Denim Deb
More Precious than Rubies
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Well, that's what I do, and I don't work in a cubical! 
SKR8PN.... two small butts........
- Thread starter SKR8PN
- Start date
Farmfresh
City Biddy
No Deb. You are an organic fertilizer distributor. 
AnnaRaven
Lovin' The Homestead
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I got my bachelor's degree from Stanford at 47. DS wants to be a chef. He may decide to go to culinary school. If so I'll support him in doing that. If not, he can go work. DD wants to be a writer and artist. She's currently attending community college studying psych and sociology and stuff to understand her characters better. This summer, she may be living in London for research for her writing.
I am all for college education, having run into the parchment ceiling myself. However, I am also very much in favor of people doing something they *care* about and not being forced to go to college just to do it.
I am all for college education, having run into the parchment ceiling myself. However, I am also very much in favor of people doing something they *care* about and not being forced to go to college just to do it.
curly_kate
Almost Self-Reliant
I thought going into teaching would guarantee me a job. I even have my special ed license, but the only place I can find a job right now is a crappy online school. Because of the economy, all of the schools around here are cutting instead of hiring, and given that I have 10 years of experience & a master's degree, I've pretty much priced myself out of a job. 
I wish I had been encouraged to look into trades when I was in high school, but that was unheard of at my Catholic high school. I think I would have enjoyed carpentry or landscaping....
I wish I had been encouraged to look into trades when I was in high school, but that was unheard of at my Catholic high school. I think I would have enjoyed carpentry or landscaping....
Farmfresh
City Biddy
curly_kate said:
It is never too late!
AL
Almost Self-Reliant
I went to a Jr College... got my EMT license and was going to work in that job for a little while, then go on to Paramedic. I ended up spending 5 years in a level 3 trauma center - doing registration. When I hit rock bottom I applied for a call center job - a year and a half later I was promoted to supervisor. I love my job. I love my employer. I love the pay and benefits. And I don't have to work outside helping mostly ungrateful people in dangerous (or trite) situations in the rain, cold, heat, hurricanes, rivers, Gulf of Mexico undertows, etc that my heroes do.
FarmerChick
Super Self-Sufficient
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I got lucky----I went to computer college for 1 year and learned it all and got a wonderful job as a programmer in CIGNA in CT. Made alot of money for a youngster and banked like mad. I worked 9 years there and moved to PA where I became a programmer/lead computer tech for a private insurance firm. Worked there 8 years and moved to NC where I became a temp worker. Sec jobs, etc. Then I pulled a 12 hr 3 day per week knitting job which was wild lol then I worked 7 years at an antique auto parts supplier in the tool room working with brass etc. I loved my working life. Downgrading all the time and loved every minute of it lol
and no college debt and not once did I have to suck off the govt. while putting myself into my future to earn income!
college is not for everyone and is not needed by everyone at all.
Nicole can do whatever she pleases when she gets older. I just got my fingers crossed she walks into a trade/career that PAYS well haha
If not, she can sell the farm when I croak and be a millionaire a few times over
and no college debt and not once did I have to suck off the govt. while putting myself into my future to earn income!
college is not for everyone and is not needed by everyone at all.
Nicole can do whatever she pleases when she gets older. I just got my fingers crossed she walks into a trade/career that PAYS well haha
If not, she can sell the farm when I croak and be a millionaire a few times over
lwheelr
Lovin' The Homestead
I'm seeing kids here at the U of Wyo getting college degrees in things they don't even want to do. When you ask them what they are studying, they tell you. When you ask them what they will do with the degree, they say, "Oh, I don't know. I guess I'll just go figure it out after College, as long as I have the degree I can get a job I really want." Now, these are kids with Ag or Business degrees, hoping to do something TOTALLY different. It is kind of bizarre, actually. They don't know what they want, they are just going through the motions until they complete what they consider the whole process, hoping when it is finished they'll get what they want - they don't even see any connection between what they are doing, and where they want to go!
There is a similar disconnect in the hiring market. Why do you need a college degree to get a job in Sales? There is NO degree in Sales, so why do you need a college degree to do a job that you have to learn on the job anyway?
Entry level jobs requiring a college degree are now often paying only minimum wage. The last time Kevin (hubby) was job hunting, everybody wanted a batchelor's degree for any job that sat you behind a desk or put you behind anything other than a cash register at McDonalds or Wal-Mart, and the thing is, they didn't pay any better!
Apprenticeships are dead. The reason they are dead is because the government tried to revive them. They could not resist the temptation to put all sorts of regulations on them and to make them into what THEY thought they ought to be.
In order to offer an apprenticeship, you have to pay the apprentice minimum wage, with an increase in salary every year. You cannot require a commitment of any length of employment for them after they've finished training.
Forget that. I'd train them, at MY expense, and then they'd be off to start their own business with what I taught them. I'd be carrying dead weight for at least six months (taking half my time to train them even on the simple stuff), minimal productivity for the next six months (still losing money), and a full two years to the point where they'd be fully productive. In the mean time I'm having to pay them as if they did know what they were doing. Training them also takes my time (or I have to hire a trainer) - which takes away from my business productivity, costing me even more, because my time is worth a heckuva lot more than minimum wage. This, in an industry where entry level is $12 to $15 per hour.
The only reason apprenticeships ever worked is because the master provided living quarters and food, and did NOT pay the apprentice. They started them in their teens at the latest, trained them on the job, and did not pay them until they finished a lengthy commitment. It substituted for schooling - and worked because the apprentices were generally too young to have a family to support.
Back then, they understood that this was NOT taking advantage of a worker. It was engaging in a fair trade - your labor on menial stuff for my training you in skilled stuff. A viable alternative to having the student PAY for training and make nothing anyway. At least with a traditional apprenticeship the apprentice got room and board and practical experience. You don't get any of that with a college degree. But then, a lot of kids don't care about that, since mom and dad or Uncle Sam is paying their way anyway, and since this way their cell phone is paid for.
But then, my son, who decided not to go to college, is a very skilled electronics guru. He works for GE. He does the job of a technical engineer. They pay him the wage of a support technician - which is half the pay. They won't pay him the wage of a technical engineer until he has the right papers to show that someone in an institution that doesn't even know what his job IS, has certified that he can do the job that he's been doing successfully for the last six months. They just promoted him to a position where he is doing upper level engineer work, and they are still paying him on the support tech pay scale. A college degree would only benefit him here because it is a high demand industry - there aren't many of those right now.
In many areas, college is now getting more expensive, and the benefits are getting less and less (unless you are in a high demand industry). This is another area of our economy that is due for a crash, though I don't quite know what form it will take when it comes.
Back to the land, I say! (My kids are rolling their eyes now whenever I suggest this is a solution - they are teenagers, you see, and that means they are MUCH smarter than I.)
But then, you know, if you give up a high tech business and substitute it for farming, it is obvious that you have suffered brain damage, and your IQ has dropped by half. They never think that I had a high IQ, which made me successful in my high tech business, and it is BECAUSE of that high IQ that I now want to farm.
Our inlaws are having a very hard time with the idea that their respectable suburban bred son is moving to Green Acres. That is honestly their opinion of farming of any kind, and they just can't get past it. Anything that involves dirt or manure in any form just CAN'T be socially acceptable.
There is a similar disconnect in the hiring market. Why do you need a college degree to get a job in Sales? There is NO degree in Sales, so why do you need a college degree to do a job that you have to learn on the job anyway?
Entry level jobs requiring a college degree are now often paying only minimum wage. The last time Kevin (hubby) was job hunting, everybody wanted a batchelor's degree for any job that sat you behind a desk or put you behind anything other than a cash register at McDonalds or Wal-Mart, and the thing is, they didn't pay any better!
Apprenticeships are dead. The reason they are dead is because the government tried to revive them. They could not resist the temptation to put all sorts of regulations on them and to make them into what THEY thought they ought to be.
In order to offer an apprenticeship, you have to pay the apprentice minimum wage, with an increase in salary every year. You cannot require a commitment of any length of employment for them after they've finished training.
Forget that. I'd train them, at MY expense, and then they'd be off to start their own business with what I taught them. I'd be carrying dead weight for at least six months (taking half my time to train them even on the simple stuff), minimal productivity for the next six months (still losing money), and a full two years to the point where they'd be fully productive. In the mean time I'm having to pay them as if they did know what they were doing. Training them also takes my time (or I have to hire a trainer) - which takes away from my business productivity, costing me even more, because my time is worth a heckuva lot more than minimum wage. This, in an industry where entry level is $12 to $15 per hour.
The only reason apprenticeships ever worked is because the master provided living quarters and food, and did NOT pay the apprentice. They started them in their teens at the latest, trained them on the job, and did not pay them until they finished a lengthy commitment. It substituted for schooling - and worked because the apprentices were generally too young to have a family to support.
Back then, they understood that this was NOT taking advantage of a worker. It was engaging in a fair trade - your labor on menial stuff for my training you in skilled stuff. A viable alternative to having the student PAY for training and make nothing anyway. At least with a traditional apprenticeship the apprentice got room and board and practical experience. You don't get any of that with a college degree. But then, a lot of kids don't care about that, since mom and dad or Uncle Sam is paying their way anyway, and since this way their cell phone is paid for.
But then, my son, who decided not to go to college, is a very skilled electronics guru. He works for GE. He does the job of a technical engineer. They pay him the wage of a support technician - which is half the pay. They won't pay him the wage of a technical engineer until he has the right papers to show that someone in an institution that doesn't even know what his job IS, has certified that he can do the job that he's been doing successfully for the last six months. They just promoted him to a position where he is doing upper level engineer work, and they are still paying him on the support tech pay scale. A college degree would only benefit him here because it is a high demand industry - there aren't many of those right now.
In many areas, college is now getting more expensive, and the benefits are getting less and less (unless you are in a high demand industry). This is another area of our economy that is due for a crash, though I don't quite know what form it will take when it comes.
Back to the land, I say! (My kids are rolling their eyes now whenever I suggest this is a solution - they are teenagers, you see, and that means they are MUCH smarter than I.)
But then, you know, if you give up a high tech business and substitute it for farming, it is obvious that you have suffered brain damage, and your IQ has dropped by half. They never think that I had a high IQ, which made me successful in my high tech business, and it is BECAUSE of that high IQ that I now want to farm.
Our inlaws are having a very hard time with the idea that their respectable suburban bred son is moving to Green Acres. That is honestly their opinion of farming of any kind, and they just can't get past it. Anything that involves dirt or manure in any form just CAN'T be socially acceptable.
FarmerJamie
Mr. Sensitive
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I don't know if I'm adding to the conversation, but I work in IT. I see the college degree overload. In years past, applicants for entry level programmer jobs were showing two masters degrees!!.
I got accused of possiblly being discriminatory by a peer manager because I turned down a foreign national with double masters whose only questions during the interview process was "how soon do I start getting raises and promotions?" I took a American citizen who met the job requirements, but was working in a grocery store - but he talked about his ideas around what he could bring to the company and my team. Thankfully, 3 years later, my hire did not let me or company down.
I could go on, but simply from where I sit in my field, the world has changed a lot in 25 years.
I got accused of possiblly being discriminatory by a peer manager because I turned down a foreign national with double masters whose only questions during the interview process was "how soon do I start getting raises and promotions?" I took a American citizen who met the job requirements, but was working in a grocery store - but he talked about his ideas around what he could bring to the company and my team. Thankfully, 3 years later, my hire did not let me or company down.
I could go on, but simply from where I sit in my field, the world has changed a lot in 25 years.
modern_pioneer
Mountain Man
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I have always liked you Jim, I kinda think we are alike in many ways. Not only have we had similar up bringings, but good minded business men as well. I don't dress up fancy, proper, slacks in church and special times.SKR8PN said:
I agree with you, but you have to have some of the elements that you and I know before people can do what we did. Many folks here do their own thing, and you always came across to me that you earned what you have and live the way you do because you want. I wouldn't suggest that my son do what I do/did because he hasn't take it all in yet.
It takes good hands, a good sound mind, and a lot of risk to start your own business... I started mine from a tax return in 2003.... I hope you don't mind me posting a picture on your thread, I will remove it if you want. But this is the birth of my dream....
An old metal gray desk, a 3 in one, a torch, and some copper.. LOL... The photo taken in black and white isn't because I am old. The film was cheaper than color and it was all I could afford...
But you sure don't need apiece of paper, know how and common sense go a long ways......
