MosquitoMoto wrote:{snip} in wider society, manual trades are often portrayed as undesirable meathead jobs occupied by people not smart enough to go to college.
The holy grail is to go to college, graduate, work in an office, wear a suit, delegate. Leave the menial stuff to the hordes of underpaid dumb arses.
And this is an attitude we need to change. In a globalized economy we're going to need to re-think this mentality, big time. The problem for this country right now is, we can't use the word "infrastructure" without describing it as "crumbling". If there are so many roads, bridges, airports, power grids, etc etc etc on the verge of collapse, why are we not fixing them? If nothing else we need a resurgence of respect for the trades so we can fix the things that are broken.
Our parents fought the Second World War and are called "The Greatest Generation". I'd love to see this current generation called "The Fixed It Generation".
MosquitoMoto wrote:{snip} in wider society, manual trades are often portrayed as undesirable meathead jobs occupied by people not smart enough to go to college.
The holy grail is to go to college, graduate, work in an office, wear a suit, delegate. Leave the menial stuff to the hordes of underpaid dumb arses.
And this is an attitude we need to change. In a globalized economy we're going to need to re-think this mentality, big time. The problem for this country right now is, we can't use the word "infrastructure" without describing it as "crumbling". If there are so many roads, bridges, airports, power grids, etc etc etc on the verge of collapse, why are we not fixing them? If nothing else we need a resurgence of respect for the trades so we can fix the things that are broken.
Our parents fought the Second World War and are called "The Greatest Generation". I'd love to see this current generation called "The Fixed It Generation".
That's a nice story. Tell it to Reader's Digest.
All kidding aside, this is what the president elect claims that he wants to do. Without getting political, globalism is designed to destroy prosperous nations and make everyone dependant on the nanny state. President elect is already giving many of us pause for concern with some of his candidates for cabinate posts. We'll see what the future holds very soon but I'm not holding my breath for campaign promises to come true.
Call me a cynic. Guilty as charged.
It's the same here - of the entire nation to choose from you get a choice of 2 complete pricks you can vote for - the red robbing bar steward or the blue robbing bar steward - both will make promises they can't & have no intention of keeping once elected & once in power all they're mates get cushy jobs earning silly money while the real people get shafted - don't see it improving & really not worth voting - I know a lot of people who don't generally vote turned out to get rid of that b1tc# Thatcher - sadly the alternative was no better - maybe worse ! seems like you guys are in the same boat - I don't want to be this cynical only in my 50's - but I think I should have been born like 40 years previous as I feel I would have had a useful life back then - anyone got a DeLorean I could borrow ? ! ending on a good note I like modern inverter welders & having sites like this with like minded guys on the WWW makes things a bit brighter.
exnailpounder wrote:the idiot that waits on you , that probably make as much money as you do, screws up your order and you wonder why you STILL love what you do?
I believe that everybody has his own talent, not all just havent found it yet.
If I was flipping burgers I would probably screw up your order worse
We can actually set globalism/politics aside for a moment and focus instead on Taylorism/Fordism/Scientific Management or whatever you want to call it.
Broadly...the breaking down of a task into small components, each of which can be handled by a semi-skilled/unskilled worker.
Example; when Henry Ford introduced his Assembly Line system, the skilled coach builders in his employment were outraged. These guys were craftsman metalworkers, now being asked to fit/assemble a single part as the car moved down the line, and to do it for far less money than they were accustomed to. They complained, protested...then left. Ford replaced them with cheaper, less skilled workers who were happy to take a small amount of money more as compensation for the boring nature of their work than recognition of any skills that they had, which had been the case with the craftsman coach builders.
And so the rot set in
This 'modern' work model sees every task as an opportunity to modularise, break down a task, save money. The problem is, it also over-simplifies situations and takes no account of attitude. So, it sees a weldor as a weldor as a weldor. They're all the same, right? Same certification, same skills, surely? The situation we see today with hiring is driven by suits who see a list of weldors and hire the cheapest one because in their eyes, two weldors with identical certification are identical welders. There is no time put into researching attitude, personality, human traits. Spending time on that would be inefficient!
Suits put in charge of projects requiring skilled manual labour. Never ends well. Show me a project running well, with a good, cohesive team and quality work being done, and I'll show you a project being run by a guy at the top who has a background and probably experience in the trades he is overseeing.
MosquitoMoto wrote:
Suits put in charge of projects requiring skilled manual labour. Never ends well. Show me a project running well, with a good, cohesive team and quality work being done, and I'll show you a project being run by a guy at the top who has a background and probably experience in the trades he is overseeing.
Kym
I have a friend who is a supervisor at McKenney Mechanical and the quote above just hit the nail on the head with his situation. He makes a little over $32/hr but gets all kinds of bonuses if he brings a project in under time and under budget. He started out as a low paid grunt in the union is is banging down a good deal over $100K/year now. Not too bad for a guy who never finished high school and has only been in the trade for a bit over 8 years.
I believe location and timing play a large part of it too. It seems I made more money as an auto mechanic in Houston than I did in Florida. And speaking of mechanics, I was an ASE Certified Master Auto Tech and worked at dealerships. The most I ever made per hour was just over $10 hr. But there were always those lazy dumbass people that always said "I don't do engine work" or "I don't do electrical work" or "I don't do front end alignments" or "I don't do transmissions" or "I don't do rear axles". So they would get all the easy gravy work like required maintenance and end up with a bigger check than me most of the time because I was doing all the other work, mostly under warranty and paid by the warranty times, where the "dumb guy" was rolling in the dough. Hated it. And the management let them get away with it because the work needed to get done or customers would be angry. Arrrrghhh.
I've got a good friend that also worked for BMW and if a job was supposed to take two hours he got paid for two hours no matter how long it took or which rookie screwed it up and left him to fix it. So he started his own business and he's doing well but his advise to me was if you've got a decent job keep it. Don't start your own business.
I hear that a lot and just wonder if the devaluing of the trades has also lowered the incentive to work for yourself. In my neck of the woods finding a welding job that pays over $15-$16 and hour is tough. They're out there but your lucky to get it. Also at $15 an hour your not likely to ever get a raise. I know. I've been there. You guys are all so right about the past comments and points you've made. Makes me glad to be on this site to be able to relate. Y'all keep your heads up though. Circumstances can't take away your pride. Keep pushing and doing what you know how to do and even if the $$ ain't quite right the end result can be something you're proud of.
jroark wrote:I've got a good friend that also worked for BMW and if a job was supposed to take two hours he got paid for two hours no matter how long it took or which rookie screwed it up and left him to fix it. So he started his own business and he's doing well but his advise to me was if you've got a decent job keep it. Don't start your own business.
I hear that a lot and just wonder if the devaluing of the trades has also lowered the incentive to work for yourself. In my neck of the woods finding a welding job that pays over $15-$16 and hour is tough. They're out there but your lucky to get it. Also at $15 an hour your not likely to ever get a raise. I know. I've been there. You guys are all so right about the past comments and points you've made. Makes me glad to be on this site to be able to relate. Y'all keep your heads up though. Circumstances can't take away your pride. Keep pushing and doing what you know how to do and even if the $$ ain't quite right the end result can be something you're proud of.
Pride is something that is severely lacking in the people of this country and apparently other countries as well. Pride is something you have to give away and no one will ever take mine. I see alot of prideful people come around here and it lifts me up. We might be a dying breed but we don't ever have to hang our heads in shame.
Pride is listed as one of the "seven deadly sins", which comes not from the bible, but from a busy-body. Pride, at the time of that writing, did not mean what it does today. It was more akin to today's great sin, "arrogance".
There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your work. I can even quote the bible on that one...
"Do you see an man who excels at his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men." Proverbs 22:29 (Gideon version, as it was closest.)
Arrogance makes Hitlers and Hillarys, Stalins and Sharptons.
I take pride in a job well done, and feel deep shame any time I come up short and have to rework something. That's a healthy "stick and carrot" way to make yourself better.
Otto Nobedder wrote:Pride is listed as one of the "seven deadly sins", which comes not from the bible, but from a busy-body. Pride, at the time of that writing, did not mean what it does today. It was more akin to today's great sin, "arrogance".
There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your work. I can even quote the bible on that one...
"Do you see an man who excels at his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men." Proverbs 22:29 (Gideon version, as it was closest.)
Arrogance makes Hitlers and Hillarys, Stalins and Sharptons.
I take pride in a job well done, and feel deep shame any time I come up short and have to rework something. That's a healthy "stick and carrot" way to make yourself better.
Hated it. And the management let them get away with it because the work needed to get done or customers would be angry. Arrrrghhh.
