College degree = worthless (1 Viewer)

[Steve Schaffer]

I dropped out of college after my second year, this was the Viet Nam era and I wanted to drop out, get drafted and get that over with, then go back to school. I had planned to become a teacher, not become a millionaire but at least be halfway comfortable.

After a few months it became apparent that I was not going to be drafted so I got a job as a lube tech in a car dealership (1971) ten years later I was making considerably more than I would have been making if I'd become a teacher.

Last August, at the age of 56, back problems from 35 years of crawling around under dashboards and severe skin problems (sorta like flesh-eating bacteria) due to long term exposure to toxics forced me out of that job, and no, I can't claim disability. The back is fine now and the skin problem is totally gone, but at my age I can't find a decent job (decent with my expenses being a measly 35-40k a year).

This would not be the case if I'd stayed in or gone back to school and become a teacher. Teachers with 20 plus years on the job make 50-60k a year or have become even higher paid administrators and a single like me can live pretty decently on that.

Yes--plumbers, auto techs, etc, can make good money, but when was the last time you saw one in his mid to late 50s, let alone one who was able to continue that work up until a normal retirement age??

I was also one of those who said they couldn't change when they were in their 30s or 40s, now I'm desperate to find some other line of work that pays decently at the age of 57, and am starting to understand the despair of long time workers displaced from auto assembly plants and the like.

Right now I'm stuck in retail (electronics at a major chain that's 5 letters starting with an S). They don't hire full time, their "commission" is enough to make up the difference between the $6 an hour they pay and the CA minimum wage of $7.50, there are no benefits, and within a couple of months I'm going to lose my condo and car.

So, yeah, go ahead and be a mechanic or plumber, but put aside enough of that high income to support yourself for the 10 or so years between the time the job's ruined your health and retirement age.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Steve - first of all, I sympathise with your plight. But second, thank you for expressing so eloquently the need for a degree.

Incidentally, teachers don't seem v. well paid in the USA compared with the UK. A teacher with 20 years' experience over here who had been reasonably diligent could expect to be a deputy head (if teaching under-12s) or head or deputy head of subject (if teaching 12-18 yr olds) and be on 40-50,000 pounds per year. The head (what I guess you guys call the principal) of a large high school can be on over 90,000 pounds per year.

 

[JonZ]

My brother is graduating in May. Hes been working at a hospital in supplies for about 10 years now. Hes in the union and had some health concerns a few years back which is why he stuck with the job.

But hes gotten quite a few job offers recently. The one place that continues to call him is Macys for fraud protection, even though theyre not hiring.

The piece of paper does matter.

I tried getting a job at West Point a couple years ago teaching kids how to use a computer. Even though Id worked at West Point before and have a decade of IBM technical experience they wouldnt hire me without that piece of paper.
Same goes for a few art teaching jobs I applied for in the past. My experience, talent, art school - doesnt matter - they want a degree.

 

[Chu Gai]

How can you compare salaries without factoring in everything else andrew?

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> Incidentally, teachers don't seem v. well paid in the USA compared with the UK.

As for public schools (K-12), teacher salaries in the US seem to vary wildly by location (state and city). Some are very low paid, but some actually are well paid, despite the popular belief that they are all poor.

Another thing you have to consider is that in most school districts they get 3 months a year off, so to be fair you have to look at their salary as the pay for 9 months, not 12. If you add 33% to calculate what they'd make without the extended time off, the salaries are a lot closer to what other jobs pay.

Most other salaried jobs in the US give you 2-4 weeks off per year, not 3 months.

 

[andrew markworthy]

This is something that comes as a great shock to Brits, who often imagine they're badly off for holidays because compared with the rest of Europe, we get far fewer days off. Less than four weeks holiday would be considered appallingly bad in the UK (plus on top of that there are public holidays adding about another week, and then a lot of companies have a week's extra holiday at Christmas, which over here is like your Christmas and Thanksgiving rolled into one in terms of importance). In the university sector, lecturers (i.e. what you call professors - 'professor' is reserved for the most senior rank here) get 35 days per year, but this is in part compensation for 'having' to work at particular times of year. FWIW, I didn't take my full allowance of vacation time last year and 'have' to take an extra week off this year as compensation. Life can be really mean at times.

 

[Jimi C]

I have not had 2 days off in a row since July 06'. Which was when I last took a weeks vacation. I get 2 weeks paid a year. I have not used a sick/personal day in the entire 4 years ive been with my company. After 5 years I will get 3 weeks paid vacation.

How many weeks off does the average Brit get a year?

 

[Sami Kallio]

In Finland it starts at 4 weeks per year. In my old job here in US I had 6.5 weeks off total but I had been with them for 9 years. Now I'm getting only 3 weeks which really does suck after getting used to a month in the summer and then two shorter vacations.

Sometimes I hate my job but most of the time I love it. Deadlines are the nightmare for us engineers, it would be nice sometimes to have a job where you don't have to worry about them. Then again, we are getting compensated for the stress quite good. I thought about getting my masters but with BS, 10+ years of experience and six figure income I don't think it will worth it. I plan to (semi-)retire in the next 15 years before I turn 50.

 

[Scott L]

Gives a new meaning to "Lazy Americans" huh? I only get about 2-3 weeks per year. : I was shocked when I learned about the vacation practices in France

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in704571.shtml

 

[Francois Caron]

I started to get 4 weeks off per year after ten years working for the same company, taken as two separate 2-week vacations six months apart. I tried staying on vacation for up to three weeks one time but I started to go batty at the start of the third week.

However, after 17 years of loyal service, I'll be leaving in a few months to start my own business.

Actually, that's one way to beat the salary and vacation doldrums. Start your own business and you'll never have to worry about your salary or vacation anymore -- because you won't have any money or time off left!

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Oh dear, shall I enter into the fray here?

After college I became an electrical engineer working in defense matters. But then those darned Russians gave up back in 1991. So I decided to go back to school and leverage my background to become a patent attorney. At the age of 40 I started law school, passing two bar exams at the age of 43. My pay went from high 5 figures to low 6 figures. From my perspective, going back to school and starting a new career can be done, although it requires a lot of work and a certain amount of luck.

Funny thing is that I really made my fortune in real estate. My crummy little house in San Jose sold last spring for enough to retire upon. It really is hard to plan for life.

 

[DaveF]

Dennis, I've distantly wondered about doing the same. I'm an engineer in the defense world, and I sometimes daydream about switching to patent law.

I have a younger sibling in law (and her husband) -- and it seems like a young man's (or woman's) game, requiring years of 60-70 hr weeks to get anywhere in a company. So I think engineering may be good enough for me

 

[Carlo_M]

But studies have shown that France, despite having a shorter work week and more vacations, has more productive workers per hour than America. So despite the increased vacation and shorter work week, they are overall as productive.

I don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but my own personal experience is that I was hired to bring up productivity in a staff of 14 people, a lot of whom do very little actual work. I'd estimate between 1-2 actual work hours a day, I know because I spent the first 3 months doing everyone's job so I would have a firsthand account of how long it realistically takes to do each task. I was appalled at what these people were getting away with. The age gap isn't helping either, I'm 33, and the people I manage range between early forties to sixties. I think I'm making people consider early retirement because of the level of accountability (to the organization and to your fellow coworker) that I'm holding everyone to.

These people spend more time thinking of how to get away with not doing work than if they just did the darned work!

I'm not a whip-cracker (everyone I've supervised before this crew has loved working for me as a manager). But these people literally are getting away with murder. Money for nothing, indeed.

 

[Scott L]

For the sake of discussion... why don't we see more French goods/services here?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Best kind of money there is.

 

[Edwin-S]

I just hope you still think that way when you are sixty and cannot put out like a thirty year old.

Also I was reading that article about French workers.The article stated that French workers are more productive per hour worked, but overall they are less productive because they work so few number of days compared to Americans. Not that that is a bad thing. As far as I'm concerned the mininum number of holiday weeks off should be four. Two weeks off a year is inadequate for a proper vacation. You can't even begin to de-stress before you are required to go right back to the frying pan.

 

[Carlo_M]

I really wish this was the problem [implying it's me]. Except that one of the workers who IS productive is a 50+ year old woman with fairly severe cerebral palsy. Her output far exceeds some of the people who aren't pulling their weight (one is in their 40s, one in their 50s and one in early 60s but is very youthful for his age, I thought he was in his early 50s at first). And she's accurate. So when someone with a pretty severe disability is tripling your output, you're not doing your job.

But more than just comparing, I did their jobs. It's not rocket science. One person (in their 40s) averages 9.9 orders per day. It took me less than an hour to do 10 orders. It takes most other people around the same amount of time, regardless of age. We're not doing rocket science.

Trust me, it's not me, and it's not the age factor. These people just have gotten away with it for so long.

 

[Carlo_M]

Because goods from Asia are far cheaper.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

It takes long hours to get anywhere in any professional career. This is where love of what you are doing comes in and makes it worth the effort. When I was a defense engineer, there was a constant feeling of doing something important for the country. Lives were at stake. I helped design some critical systems, such as the electronic defenses for the F-16 and A-10 as well as the telecommunications support for Tomahawk. I helped plan and execute the Tomahawk attack on Iraq in 1991, which blunted Iraqi air defenses and paved the way for allied victory.

Being a patent attorney is just about money. I did good work for my clients, but never had that feeling of doing something really important. Tech companies spend ungodly sums getting patents. Yet they get little revenue from them with regards royalties and are still at the mercy of patent "trolls". The entire worldwide patent system is corrupt and needs fixing...which is work above my pay grade as they say. It's hard to work the hours required when this is on your mind constantly.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Cost, protective tariffs, etc are a key part of the reason. Plus, a lot of exports will go to other EU member states. E.g. France is still a big player in Europe in the car market, particularly in the town and family car sectors. There's also a vast (and it must be said, heavily subsidised) output of farm produce (e.g. 'French golden delicious' is shorthand in the UK for cheap rather bland fruit and veg). Presumably because of cost/practicality relatively little of this will go further afield to e.g. the USA.