We know, we know, you have a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies and a master’s degree in alt-queer sexuality. Yet with all of this “brilliant” academic achievement, you had a grand total of . . . zero job offers related to your “expertise”. So you’re working as a barista at a coffee shop and hate your life. A plumber came by this morning to fix the uni-sex toilet. You treated him with disdain because you have unresolved “daddy issues” and he reminded you too much of your father who was also a blue collar worker. Let’s face it, you and your fellow Radical Leftist friends look down upon such working men because you all know how much more enlightened and wise you are compared to Average Joes like this guy. The fact that his invoice billed your coffee shop at $140/hour for the work he did vs. the $12/hour you make only reinforced your certainty that the patriarchy has kept your talents from being recognized your entire life.
For such folks, and all akin to their ilk, we offer you the following:
Love that guy. I’ve got the degrees (3! foolishly 2 Nuclear Engineering degrees!) and I wish here toward the tail end of my career I would have started my utility career as a lineman. I may have never left that job field, but if I did I would know and understand so much more about my company.
Yes sir. I can only imagine where I’d be now if I’d gone off to unibursitee….
Oops! Mike Rowe is about to be targeted for complete and total destruction. He dared suggest that All University Professors and Universities are charging massive $$$ fees … for what can be learned with a smartphone and an internet connection. Oops! That’s $trillions in endowments and taxpayer guaranteed loans Mike is separating them from.
Mike. Must. Be. Destroyed.
Kenji, the same idiots who think Mike is wrong would be sweating bullets if their roof was leaking, there was a major electrical short, their sump pump stopped pumping, the a/c a/cing, their car would not start, I will throw in computers as well because they are techs as well. Most people take the jobs and people that keep them alive for granted. Every job except a politicians is a necessary job.
Any degree in a subject that ends with “Studies” isn’t even worth its weight in toilet paper and much rougher on the poor derriere.
I just hope the Wuhan Crud will destroy useless faculties polluting our institutions of higher learning. Setting up entire departments devoted to “gender”, “women” and “queer” studies just so low-IQ, otherwise unemployable lesbians could get sinecures was a moronic move.
My parents were journeymen in their respective trades, but they wanted me to go further than they did. What they didn’t foresee at first was that I would eventually continue my studies and add 3 graduate degrees in two engineering disciplines, including a doctorate.
But I never forgot my blue collar background and upbringing. I didn’t set out to study all the way through after finishing my B. Sc. because I wanted to put what I learned into practice by going into industry.
Many of the people I knew in grad school looked upon me with disdain because I did something “vocational”. (“Well, if you were any good….”) I’m sure that was one reason I never got a university faculty position, not that it matters any more.
But that blue collar heritage, plus my time in industry (some of which was actually spent getting myself dirty), has helped me while I’m settling my father’s estate. I can often talk with tradesmen and contractors as a result or, at least, ask an informed question. I’m sure that being my father’s son also got a few things done for me.
My father was a literature professor in China, but we came with the clothes on our backs when I was thirteen. His English was not good enough to teach Chinese literature here, and did menial jobs, as so did my mother, until we could buy a mama and poppa grocery store.
But it turns out my father was very handy, which is pretty much against the stereotype. He did all the household maintenance, be in electrical, plumbing, or woodwork. (For the store, he learned enough butchering to turn a side of beef into different cuts of steak.) He was my hero, and I never looked down on “blue collar workers.” Heck, they made a lot more use of their apprenticeship than me. It turns out I was much more suited for solving engineering problems than theoretical physics, wherein I got my degrees.
I did all the maintenance around the house and in the apartments when I was younger, but the best I can say about myself is I was adequate, so I have a lot of admiration for people who excel. As I do for anyone who excels in a worthwhile field, be in letters, arts, or STEM. But not for anyone whose useless degree is in ethnic or gender studies.
That $140/hr?. $40 for fixing the leak. $100 for knowing how.
It’s an old invoice joke.
Actually the $140 is the company charge for services. The plumber gets a small fraction of this, probably under $40/hr and likely under $30/hr. Then there is shop overhead: truck, fuel, tools and equipment, payroll overhead (eg SS taxes, unemployment, worker comp, retirement etc) and business taxes, liability insurance, management overhead, rent, utilities etc etc etc. Now if the plumber owns or part owns the company then their income after all that will also reflect the ownership payout.
“That $140/hr?. $40 for fixing the leak. $100 for knowing how.”
I thought it was more like $5 and $135.
A lot of that can be done by oneself if one has some tools and knows where to get information.
At my house in B. C., my kitchen faucet developed a nasty leak. I wasn’t sure if I needed a plumber, so I looked through a number of YouTube videos and figured out what was wrong and what needed to be done.
It was a nicked o-ring that caused the problem. (Elastomeric materials get old eventually.) Some replacement parts, along with using some of the tools I inherited from my father, and the leak was fixed in less than 15 minutes. It cost me a few $$ for the new rings plus the fuel I used to drive to and from the store.
“It was a nicked o-ring that caused the problem. (Elastomeric materials get old eventually.)”
I learned that the hard way.
Work ethics is probably the main issue.
Specially if you work for the government and a union.
Working government job may mean that you just sit there and ruminate on what is it that you are supposed to do,
You do a quarter job, half job, three quarter job, if you are in a union, you are fine, they will save your skin.
This applies to large corporations in a much lesser degree, if you’re not producing, eventually you are history.
It is many times amazing to watch city workers meander, yap on the phone, discuss the new partner or just stand there instead of doing their job.
Never could understand those that have a job and do just about everything else but it.
What is their purpose in life?
Wouldn’t you think that doing your job would be more satisfying than doing everything to avoid it?
“Work ethics is probably the main issue.”
Indeed. And that’s why we hire the local Mennonite lads for the stuff I cant do. They don’t piss around on their cell phones; they work like demons; they take pride in their work; and in the rare case where there is an issue, it’s handled immediately.
My wife and I are at the age and physical condition that we hire stuff done. I gave all my power tools to my son several years back. General maintenance sure. Every thing else, hit the Rolodex.
I learned a “trade”. Geology. Rocks. Rocks don’t lie, people who read them do. They are on the local exchange under “Penny stocks”, or junior Oil and Gas. Sometimes even the biggies get caught. Heavy on the junior. Ever heard of the term “mine the public”? Some of them are oil and gas stocks. I’ve actually drilled wells for people like that, or had job interviews with similar mining types, where they use your expertise to further their ends at your expense. They are a slippery bunch. Wear protection when dealing with them.
Remember Bre X? There’s thousands of Bre X’s out there and starry eyed “investors” following them. Better odds “playing” thoroughbred racing. Never bet on the trotters, though. Rule Number One is: never look a gift horse in the mouth. Rule Number Two: there’s a sucker born every minute…don’t be a sucker. The current house horny are gonna find out there ain’t no free lunch and never borrow more than you can afford on your monthly salary, and definitely not your VISA. Especially from family. Rule Number Three: get rich slowly. I’ve been doing so for 40 years. I’m still not rich and plenty of wrenches being thrown around will derail anyone’s get rich schemes. Fast or slow. That first wrench seems to be always gubermint. There’s something new from them every spring. Taxes. Get a copy of the Income Tax Act. Read it. Saved me a lot of money over the years. Use it to your advantage.
There, some School of Hard Knocks advice from a Boomer, Millsnots. We aren’t all Flower Children. You’re about to discover what we Boomers have experienced the last 50 years. >Gov sucks and they aren’t working for you.
Got a problem today? Go into the bathroom and look in the mirror.
I’ve had my experiences with penny oil and mining stocks. Some made money for me while I lost my shirt on others. It’s all part of the investment game.
On a related subject, a number of comments on this thread have been about vocational skills. I’ll add an equally practical one: if anyone is an investor, they should learn to read and analyze an annual financial report. It’s not tough to do. There are books on the subject available and one doesn’t need a university degree to figure out when a company’s in hock over its ears.
Being able to figure out an annual report may not make one rich, but it’ll lessen the chances of losing money by pointing out the obvious clunkers.
A tap in the bedroom was leaking yesterday so off I went to buy a valve.Only took 10 minutes to fix and I said to my wife, “there your tap is fixed”
She said how come its always my things that need fixing.
I said, well thats how it is.You or someone else breaks it and I get to fix it.
Credentialism is the problem. Schools and Professional Guilds get together and scratch each other’s back to up the ante and screw you. My late wife was an RN (at least in the Netherlands) but could not find work here in BC unless she went back to school for a year. It would appear that to the credentialists the Netherlands is a third world country. Her training required 4 years of Nursing School right out of high school, not unlike an apprentice programme, where they mix classroom theory with practical skillsets. But here in Canada the credentialists came about. Must have a BSc to be a nurse, preferably a MSc. Teacher? Used to be an undergraduate degree plus a year of Teacher’s College was all it took. Now they want you to have a MA ED plus 2 years of Teacher’s College – and on and on it goes. Being in the Navy for 37 years I witnessed that genesis of an Officer Corp that required an MBA to do the job right. That then morphed into an Executive MBA programme, which equates to very big bucks. I had to laugh at that because the only business that the military should be trained for is…COMBAT. You do not need a business degree for that. Then again in Canada the military is no longer allowed to use gender based pronouns. After all being gender neutral is part of the MBA solution – don’t you know.
Excellent Vid-Commentary..!!
Up till my 30th birthday…managed to “Climb the Corporate ladder” and become a Cab Owner driver in Calgary…ha, that lasted all of about 10 mo.
Had A buddy who was working as a welder on the LRT Tunnel under Boot Hill, got me on as a labourer and in 3 months I had my Blue book (apprenticeship book to record yer hrs). 3 yrs later had my Journeyman Ticket, and no sooner was I working Turdo 1 slammed the door with the NEP. (MoFo)…so bk in the Cab for a cpl yrs…then finally wrangled myself a slot in Welding Engineering at SAIT…Graduated class of ’86 at 36
5 yrs later certified as a Level II Welding inspector. Been doing that for near 16 yrsNow I take on mostly QA work…Inspecting the inspectors in a semi retired capability… Trades were good to me….and gave me the basis for Carpentry, Electrical, Plumbing and some level of proficiency in Auto mechanics.
No REGRETS.
You don’t have to go all in on a “hard” trade, a good option is still Learn to Code. But when you’re at home make sure you can do your own damn carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and auto repair. Being able to change out parts in your dishwasher and dryer are pretty good things to know too.
Don’t do auto repair, haven’t done any for years, too specialised. However plumbing, electrical, carpentry done plenty over the years. Kitchen reno I did the plumbing and electrical. Had a framing crew and gyproc guy do the heavy work. No Youtube in those days either.
Plumber rates: https://patch.com/us/across-america/home-101-how-find-right-plumber-what-itll-cost
Dissertation season in the UK is both funny and sad.
https://twitter.com/moldbugman/status/1262274831560499203