Sunday, July 27, 2014
One of the things that comes up every so often is that the minimum wage ought to be raised.
The hue and cry for this is that 'those poor people on minimum wage' deserve a raise.
While that may sound all fine and dandy the truth is that there really are not a whole lot of people working for minimum wage that I have run into that have any motivation at all.
A plumber I know said that unless you are either in school or some kind of training or apprenticeship and working at an entry level job in your mid twenties then you are most likely a dud to begin with.
I tend to agree with him.
If you are in your mid 20s and still flipping burgers you ought to either resign yourself to it or get motivated. Nobody's going to come up to you and offer you a way to get ahead. You have to do that on your own.
Incidentally, you can change if you want to at just about any age. For what it's worth I didn't embark on my present career until I was almost 40. I went to sea as an ordinary seaman for peanuts and put my ass in gear.
In a year's time I was no longer an ordinary, I was an AB with a tankerman's endorsement and my pay had damn near doubled.
I suppose there were and likely still are a few people that resented me. They're still in the entry level position they were in when I met them. They had choices and opted for beer and strip clubs. I opted for hitting the books and entering every training program the company offered.
They made their choice, I made mine.
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
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You are absolutely right Pic. I changed careers at 37 by going back to school, learning something new, and taking an unpaid internship to get my foot in the door. 7 years later I was running the show at a midsized nationwide company.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling it won't be long before we see wide spread use of automated order takers in fast food restaurants. At least they'll have an option for English.
ReplyDeleteAt about 42, my manager at work pushed me into another area of my current industry. Told me to study and get the professional certification that not a lot of people get because the test is so difficult. Took me a year of studying and two tries at the exam, but my pay took a huge jump once I got the certification.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of this:
ReplyDeleteThe graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
As for myself, I was 33 when, in 2008, I left my high paying private industry job as IT chief in a large company in Austria and joined law enforcement. All the other candidates were younger than me.
I passed my "examination for sergeant" in 2013, which is essentially minimum time for reaching what is called "dienstführender Beamter", basically a commander of a duty group/shift, which, more or less, translates into sergeant.
Yes, I make less than I did as IT chief, but it's a lot more interesting than a desk job in a huge company.