My cousin made a damn good living owning an ac repair company. Raised 10 kids. One of the wealthiest guys in the town he lives in.

 

Stupid. I hope they get a good place in line at the food bank when their woke degrees won't get them a real job. Their blue collar classmates will be charging them $125 to make a house call to fix their toilet.

Nephew joined the Navy out of high school, went into SeaBees out of A school. Today 25 years later he is successful General Contractor with 20 employees, no corporate debt and owns his yard and equipment free and clear. A multi-millionaire at age 45.

He pays his employees Union scale and they have good benefits. Hiring preference to vets. Sign in office says " A union card trumps a college degree." He does not hire anyone who is "educated beyond their intelligence."

 

$125? LOL Double that around here! Just to show up. I'ma going back to work!

I had a guy want $500 just to replace the pressure reduction valve on my water line. It's bolted on! OK, it was a PITA took me an hour, but come on, 5 bills?

 

It just shows that they aren't as in touch with technology as they pretend to be.
It's just a matter of a few years before AI will take over 95% of those jobs - but a long, long time before a robot will crawl under your house and fix a plumbing problem.

 

This is not really anything new.

 

Spoiled ass kids. I will say though, I'm very interested to see where this attitude gets them later in life.

 

Shelter bed in the new urban utopia.

 

Mike Rowe been battling this for years.

My Dad always told me, "Go to school. Get a career where you work with your brain, because brawn won't last forever." Well, I did that. Working an office job 12 hours a day for 30 years ... I am overweight and diabetic. I was also laid off half a dozen times in those years.
Trades are marketable skills, in most any market.
Like everything else, balance is important.
My2c

 

I spent 20 years in the IT field. Retired recently.

The one common trait I noticed in the "new generation" coming up behind me, is that they all have dreams of being the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.

When the reality is that they will be competing against hordes of H1B visa holders, and the fact of IT support and programming being off-shored to third world countries. People willing to work for 1/3 the pay they had expected to get.

 

I spent 20 years in the IT field. Retired recently.

The one common trait I noticed in the "new generation" coming up behind me, is that they all have dreams of being the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.

When the reality is that they will be competing against hordes of H1B visa holders, and the fact of IT support and programming being off-shored to third world countries. People willing to work for 1/3 the pay they had expected to get.

I see the same folks in the new generation. H1B/TN is the least of their worries. The jobs are going to be completely gone soon like you said. I had to work with a contractor "Kid" recently, he had to be 27-30 years old, couldn't really talk or hold a conversation. Spend the entire time on the jobsite on his phone texting. I had to actually yell at the dumbass to put the phone down. He's not gonna do well as a construction worker

I'm getting close to retirement. There will be no IT in the very near future. Starting from the bottom at enduser support everything is in Azure/O365, actual support is from an MSP who has contracted a company in India to do the phone work with enduser. They spend more time making ticket tracking charts than helping people. New box drop shipped ready to go with the users UID on it. Networking, Again, Azure/O364/Google/Ect. All thats needed is a pipe to the internet. A lot of our business is decentralized so it uses the endusers pipe to the internet. Phones? Online also. Plug the handset into the nearest pipe and it works just like you're in the office. Don't issue cell phones anymore, just give them a small stipend and they download an app that connects them to the online service, they show up to customers as a company phone. Building security, almost all online now also. Sofware engineer? Thats gonna be almost all chatgpt shortly.

No one I worked with in the 90's has had a tech job in over a decade. H1B's killed those. They all had to get different kind of jobs. I'm the only one left.

A lot of these newer folks are going to end up on a jobsite you have to do actual work on just to avert starvation, regardless of their diploma's and big white collars hopes, if they're smart that is.

 

Hmmmmmmmm.

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1245858737/gen-z-trade-vocational-schools-jobs-college

More students reportedly heading to Trade Schools than Colleges, here's why

With all of the recent college graduations, a growing number of students are saying no, to a traditional four year college. Instead, a number of students are ch

wach.com

There are dozens more articles about this trend .....

Meanwhile over in college world ....

Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students? - The Hechinger Report

The pace of long-predicted college closings has sped up dramatically this spring, threatening to throw more and more students off the path to a degree.

hechingerreport.org

 

Lower enrollment rates may be due to a lower number of total college aged kids. The birthrate isnt getting any higher these days. Of those fewer kids, I have no idea how many are choosing to go to college and how many prefer to live in Mom's basement and play video games, or how many choose a trade or blue collar job instead.

 

intelligent people know where the money is... not so smart people get a nice diploma for something useless they can show off at the soupkitchens...

 

 

Don’t work harder, work smarter.

 

Why not both 😂

 

One of my nephews still lives at home playing d&d online all night. He's 25 and worked at subway for a couple weeks and a convenience store for a couple months. I offered him 5 dollars if he could tie his own shoes when he was 10. I still have that 5 dollars. He wears zip up boots or flip flops.
My other nephew did concurrent enrollment and got an associate degree when he graduated hs. He works in the oilfield in North Dakota and makes bank. His wifes doesn't have to work. He comes home tired and dirty every day but can take care of himself.
I think part of it is watching how their parents worked and conducted themselves. My brother worked ( works) hard and takes care of his family. My ex brother in law moved back in with his parents 25 years ago and worked part time at dollar tree as seasonal help during Christmas once. He also plays D&d on the computer all night long.

 

Why is this even a question??? Who would rather wear out their body doing physical labor making less money?
Obviously some kids are incapable of learning what is required for productive white collar jobs and they should go to trades or low skill labor, but for those who are capable, there is no question at all.

From different source

 

Why is this even a question??? Who would rather wear out their body doing physical labor making less money?
Obviously some kids are incapable of learning what is required for productive white collar jobs and they should go to trades or low skill labor, but for those who are capable, there is no question at all.

View attachment 582169

View attachment 582170
From different source
View attachment 582171

Cool. According to that first chart I should have a Doctoral degree. Meanwhile, with just a HS education, I'm making significantly more than the "average" doctoral degree holder, while getting paid to shoot guns. And I am far from an anomaly. Never been in any danger of being laid off, and if I do nothing else, I'll make more than that average doctoral degree holder for the rest of my life, just pulling my pension, and never touching any investments.

Opportunities are out there.

 

Skills>degree any day of the week.

 

The question here is blue color vs white collar, a degree is how most white collar folks get their skills but it’s not the main point here. The point is that white collar is more money in a comfy jobs so it’s very clear why younger folks prefer that.

 

Im not sure Id want 98% of the morons I see now wiring or piping my house…not to mention Millwrights, Pipe Fitters or Boilermakers🙈

 

Zoo,

Ref # 1;

Re thoughts, opinions;

I'm in the baby boomer generation where high school - and parents - taught/preached a college education needed or wind up digging ditches.

Concurrent with above was US militaries' program that for every year of active-duty service, gets member an academic year of college tuition (Still had to get a part time job for motorcycle).

Yes, indeed, many blue collar workers act boorish, have greasy looks and not terribly smart.

It parallels their white collar counterparts.

................

In the 19th century, the Queen of England, the spiritual leader of a vast empire and of the Church of England, had complaints on finding good theologians to the point of extreme frustration.

The Queen arranged for an audience with her secular leader to discuss her problem.

She said: ="= Mr Prime Minister, I cannot find many good theologians throughout my realm ="=.

Gladstone replied:

"Madam, there are not many good anything".

 

If my life had taken a different tack, I could have seen being in the trades and working up to owning my own business. I think a lot of the negative vibe some people have about the trades is they assume they'll be doing the same thing all their lives.

Well, some will, but there are plenty of alternative routes. I've never seen a successful small business owner who isn't smart. And that's a path that's open to those who are willing to go that way.

And there are different kinds of "smart." Some people's smarts are demonstrated by the ability to work with their hands and solve problems and build things. Other people's smarts are more academic. But both require the ability to problem-solve.

* * * * *​

I have a good friend who is a carpenter/handyman type of guy, he's done a lot of work for me over the years. Works by himself, occasionally will hire a young kid to help him.

He's not an academic type--but man, is he smart in the ways that matter for what he does. I love watching him work; I don't think there has been a time when I haven't learned something doing that. And sometimes I'm just gobsmacked by how he approaches problems.

I had to have a couple storm windows replaced in a second-story bedroom. I've had a serious shoulder injury that while "healed" has cost me a certain amount of strength and control, so the window problem wasn't something I felt confident I could do.

So I asked my friend to do it. I figured he'd have to bring a 20-foot ladder and attack the problem from the outside, something I wasn't willing to try (I hurt the shoulder falling off a ladder).

But no. He removed the sashes from the windows and replaced the two storms from inside the bedroom. No ladder involved. I just looked at him and shook my head. It never dawned on me to try it that way.

Smart? Yeah, he is. Not in the same way I am, but he can do things and solve problems I can't. And he's worth the money.

 

As a "dumb truck driver" I only made $96K last year ...

 

Sorry to hear you are ruining your health for such a low income.

 

Gen Z male in 20s. No, it's not Hollywood.

I vividly remember having the college narrative shoved down our throats and being told we'd amount to burger flippers without a college degree. FWIW I didn't buy into that and work a maintenance job. I'm debt free and love that I don't have to dread a student loan payment

 

Gen Z male in 20s. No, it's not Hollywood.

I vividly remember having the college narrative shoved down our throats and being told we'd amount to burger flippers without a college degree. FWIW I didn't buy into that and work a maintenance job. I'm debt free and love that I don't have to dread a student loan payment

My stepson graduated HS in 2018 .... 4 years of the same narrative shoved down his throat. He went to college for 3 semesters mainly in order to play college football. (2 seasons worth) Once Covid cancelled the upcoming spring practice and obviously the next season he packed up came home on a Thursday hit the bricks Friday came back at lunchtime with a laborer job on a paving crew starting Monday and never looked back.

Almost 2 years on the paving crew then came on board at my utility as a Construction/Maintenance Utility worker in the distribution system crews. Union job, full benefits you name it and he will do $115,000 this year. ZERO degree required. He's making more than the teachers who insinuated that those not going to college will be living under a bridge with a needle in their arm or worse.

My wife fell "victim" to that narrative early on and pushed and pushed and pushed and cajoled and hired tutors and so on and so forth because "he HAS to get a degree any degree". She would tell you today and has told folks that was the biggest mistake she made raising him .... pushing him to do something he had no desire (other than to play football) to do whatsoever. IF she had to do it all over again she would have had him go to the "tech" school starting in 9th grade and pick up a trade instead.

It is shocking to see the number of his HS class that either dropped out or did graduate and are in jobs they could have got the day after they graduated HS. This is and was a top rated HS and school system here in PA. Perennial top 10 in the state. Now I will say all the kids mostly girls who did nursing and came out with an RN degree ALL got top tier jobs in fact fielded multiple offers and are raking it in.

The other stuff not so much ..... and YES it depends on your kid. Every kid is different for sure.

 

So there is actually an uptick in younger people considering going the trade route. People see how the colleges lied that get a degree and you will get a good paying job. The trades are a decent alternative but the problem is getting your foot in the door. Local electrical and plumbing companies all have help wanted signs but they won't hire apprentices that they have to train from scratch. They all want journeymen. We will be in a world of hurt in the future because most companies refuse to hire apprentices and all the experience workers are aging out. It is not just a young people don't want to do physical labor. That is just 1 part of the problem.

Problem old as time everyone wants experience workers but can't gain experience without having it to begin with.

When I got into construction everyone wanted minimum 2 years of related experience and most wanted 5 years.

 

My Brother got out of HS and went to work for a Guy in AC in Texas. Few Years later he bought the guy out and built the largest AC company in Town. Work his butt off and made a specialty of making Clean Rooms for big Business in Houston. Two years ago some big Shot came in and offered him a number you wouldn't say No to. So he worked part time for two of the Business he was specialty in just to keep busy. Basicly Retired a Multi Millionair. No we are on the outs have been for years.

 

Office people would bore me to tears talking about the weather or something instead of something technical.
I got to be around engineers (smart ones) and gear heads to be happy.
Always a hands on guy and went into toolmaking ect. ,but watched plenty of work get offshored.
Still did post high school training to stand out from the rest and it was rewarding.
Trades fell behind in pay during them times but work is coming back and there's a shortage of workers.
That means better pay and benefits and I've seen it at the place I retired from.
Companies are realizing their future success is at stake.
Right now is the best time in a few decades to be in the trades.

I did very well in spite of working in the rust belt, but it took concentrated effort.

Now I play with wood and am looking at another boat build as the one I'm on is just about done and I'm starting to get bored again.
Running through dozens of designs and calculations and the only criteria is my son says it has to be fast. I think we found it...it's fast
No freaking way I'm going to ride in it ..heh heh.

 

One thing I always see trotted-out by the "college-industrial complex", whenever this subject is brought up, are the "statistics". You see them all the time, in the media, on Google searches, quoted by high school job counselors. "Proving" how a college degree is supposed to give a young adult a big lifetime earnings edge, over not having a college degree.

I've often wondered how true a picture those "statistics" give of the actual situation. I'm by no means an expert in statistics, but I would really like to see these claims about the supposed advantage of a college degree, looked at more critically and challenged.

Because the reality you see and hear "on the street", seems to say otherwise.

 

My employer has begun to list a lot of the positions at corporate as "college degree DESIRED" as opposed to "REQUIRED". You get a better cross section of applicants many with on the job experience instead of the "degree" or the four year degree.

They have to be re-trained anyway once they get here.

 

What type of worker do you classify that works from a beach chair in Majorca? No collar?

 

..a One Button Suit-er?

.02
jd

 

Gen Z males are to feminine to do a blue collar job.

 

I get that vibe too. If you spend more time than a woman grooming and trying to look perfect then I don't have much hope for your real world skills. As a 40 y/o single woman, the youngsters and even many of the ones my age make my stomach turn. 😆😆😆