Our Dependencies

   / Our Dependencies #52  
<font color=blue>An education: whether it be high school, trade school, an aprrenticeship or college, will open many doors</font color=blue>

and to go a little further, the education doesn't have to come from our education industry. IMHO, an educated man is one who realizes that he doesn't know as much as he'd like to and never stops learning. And thereby never stops making himself more valuable, and - in fact - invaluable.

Reading, writing, seminars, courses, TBN, CBN, heck, the education never stops.

An uneducated man, on the other hand ... is one that already knows everything that he wants to know ....
 
   / Our Dependencies #53  
If you've been on here before you know I don't agree with those salaries either. I also have been outspoken that I think healthcare is way too high as well.

Kio,

What I said applies to any professional or entrepeneur. You have to work hard, take risks, and go way above and beyond what an 8 hour a day job calls for to be successful. A motto I have carried with me and put where I could see it everyday is:

Decide what you want; decide what you are willing to exchange for it; establish your priorities and go to work.
 
   / Our Dependencies #54  
<font color=blue>...TBN, CBN, heck, the education never stops</font color=blue>

Right you are, Wingnut! I get more education and information from this website than I would have ever thought possible when I discovered TBN about a year and a half ago!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
 
   / Our Dependencies #55  
<font color=red>Do you really think it's the salaries of the execs that got United into hat water?</font color=red>

DO YOU THINK IT IS THE JANITORS WAGES THAT GOT THE UNITED STATES IN TROUBLE ???
 
   / Our Dependencies #56  
United had the highest wages in the airline industry, and they had a full service airline that charged thrifty Southwest like fares. I could have told you that they were going to go bankrupt a couple of years ago. I know this since as an overeducated type that while not doing real work qualified for the Premier Executive level in their frequent flier program. That's over 50,000 miles in one year. The sad part is that I only fly within the U.S. borders and United isn't the only airline that I flew last year.

I can't compare myself to CowboyDoc and his level of dedication, but I agree that many people put in plenty of sacrifice to get an education. I enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school, since I was the 5th of 6 kids in a single income blue collar family. I couldn't imagine paying a couple thousand dollars a year for college. Who has that type of money? /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I learned something in the Navy...you get out of life what you put into it. I decided to get an education when my Navy time was up. I first took a job for UPS and became a Teamster, but I knew that I needed to get an education if I want to make the most of my life. I left that job, and became a United Steel Worker when I took full-time assembly line job in a barrel factory when I started college. So, I'm at school from 8:00 am to 3:00pm, then I drive to the factory, start work at 3:30pm and work until midnight. I did that for one year, and I was burning out quickly, so I decided to go to school full-time and try to live off of my Navy veteran benefits. I did the next 3 years worth of school in only two years since I was sinking into debt, but that's O.K. because I graduated magna *** laude (high grades) and got academic fellowship grants upon entering grad school and paid-off my credit cards. Grad school in Engineering is great, unlike Medical school they pay your tuition and give you a salary of $12-18k/yr to work as an indentured servant for the next six years. The only drawback is that my undergrad buddies are making $40-45k/yr. That's O.K., I don't really need a home or a nice car, I'm 30yrs old and still in school, but my sacrifices will be worth it someday. Moving forward, I'm now done with school and get a job, I don't know much about what I'm supposed to do, but everyone calls me doctor and they expect great things from me. So instead of being shown what to do, the primary skill I gained in all of those years of education is how to learn. So now, I teach myself my new job. My co-workers don't have any idea how to do what I do...that's why they hired a "Doc" to do the job. I become an expert in the field, soon there are only a couple people in the country that rival my knowledge and they have been doing it many more years than me. People need my skills, I start serving on committees and I start representing my company and gain new contracts and begin to hire people to support me. I work long hours, and on weekends. I generally do work e-mails side-by-side with posting to TBN during the evening. I have 4 trips to CA,OH,TX, & MA planned for January alone. Yes, half the time I'm on TBN, I'm reading it from some motel room. I work very hard, but to some folks it's not work since there's no dirt under my finger nails. Despite the hours and the travel, I love my job.

Here's a quick rundown of jobs's I've had:

Odd /summer jobs: Golf caddy, baker's assistant, night cleaning crew x 2, security gaurd.

U.S. Navy: My final final Navy assignment was classified as arduous duty, it was mentally and physically draining. It was made worse, since I realized that I could be doing something better with my life. I'm not knocking the Navy, but I didn't have saltwater in my veins.

The Teamsters work was physically demanding, but wasn't that tough of a job. When the shift was over, the job was done.

The Steel Worker position wasn't challenging at all, plenty of breaks and B.S. sessions. Again when the whistle blew the job was done, you go home and don't think about work until tomorrow.

The grad assistant position, not that bad, you were at school anyway, and eventually much of this stuff would end up in your dissertation and publications.

My current position, I believe is the hardest job that I ever had. The position is mentally demanding, and I'm being pulled in many different directions. There's no overtime, but that doesn't stop me from working on the weekends or late at night. I choose to work this way, because I'm making the most of my life and I really enjoy what I am doing. To emphasize my point, I don't have any desire for early retirement.

I've worked with my back and I've worked with my brain...I've gone home with back-aches and I've gone home with head-aches. Since, I've worked in both world, let me tell you all this...it's hard work no matter if you use your brain or your back. Well, that is, if you are a hard worker, there are slackers in all walks of life.

Finally, I don't think a janitor deserves to make my type of salary, espescially since when I was a janitor I only made $6/hr. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
 
   / Our Dependencies #57  
<font color=blue>I choose to work this way, because I'm making the most of my life and I really enjoy what I am doing.</font color=blue> Isn't that the best part no matter where or what else we're doing?
 
   / Our Dependencies #58  
Amen to that......if you are happy and healthy thats what matters.........
 
   / Our Dependencies #59  
<font color=blue>DO YOU THINK IT IS THE JANITORS WAGES THAT GOT THE UNITED STATES IN TROUBLE ??? </font color=blue>

Yes

the laborer is worthy of his hire. <font color=blue>True</font color=blue> But when the laborer is paid more than the value he returns ... the economy is in trouble.

I do not (and never will have) the education of BigDave or CowboyDoc ... and never saw the value of formal education as they did .... but I did always understand the value of knowing more than my counterparts in my chosen field(s).

I, too, started at the bottom of the totem pole ... my family emigrated to Canada from Germany in the early 50's. Because of the times, my father's engineering degree was not recognized and he worked at unskilled labor jobs to make ends meet ... not. I went to a different school every year (sometimes more than one) since we couldn't pay the rent and had to move. Higher education ... that was a dream for people with incomes. During junior high I worked as a bag boy at Safeway to help out. During high school and my first year of tech (Forestry) I worked evenings (weekdays) and nights (weekends) on the dock at a freight company ... learning everything I ever wanted to know about unions. As BigDave said .... physical but not mental (mental was very much discouraged). After I decided Forestry (in Canada at least) wasn't for me, I worked on a survey crew marking out a railbed in northern Alberta for 3 months. I drove fork truck in a Sears warehouse for 3 months. While waiting for boot camp - yeah I joined the RCAF just as that commie Trudeau amalgamated all the Canadian forces together into green jumpsuits - I parked cars.
I lasted 3 years in the Canadian Armed Farces (medic) before I decided there had to be real life out there somewhere.
I moved to the high arctic and got a job as a "storesman" ... looking after 7 storerooms flung across 2000 miles of tundra. I finally found sometjhing I was good at and enjoyed ... analyzing parts usage ... part of my job was ordering the right amount of spares to keep the power plants running for a year ... and having them shipped up the Mackenzie river during the 2 month "summer" on barges. I had to be right or it was very expensive (parts would have to be flown in from 300 miles away).
From there I graduated to a new company mining tar sands in Northern Alberta ... I was the 100th employee ... the first non-managerial, non-secretarial person. They hired me to lead a team building the spare parts catalog and then I was promoted to head the Inventory Control group ... and I found I had an aptitude with computers when I converted form a manual system.
Always, wherever I was, reading, teaching what I'd learned, getting involved.
I toiok a one-third cut in pay to move to the company I'm with now ... a gamble that's paid off. 21 years later ... some years I spend as much time travelling as BigDave ... Europe, Australia, and soon Latin America. I have 20 people reporting to me around the world.
High School edcation with 1 year of tech school. But, always, wherever I've been, reading (my library is in excess of 1900 hardcover books), sharing my knowledge (I'm the president of a local chapter of an international organization, I do lectures on electronic commerce, I'm on the board of a standards organization, I represent my company for several eCommerce and eCommerce standards related organizations, goto guy for EDI and barcode problems).
I'm "self-taught" ... (meaning that I use other people's knowledge ... but I choose which knowledge deserves my time) ... have NEVER accepted a hand out of any kind ... have never had some "represnetative" get me anything ... pay my taxes ... and ask the government for nothing.
The only time I've ever been in danger of losing my job was when working for the oil-mining company in Northern Aberta ... I was taking progress photos of the power plant construction (yeah, something else I'm self-taught at) when, apparently, I managed to include some union guy asleep in the corner in one of my pictures. The union steward threatened a strike unless the film was turned over to him and I was fired (no strike contract - by the way). I developed the pictures, the slacker wasn't in it ... it all blew over ... but I gained the rest of my respect for unions that week.

Again ... I'm in no way comparing myself to BigDave or CowboyDoc ... just using my story to point out that hard work, dedication and striving to be the best at whatever field you choose can lead to success. Did I dream, when stocking my shelves in Inuvik, that I would be known as an expert in Inventory Management and Cataloguing by people around the world? Heck no ... my dream was to, every day, be better at what I was doing than I was yesterday, and hopefully, be better at it than anyone else doing that job. It gave me a reachable goal that hasn't changed to this day ... I still strive for that ...

Bottom line ... there is a place for janitors .... but I don't owe that janitor a great living. I (or whomever pays his salary) owes him fair recompense. Minimum wages are plain WRONG. If you want to be a janitor ... expect to be paid as a janitor. If you want to flip burgers, expect to be paid a fair burger-flipping wage. It is NOT right for society to expect me to pay a single mother more for a minimum wage job just because she's a single mother. I AM NOT responsible for your decisions (to go to school or not, to be a crook or not, to sire children or not) and should not have to be responsible for the consequences of youir decisions.

<font color=blue>DO YOU THINK IT IS THE JANITORS WAGES THAT GOT THE UNITED STATES IN TROUBLE ??? </font color=blue>

yes
 
   / Our Dependencies #60  
BRAVO Peter and to cowboydoc and to others in this thread who 'know' the way the real world works. We get out of life what we put into it. There is rarely a free lunch handed to anyone in this life. We succeed in life because we WORK HARD for what we have and if we get paid a bit more for our endeavors, then so be it. Just recompense comes to those who work and deserve it and it's nothing to be ashamed of nor does it need to be justified.
 

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