Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 07, 2022

Once upon a time in Michigan, being a laborer in a car factory was a desirable job.

I think you get a good education, so you can choose what to become in life. It gives you options.

Mike Rowe has been dissing college education. Broad brushing it, esp ‘useless’ degrees. Very discouraging.

When I was a pup, education you got at home, instruction you got at school.

Sometimes the difference between what you want to do and what you have to do is too great to overcome until you work long enough to make the change.

It’s not like sitting at a desk all day playing with databases and spreadsheets while taking orders from a moron who knows nothing about what you do is all that great.

I retired from that, and could not WAIT to retire.

We push college degrees and disregard the trades. My own mother pushed me to go to a four year school – loved the social life, scraped by with a degree. Ended up in the military and went culinary school in my 40’s. Straight A student in culinary arts because it fit me better than a four school was ever going to.

How much better when you have to do what you want? Wisdom and experience. Experience and wisdom. I’m still learning what ’doesn’t’ work.

Many times you do what you HAVE to do so that you can relax in a home you WANT to have.

I remember sitting down with some friends in the Student Union caf at UMASS/Amherst. I had just gotten a breaded chicken sandwich and put some salt on it before I ate it. One of my friends told me that his father would never hire me for one of his restaurants because I did that. I told him that my whole reason for being there was because I never wanted to work in a kitchen again.

Most of my family went for trade jobs and they enjoyed them. I went and got a useful degree and I enjoy what I do. But I also don’t make as much as some of my siblings who took trade jobs. If you have a valued skill you enjoy doing, you can frequently make a good living at it.

Helpful hint: If a person who makes a living as a laborer says “You don’t want to be a laborer”, consider the source.

(sigh) It doesn’t always work that way, educated or not.