Take a look at the parking lots of ship yards and

look at the vehicles. You'll see an assortment ranging from new and expensive to total crapcans.

A lot of the newer expensive cars in the lot are owned by the shipyard workers. They make pretty decent money and they certainly earn it.

Then take a tour of the workers. If you know what to look for you'll see some real talent, especially the fitters.

The fitters are the guys that take a flat piece of steel and turn it into a twisted. curved shape that fits perfectly into a complex on the vessel that's being built. They fit it into shape, tack weld it and carefully leave the proper gaps between the various pieces for the welders to An awful lot of what they do is by eye and it is damned hard work. They're generally paid well for it.

The fitters are followed by the welders. There are skilled welders that actually weld the pieces together. They are skilled, shipyard certified welders that know their jobs. 

The fitters generally come from the ranks of the welders and the welders are occasionally self taught but most come from apprenticeships, community colleges and other sources. I have met a couple that actually came from the federal program called the Jobs Corp. Most come from community colleges or apprenticeships of one form or another, though.

I've met a couple of motivated souls that started as laborers, found someone to teach them and got themselves certified.

It's one hell of a hot, dirty job and generally the people that do this are paid well for their expertise. These are valuable people.

I met one woman that was there welding and asked her what her tale of woe was. I dryly asked her the usual question of "What's a nice young girl doing in a place like this." It was a particularly hot late July/early August miserably hot and muggy day. The area was heavily littered with dozens and dozens of empty water bottles.

She flipped up her mask and showed me a face that needed a good washing and a few smudges of makeup to be quite pretty. She grinned and told me that she had two kids and was married to a jerk and she was tired of living with him just to get the rent paid.

"I don't need his money anymore. I have my own," she said.

"Marry me and I'll take you away from all of this," I said. My voice was oozing with sarcasm.

"No way in hell!" she chuckled. 

A number of these guys were minorities, some were not and almost to a man they were proud of their skills and their abilities. Some were married, some divorced and it was the same assortment of families and family problems you'd see anywhere else.

Let's go back to the parking lot where there was quite an assortment of vehicles. The bulk of them were fairly new and a little on the expensive side. Many of which were owned by the fitters and welders. Some of them were pretty middle of the road and were owned by the apprentices and low end laborers. The crap cans for the most part were owned by the fitters and welders and were second or even third cars. They drove them back and forth to work so as not to get their good vehicles all dirty on the  way home from work. Any of the married men that do this probably own three cars.
One for the wife, a decent car for himself and a beater to get back and forth to work with. 

The shipyards are not alone but they do serve to show people that you don't need a college degree to make a decent living.







To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY