RE: DIRTY JOBS CAN BE GOOD JOBS

So as is my want, I scroll through Facebook in the mornings watching ‘friends’ lament about their children, children who’ve got no life skills lament about politics as they still live at home with their parents because it’s tough out there, other folks complaining about other peoples lives, and then of course general stupidity running rampant…yeah, I don’t need soap operas I have social media.  It’s always nice though to read something from Mike Rowe and this morning it was an article he’d shared that was about him from National Review.

I read the article, I liked the article (the link is above) what got stuck in my craw though was a comment from a guy simply going by TJ that said “Yes, there are alternatives to college, but in this day and age, there can only be so many plumbers and electricians.”

I just had to shake my head, because while this mysterious TJ is correct in that “Engineers, doctors, and other highly technical positions still need to be filled.” You can never have enough plumbers and electricians in my humble opinion, lol, but I guess that’s just life experience telling me that if you have a plumbing emergency (and I have before) it’ll be at least 24 hours before someone gets out because they’re usually booked up. I’ll never forget my neighbors plight with water spewing all over her bathroom and her not being able to do a thing about it because nobody knew where the shut off valve for the house was, the good news was the walls pretty much washed themselves at 11 PM.

😉

I guess what I am saying is that we also need people with trade skills, not just a ton of kids coming out of college with a piece of paper that states they have the basic knowledge needed to do some technical job.  For example, nobody would get to where their fancy papered jobs are if it weren’t for road workers. BTW there are usually a ton of available positions in road work starting at laborer if you’re interested, yes you have to start at the bottom because unless you’ve got experience… at the bottom is where you get the beginnings of it for your future trade but working to feed yourself is better than being hungry. 

Just yesterday Dave told me that two of the pipe crew at his job went to lunch and just never came back, a couple weeks before that the ‘new guy’ ran into something with the heavy equipment, showed up clothed in a tank top which is considered improper for their line of work according to the DOT (after he’d had orientation and the company manual that he had to sign off on mind you) and then just wasn’t there anymore and is now the ‘new guy they had’

Is there a point to this rambling? Yes, it’s that, while college is good if you want to get the basics for a technical job (because I guarantee whatever company hires you will also have things you need to learn) it’s not the only beneficial way to get a job out there in the real world…you’d be amazed how fulfilling and lucrative being in construction, lawn care, well drilling, and a variety of overlooked trades really can be. Heck on our way to Disney (finally, lol, it only took us years to get there) we stopped off for a quick bite before we left town and Dave was very animated while pointing out the window and saying, “I dug out that retention pond there and all this sidewalk that you see here on the right. It’s something that people see or utilize everyday and don’t even think twice about but the work I did was useful and the quality of my work will last for years”

And that’s why we like and agree with Mike Rowe, he’s one of us, the people who do the jobs that need to be done that always need more people to do them and are often overlooked.  College isn’t the onlyanswer to a fulfilling career.