Re: A lost age, well we see it again?
The alternative is....would you like fries with that sir? Lots of uneducated people in the states.
Well that's a huge part of the problem now isn't it? We're not gonna have much of an economy if it is built on "service" jobs like McDs. Auto techs can make damn good money, but today need to be even smarter than they were 40 yrs ago. And those places I'm sure are cleaner than back then too.
So $24,000 a year to $36,000 a year for a salary is not enough?
Hmmmm.
Plus overtime and bonuses.
Hmmmm.
Hourly rate x 2000 hrs a yr. ( 50 wks x 40 hrs a week+ 2 weeks vacation not factored in but given ) + benefits and other perks factored in. Math does not lie.
Hmmmmmmmm..
No it isn't if you want to raise a family, in a decent home, while spending enough time with the kids to keep them from shooting up a school yard. At $23+ with no hope for OT, and ZERO benefits, my wife and i barely scrape by on one income. But we are satisfied in the knowledge we are raising well adjusted kids. I haven't had a raise since 09, and have seen my "real" income drop by 10% or more every year since, just in the loss of OT, and benefits.
Of course on the other side of that, in my opinion $18.00 is too much for essentially an unskilled button pusher that has no pride in their work. $29.00 was way too much for someone that was hanging a door on car in my opinion too. Is it physically demanding, sure, probably more so than programming CNCs, and making prototype parts. But if we use those old scales, I should have been making $40.00 an hour for the last 3 yrs, or so. I know that will never happen unless I go into management, which, one won't happen where I'm at now, and 2 I don't want anyhow. So I make due with what I have.
I see in this video alot of stuff from when I was young. Long days and nights doing hard work and getting dirty, But I always found a joy in doing it. To me coming home to a place I called my own which was warm and dry and had food in the fridge was a great pay off, If there was extra then treat yourself but never deprive yourself of the basic standard of living. Now a days this is not even close enough for the new generation, they want huge houses new cars every 3 years and only work 8-5 mon-friday and have 4 weeks payed vacation.
But the other thing that really bothers me is that, alot of kids think that only dumb people who can't go to university go into trades, This is so very very wrong. I would say that you have to be a decently smart person to become a machinist or electrician or plumber or carpenter and so on. Again though problems arise, Since not alot of people will do trades the people that do want an outlandish wage for which to do there trade. Making a living just is not enough for people anymore I guess.
I don't not I guess I am rambling on now, Just when they said they took great pride in there work it kinda made me think. Getting some one to work for you that will actually show up on time let alone work is getting hard to come by...man how things have gotten.
Almost sounds like supply and demand, but I know that isn't the case. If it were I'd be able to go to any shop as a CNC guy and make $40.00 base rate, cuz remember there is a shortage of machinists, and CNC machinists too. Reality is that this "shortage" does not exist, and around here, there isn't a single shop that's gonna pay anyone much more than $24.00 an hour regardless of how much skills or experience they have.
I personally don't want ANY of the new cars, don't like the looks, and there's too much nanny-nazi gizmos driving up the cost of purchase and repair anyhow. Huge house, hell now costs too much to heat and cool what i have now. I used to be able to get 4weeks plus off, hell I would've had 6 weeks in 2011, but my former employer went under due to bad management, and the higher ups ******* off long time customers. Now I count myself lucky to have a job I like, with a company that I "fit in " with, while making the same base wage as in 09. My wife thinks our kids should go to college, and I keep telling her hell no, they are not gonna start their adult lives with piles of debt to take a non-existent job that can be outsourced anyhow. I tell her they're gonna be mechanics, or plumbers or some other skilled trade that absolutely cannot be outsourced. Now I'm rambling incoherently...
