Nonesuch Solo
Das Mannlein
Bringing manufacturing back to American soil would not help my local community, either, unless paired with a complete overhaul of the educational system. While industry does drive educational policies to some extent, I think the infrastructure needs to be here before it will be in any way profitable for companies to bring manufacturing back.
There is a disturbing lack of interest in working a manufacturing job, not just in rural communities but in the United States as a whole. We want to imagine our children growing up to be doctors or lawyers or politicians or finding their place in other high-profile, highly desirable but not necessarily hiring markets, so we put them through school with that intent. We in America are waging a war against jobs, specifically those of the "working class." We're churning out a bunch of college graduates who would be overqualified for a manufacturing job (and then face the problem of finding a job in their desired field), while at the same time letting people slip through the cracks in the educational system once they realize they'll never make it to the top. We probably need to stop forcing everyone to aim for the stars, and set more realistic goals throughout schooling so that we can have the workforce needed to manufacture all this cheap bullshit in our own country.
I mean, would you take a job in manufacturing? Not managing a plant, or overseeing any part of the production line, but actually working on the floor? How many people do you know who would do such a thing unless it was their very last option--not just because they're overqualified but because we've built up this lack of respect for those types of jobs?
Actually, until very recently (last month) I worked for minimum wage, and then 50 cents more than that, at a fast food restaurant. I would most certainly consider taking a job in a manufacturing plant assuming such a job was physically safe. I'm not priveleged enough to BE a "churned-out college grad", even.
I'm not sure you're really meaning to argue with ME, so much as you're just upset at the way of the world and my particular comment about Walmart taking away American jobs set you off. Obviously it's upsetting that most people are ashamed to take "menial" or labor-based jobs. I myself constantly get asked when I'm going back to school by relatives and acquaintances, something which isn't an option for me at the moment because of my low income and several other irrelevant (to this conversation) factors.
I completely agree with you that we should stop telling people that if they're anything short of a doctorate degree and 70k/year, then they've wasted their lives. Sometimes people even WANT to have a "job", not a "career" per se, and they're made to feedl as though they should be ashamed of this. In reality, however, we NEED janitors, we NEED garbage men, and we NEED people to work in manufacturing plants.
Really, the fact that I was lamenting that Walmart outsources for its goods kinda pointed to me feeling that way. : ) It's nice to know you agree with me and that you're clearly passionate about it, but you don't need to take your anger over this out on me. You're not proving anything by trying to get me to admit that I'd be ashamed to take a labor-intensive job, when I'm actually quite content working just that.
I'm more amused because it runs the same line of logic that immigrants are "stealing jobs from Americans"--really, how many unemployed Americans want to do the kinds of things migrant workers tend to do?
Reality hit me pretty hard about seven years ago. I had been one of those privileged folks; my parents were able to [take out loans and] send me to a very prestigious, and very expensive, engineering school in Terre Haute. When I fell ill and had to drop out of school,
everybody I knew inadvertently made me feel like complete s**t. I had to go back to living with my parents for several years trying to get my health under control, and meanwhile I worked several minimum- to $2-above-minimum-wage jobs for more than 40 hours per week. My social climate changed overnight. All the people who knew me as I was growing up and had watched my parents proudly pack me off to RHIT would start conversations with "So how many more years until you're officially a mechanical and optical engineer?" and I would end them with "Um, well. I had to drop out because I got sick. Now I work retail, childcare, catering...anything that'll have me." It was very isolating and very lonely.
And I still don't think I'd have gone out and picked beans, or been mad that I couldn't go pick beans because the companies had hired a bunch of potentially undocumented immigrants. xD
Actually, that's nothing at all like complaining about illegal immigrants. These are completely seperate issues, and I actually never said I HAD a problem with immigrants supposedly stealing jobs from Americans.
You're clearly making all of these assumptions based on what you're telling me right now about your personal life - that people have acted negatively to
you based on you not having a very high-paying or powerful job. You didn't know where I stood on that issue, and it seems that learning that hasn't changed your viewpoint of just shutting down arguments against the specific corporation of Walmart. Not "any place that employs people cheaply because I hate poor people", mind you, but very specifically Walmart, because it's not a very positive force.
Again, illegal immigration is completely different than a company buying goods manufactured in other countries. Ignoring the fact that part of the argument against illegal immigrants is that, due to a lack of proper paperwork, they don't pay taxes when they hold jobs here, it's just completely unrelated to what we were talking about. Or, what
I was talking about. (Since clearly we're not quite on the same page.)
All of that said, I think you'd really like
this article, then, mainly the first point. The author really articulates some of my own feelings about what's wrong with this generation's viewpoint on jobs.
200
200
100
100
150
150
