Bishop Steiner, on 28 November 2014 - 04:00 AM, said:
very much the truth, the living in California back in the day, too, I had to deal with "Affirmative Action", where at 17 I was literally told they couldn't hire me at McDonald's because I was white, and they had their quota. Walmart and Sears back then, in Cali, wouldn't even look at you if you were not a minority (thankfully that stupidity ended years ago).
But also the truth is if one is very patient and self sufficient, one can find some really good deals. Also, I was constantly swapping and horse trading.
I stretched $30 into three months of Rent, Insurance ($200 a month. Thanks Gov. Insurance agency!) and Gas through aggressive Buy and Sell. 1970's Appliances and Camera gear, some Furniture, and tons of Videogames. I am not one to sit around and have everything slide.
Though I don't think I can get back into welding; about six months before I got laid off, about two tons of sheet stock pinned me between the back of the break and itself; the hydraulic rams stopped it from outright crushing me, but my right shoulder is pretty much done at this point. It no longer stays in the socket, at all, especially after moving from that into renovation work.
Bishop Steiner, on 28 November 2014 - 04:30 AM, said:
while I agree with some of what you say, DaZur i, while grossly over generalizing (and so have I to a degree) is not 100% off, either, and if you honestly look around your generation of coworkers, you have to admit there is truth to it.
I have had people turn in job applications filled out using text speak and gaming abbreviations. Seen college papers done that way, where obviously kids used spellcheck, but had no clue about context, thus "their" was "there".... IN COLLEGE, distinctions I had to learn by 3rd Grade.
The thing is, I don't think most younger folks are lazy (though there IS a lot of that...too many want a desk job/IT job and unlike you as a welder don't want to sweat and get dirty hands), but rather I have watched, the last 20 years as our society set you up to fail. Yes, MY generation, the same who complain and condemn, are also the ones who set up all the idiotic PC policies in business and school that set your generation UP to fail. And it was the generation before mine that set both of ours up to fail through short sighted greed in the banking and housing and loan/credit industries.
But the sad truth is, while kids today are learning things in school years earlier than they usually did in my day, and have access to breathtaking levels of information at their fingertips...... so few learn to appreciate that, or understand hard work and adversity. Until it's thrown in their faces. I actually do dread to see what the generation 20 years from now ha to deal with that your, my and the preceding generation has left them...if we haven't managed to wipe ourselves out by then.
I've too many friends you age not to empathize and sympathize. But I also have had a front row seat to the changes in the last 2 decades, and we are "evolving" culturally and technologically, faster in the last 2 decades than we have a hope of being able to predict or understand the consequences.
My generation, around here, miiight have some things different from yours. Starting with something along the lines of a holy grail, all important, two year long project, that, if lost, incomplete or not up to standards is an instant "You are not graduating." It also required holding a job for a period of time, so, you know, there's that.
And the courses that, as my one (American Immigrant) friend said, are equivalent to college for content at the end. Yes, you only need a 50% to pass, but there where quite a few that couldn't make it. Hell, I didn't make it on one course. I worked hard to get a C or a B, and then there's the huge thing hovering over you that you can't graduate without?
15% of people my age haven't finished Highschool. The course load, as well as the expected content of that project, increases every year; I saw what it looked like a year ago. So you're expected to work
at least a month of part time (For the project thing), do this massive course load and do this stupid multi year project where you need letters of reference and other things to prove that you did any of the things.
And then we get to College and University. My friend worked for a year to save up for it while living at home. He has six courses. He has had two days where he wasn't flooded with work in the last five months. Every single time I see him, he's got at least four things he's panicking to get done. Before him, for a Graphics design major, my other friend was at the school from 7 in the morning to 9 at night when they kicked him out, six days a week. Audio engineer, four years of staying as long as the GD major. Even me, with my cheap ass welding course; 12 huge text books, 60% practical, 40% study your ass off and learn how this works. Get up at six and be home at six. Then study.
I'm not saying those morons you encounter aren't a thing. 15% who didn't finish highschool, and god knows how many who cheated, paid and scammed their way through it and college. But there's a vast amount out there who are getting pushed way harder than your generation ever was, only to get out there and get screwed over again and again, until you end up with the Audio Engineer working at McDicks and the GD major, after finishing one major project, getting laid off and working making truck springs. Both of them are fighting to find something, which is pretty ******, seeing we're in the most self absorbed city, where you have this massive music scene, this huge art scene, and all these game developers, movie production businesses, recording studios, etc. Both of them have very valid education for where we are.
What I'm trying to say is, it's not the EZ PZ waltz people seem to think it is. We're talking a system where more than 50% of students have a total mental breakdown and develop clinical depression and massive anxiety disorders, which, because of the increased adrenaline production for being constantly stressed, causes massive physical health problems. It also increases the likely hood of self medicating with drugs and alcohol. You're right, it's setting them up to fail, but it's not because they're not facing adversity or that they don't understand hard work.
Side note, do you know how many people I know of who outright
lied about their education and work experience to get jobs? There's tons of them. When the job market demands experience, and you can't get any, people will lie like mad to get
anything.
Bishop Steiner, on 28 November 2014 - 04:30 AM, said:
Heh, IDK bro. Yo are a welder?
If I were you, I'd probably take a huge leap. Apply at an Technical Diving College. Underwater Welders get paid bank. You will have to travel a lot, and it's hard work. And yes, you start in debt. But you see a lot of the world, and it is a great, specialized industry (though potentially dangerous). But in this market, you either need to be self employed or specialized, probably, to really move forward.
I've given up on welding, or chasing the job market; Partly because I hated it when I was halfways through the course, and partly because I can't physically do it. Sent out resumes anyways, but none of them phone me back, so whatever. The few people I know who are doing well in life and happy with their life did what they wanted, and got good enough people will pay them for it. Just off the top of my head, one is Algis Bubnys, who's been a family friend since the 70's (World famous, I was there when we had two of the head engineers for VW waltz in and order pottery from him - He has a Seven year backorder) and the other is a self sustaining artist, Nemo. And the minute my GD friend gets back on with someone, he'll be back on this list.
All of them did what they wanted, and got somewhere for it. The realization that I lived two years of my life doing something I hated for what amounts to nothing is scary. Two years of being miserable every day Bishop. Nothing is worth puking on the side of the road every morning for the last two months of it; turns out the stress was literally killing me.
Life has to be worth living. Yes, I need a job, but I need to do what I enjoy, and get good enough that people will pay me to do it. This bullshit "shoot for the highest paying job" makes people miserable. My one friend is so stressed about what will happen when he's out of school he's massively sick all the time. So worried that he's going to become a no-one, and so sure the only way to be happy is to make it big.
That's the worst possible thing to reinforce.
I would rather be happy with my life with less money than miserable with more.
Besides, I can upcycle and buy and sell like a boss. If I want something, I'm going to get it. With that $30 I started with, not only did I pay for all that insurance, gas, rent; I also traded into a seven piece set of Super Takumar lenses, one Carl Zeiss lens and a Surface Pro 2. With Warranty. : D
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