You can't find help.

the 20 year old girl next door just bought a new Nissan crew cab truck.....

She lives at home with Mom and has a part time job, 

And now she has payments for 5 years....or more....

What would I have said......

Your old car is fine because you normally do not drive 10 miles from home.....

save your money and after Covid.............................Go to Europe and learn the world......

Yes I went to europe for 9 months when I was 21.......

Follow your dream.......

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

But no one wants to do concrete.....

I worked for a builder when I was in high school in the late 70's.  Once they were in a jam and asked me to help sling gravel from a big pile in one corner and toss it all around the basement so they can pour the floor.   

Two other 20 year old muscle dudes were with the concrete company and laughed at me being a skinny kid. I thought I was going to die.  

In reply to pheller :

Sounds like you had a bad experience and it very much hurt you emotionally. I'm not saying this to be mean I'm saying because of how much anger is in your post.

99 percent of the time if you don't quickly rise up the ladder, it's on you. Literally the laborer is by far the least efficient job you can have as a company. If the person can't do anything, they can't make the business money. Every single company I have ever worked for desperately wants to teach you so you can make them more money. Time is money too, efficiency matters a lot.

1 percent of the time they are shiny happy people. Don't work for shiny happy people for any period of time. Working for these people just makes the world worse because they must be destroyed.

I can only say that none of what you've described has happened to me. The company I've created has a 100 percent retention rate, one guy has worked with us for 23 years total and 12 with our company. None are treated anything like you posted.

Datsun310Guy said:

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

But no one wants to do concrete.....

I worked for a builder when I was in high school in the late 70's.  Once they were in a jam and asked me to help sling gravel from a big pile in one corner and toss it all around the basement so they can pour the floor.   

Two other 20 year old muscle dudes were with the concrete company and laughed at me being a skinny kid. I thought I was going to die.  

It is hard work at times lol

Especially when you work for someone who doesn't work efficiently too

We (as in everyone in the company) just received the choice, after 4 weeks of unpaid furlough taken since March 2020 and four more unpaid weeks coming before 4/1/21, of give up two weeks of vacation, or take a 5% pay cut for the next 12 months.  

But then again, most competitors are just E36 M3canning people, so ... ???  

Sucks all the way around, seems to me. 

The smartest, most clever, resourceful, humble, and handy people I know are in the trades. 

I was thinking about the trades last night as I was wiring up outlets in my basement, asking myself if I would have rather done that for 40 years than work as an engineer.   Then I got to figuring even if I did grunt electrical work for a few years (terminating outlets isn't exactly glamorous) it would have been temporary, and I would have ended up still doing what I do (sales, customer facing) just slinging different product.  Probably would have worked out fine.  At least I didnt have to undertake crushing student debt to figure it out.  

Student debt  is a massive problem , but we have talked ourselves into believing the a degree is needed ,

Teaching the trades is as important .......but they do not have a Football team to root for !

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

Datsun310Guy said:

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

But no one wants to do concrete.....

I worked for a builder when I was in high school in the late 70's.  Once they were in a jam and asked me to help sling gravel from a big pile in one corner and toss it all around the basement so they can pour the floor.   

Two other 20 year old muscle dudes were with the concrete company and laughed at me being a skinny kid. I thought I was going to die.  

It is hard work at times lol

 

Especially when you work for someone who doesn't work efficiently too

I did concrete work the summer before my final semester of college. Back breaking labor in the Oklahoma sun in the summer, it was miserable. I lasted one week before I quit.

Sure, $10/hr cash, under the table was better than having taxes taken out. But I went to a deli to run the cash register for $11/hr and was in an air conditioned building with food, drink, and a bathroom. Not on a job site sweating my ass off eating tacos out of an ice chest out of the back of someone's car. 

This was 2005. In my example, I suspect most people would make the same decision. 

californiamilleghia said:

Student debt  is a massive problem , but we have talked ourselves into believing the a degree is needed ,

Teaching the trades is as important .......but they do not have a Football team to root for !

About 20 years ago, companies started requiring ridiculous things like a master's degree in computer science to do $8/hour data entry.  Then wondered why people lined up zero deep.  (Or, cynically, used this to claim a lack of local talent, and imported workers via H1b)