Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:51:25 -0400
Reply-To: greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Greg Potts <greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Subject: Re: Are Today's Young People Mechanical Nitwits?
In-Reply-To: <000d01c8fe50$95e041c0$4001a8c0@gateway.2wire.net>
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Hi Don,
That's sad. Joy Hecht told me that last fall when I was working for a
local contractor and I was really surprised. Up here in "Soviet
Canuckistan" the tradesman is well respected and compensated
appropriately for his efforts. An experienced journeyman carpenter,
bricklayer, or plumber can easily pull down 6 figures here if they are
willing to work some overtime now and then.
In Southern Ontario the trades are screaming for skilled labour, and
the contractors are more than willing to pay a decent wage to get it.
Heck, even an uncertified "Handyman" can fetch $40/hr in the city
here. It's not a foolish career path in the least... At least not in
this market. YMMV.
Me, I work as a "Field Service Engineer", installing, repairing and
maintaining large format printers and vinyl cutters for the sign
industry. These are complex machines that implemented in customer
workflows that often involve a variety of different products from
other vendors. Servicing these systems requires a broad knowledge of
fluid dynamics, basic electronics, basic mechanical systems and an
understanding of colour science and ink chemistry. It can make for a
really interesting day repairing some of these things sometimes. In a
city of three million I bet there aren't ten people who could do my
job, and when I wound up downsized last year it took me eight months
to get back in the game. Why? Because it's often cheaper to replace a
broken printer with a newer faster cheaper unit than it is to repair
it. The technology for vinyl printing has been exploding into new
markets lately and the cost of entry into the business is dropping
like a rock. I learn something new every day, and I am enjoying it
immensely.
....And when I get home from a hard day at work, I relax under my
vanagon, and try to improve the sound of the exhaust or the movement
of the shift lever. Tonight I think I'll take the dash apart and see
if David Milo's instructions will help me resurrect the trip meter.
Quoting Don Hanson <dhanson@GORGE.NET>:
> Young people today (especially in the USA) don't need look very closely at
> life to know that those who do stuff with their hands, as in "the Trades"
> are now mostly living below poverty level.
> Remember those professions? "Tradesmen"? You know, Carpenters,
> Electricians, Plumbers, Mechanics, Painters..etc?. Not "Happening" any
> more. Learning how to do something like fix a car or hang a door...That is
> considered a waste of time and beneath a "real person"..All the trades seem
> to be handled by the illegals now, because they are jobs "Americans" won't
> do any more (for the money that's being paid, anyways)
> I know, having been a journeyman carpenter and sometime-contractor, that
> wages in the Trades are about what they were 20 years ago. Great money, if
> you are from south of the border. But you'd have to be a real fool to
> consider learning a trade as a career now...
> For a few years, I worked as a master shipwright, building and repairing
> custom sailboats in an upscale boatyard in the Northwest. One winter during
> a slow day, we got out all our past year's customer invoices and for
> curiosity went through to see what all our yacht owner-customers did for
> money....Of 300-odd customers only two actually did anything the resulted
> in 'real' results....by real, I mean created a 'widget' that they could sell
> or point to and say "That's what I do"...The yacht owners didn't do any
> manual labor at all...they bought, sold, advised, brokered, commissioned,
> etc..If they didn't do their money making jobs....nobody would miss their
> "product" because they have no product...except money..
> So youngsters today aren't dumb. They look around and see what is what.
> Then they decide to spend their time learning how to earn enough money to
> pay 'flunky's' to fix their Porsche Cayenne or their Hummer while they play
> tennis or golf and phone the office once or twice to make a few more mil...
> Getting dirty working on a car?...Out of fashion. Pounding a nail?
> Nah, you go by the local 7-11 and get a casual day labor guy to do that for
> you for a few bucks an hour..
> "Nitwits"? The young people today think working on a car is a
> nitwit-job and not worth doing..most of em. If they can pull it off, they
> may be right. I kinda like it, though...so I guess I'm a dinosaur, doing
> stuff with my own hands...
> Don Hanson
>
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