I hear you about having a degree. I have two associate degrees in electronics. That's what got me in the door. After that, I have 29 years of on the job training. Without going into great detail, they have literally tens of thousands of dollars invested in me in factory training on heavy machinery, computer software and hardware and management training. I'm the only person in the building that can do every other production person's job, including the managers. However, about 4-5 years ago, corporate took over all I.T. operations(and I.T. is where I landed), and they only hire people with certification. All it matters to them is that those people have great looking resume's. They don't take into account that they have never been at a job longer than three years. All those types of people do is get a job, have their employer pay for certification, then look for another job that pays more. They don't actually do anything but try and implement what they learned in school, without taking into account how it affects 24/7 production. I can't count the number of systems we've started implementing and ended up tearing it out before it was even completed satisfactorily. Its quite frustrating. And.... once you start getting up there in age, and they've been giving you a 25 or 50 cent raise every year, all of a sudden, after 30 years, you're make $10 an hour more than new hires, some bean counter thinks they can hire two kids to replace on old timer (doesn't matter that you do the work of three)... so they give you a unique job title, then eliminate that position in 6 months and quote Sipowizc 10:42
