanwhile." He never brought me on but was a decent guy, sat with me more than once. I got a book and free meal out of it, learned how their system works so not total loss.

Quote: DRich

That is exactly what I think when I hear overqualified. We hire people for I.T. support type jobs and I immediately throw away the resumes with a Computer Science degree because they are not going to stick around making $16 an hour.

Yeah, one headhunter told a PhD to get out and don't come back until you only have a Masters.

I know one lawyer who told prospective employers he had been in rehab because he never got hired when he mentioned his long unemployment stint.

And eons ago an acquaintance of mine went to the unemployment office in Tucson and had to circle how many years of schooling he had. Many appliants were circling some really low numbers but he added up high school, prep school, college... they still sent him to Arizona Brick to make bricks in the hot sun with everyone else speaking mile a minute Spanish and ending every sentence with a gesture in his direction and the words 'el gringo'.

Quote: AZDuffman

People think it is unfair but it is true. In 2008 I was so dead broke and career dead I interviewed at Chick-Fil-A. Guy said he would hire me but kept putting me off. I did say "maybe it works out maybe it doesn't but you get a good employee meanwhile." He never brought me on but was a decent guy, sat with me more than once. I got a book and free meal out of it, learned how their system works so not total loss.

I think there is another factor about being over qualified for a position. Some that are doing the hiring don't want competition. There are definitely some unqualified managers out there, who are insecure in their positions. The last few jobs I took that I had to fill out an app for, I left quite a bit off of my resume. I was just looking for work, I didn't want to run the joint.

A lot of people don't understand that much of the time, it is easier to just do the work rather than be in charge. Especially if the crew is a bunch of numb skulls. I don't deal with frustration extremely well. I also hate dealing with customer complaints, and being called in front of the ceo to answer said complaints. Every time the power goes out, there is someone with a complaint that calls in all hours of the night. I've been turned in for some bizarre things.

I never got caught, but one guy I worked with did. A lot of guys that work outside sometimes will have to urinate outdoors. My amigo looked around carefully, and then protected his exposure on three sides with two bin doors and a truck and had to let it go. Some woman from a good distance away spotted the stream below, and turned him in. What are ya gonna do? Some crews have had to tow an outhouse around with them. Boy is that handy, not.

Quote: petroglyph

I never got caught, but one guy I worked with did. A lot of guys that work outside sometimes will have to urinate outdoors. My amigo looked around carefully, and then protected his exposure on three sides with two bin doors and a truck and had to let it go. Some woman from a good distance away spotted the stream below, and turned him in. What are ya gonna do? Some crews have had to tow an outhouse around with them. Boy is that handy, not.

Had a friend that delivered those huge water containers to homes. He always asked to use the bathroom, especially the elderly. He would always check the medicine cabinet for pain killer drugs and take some.