Mike Rowe is AWESOME

I worked as a motorcycle mechanic for about 10 years and had a software development hobby on the side, then swapped hobby and career. I can't say that one is way more enjoyable than the other, just a different set of challenges and perks. I definitely moved to more earning potential, though.

I started a degree, but never finished it. That being said, I advise my kids that more education equals more opportunities and is never a bad thing as long as you have you life priorities straight.

I have a friend who was a super-successful car mechanic at a local dealership. He saved up money, went back to school and took a giant pay cut to follow his dream to become the local HS auto shop teacher.

I'm always amused by people who consider the white collar job more "respectful" or something like that. I just don't get that kind of thinking. Do what you love and put your whole heart into whatever you choose to do. Sure, money will probably factor into the decision, but it shouldn't be the biggest factor.
 

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
Moderator
Vendor
Location
Sandy, Ut
...I'm always amused by people who consider the white collar job more "respectful" or something like that. I just don't get that kind of thinking. Do what you love and put your whole heart into whatever you choose to do. Sure, money will probably factor into the decision, but it shouldn't be the biggest factor.

Spot on! :cool:
 

Caleb

Well-Known Member
Location
Riverton
This is pretty cool of Mike Rowe. One thing that stands out, even amongst the conversation here is the opinion that if you don't go to college, you are generally going to be a blue collar worker. I don't get that??? I "sit behind a desk" all day and have no degree. I also bet my guys make more than most blue collar workers. The lowest end of the pay scale for my guys is starting at $90k and most go well above that. Probably 80% (I'd have to sit down and think about it :D) of my guys do not have college degrees, I can only think of two off-hand that do. I just went through the last year of interviewing guys and not once in my interviews or discussions about these guys with my VP did the question or conversation come up about wether they had a degree or not. It's all about if you can do the job and how well you can do it. Another huge factor for us is if you'll fit in with our team. If not, you can be an MIT graduate and it wouldn't matter.

With that said, I'll probably get my degree some day. I have no false illusions that it will further my career because it won't. I mostly want to do it for myself and to show my kid that he can do what he wants and on his terms.

The one thing that drives me more nuts than anything else is the self-entitled attitude that so often comes with a degree. I've seen it time and time again, guys that think they have a degree so they are worth more than xyz because they don't have a degree. I see this for guys that apply for some of our senior positions but have no real world experience. They think they should be on easy street because they have a masters degree when they usually end up getting chewed up and spit out in even our first round of interviews. The same attitude is very prevalent at my wife's work. She does have her degree, but she's gotten to where she is today largely without her degree. (She only got it two or three years ago)

If you get a degree for the right reasons, more power to ya, but dont expect to have a hand-out because you have one.
 

blznnp

Well-Known Member
Location
Herriman
You definitely don't need a degree to get a desk job or be a white collar worker, it just depends on what you want to do. The job I want, I have to have the degree. I know people that have jobs that now require degrees but they never got one since they started with that company and moved up an know the ins an outs an know way more than any college student coming out of school with a degree would ever know. The one thing that also has me going to school, is that I do want to further my education an understand things around me. One of those things where I am just not satisfied with what where I am. I know that I can always fall back to welding or installing steel if nothing else, which I would also like to have a couple other trades that I could fall back on also but I need to get a career I like first before I learn more about other things.
 
I may be on a soap box now, but one other thing bugs me about the higher education system: Learning and knowledge are not exclusive to formal education and the resulting degrees. There are a lot of ways to learn stuff - even the same things that are supposed to be part of a degree. In my job, if you aren't learning new things every week, you will be left behind. It doesn't mean you will be left without a job, you just won't be part of the exciting projects.
 

blznnp

Well-Known Member
Location
Herriman
I may be on a soap box now, but one other thing bugs me about the higher education system: Learning and knowledge are not exclusive to formal education and the resulting degrees. There are a lot of ways to learn stuff - even the same things that are supposed to be part of a degree. In my job, if you aren't learning new things every week, you will be left behind. It doesn't mean you will be left without a job, you just won't be part of the exciting projects.
nothing beats on the job training and experience, thats a given, but in order for me to get my foot in the door and have a piece of paper that says I can, i have to go to college. Then I can start to really gain the knowledge that will advance myself
 

Spork

Tin Foil Hat Equipped
This is pretty cool of Mike Rowe. One thing that stands out, even amongst the conversation here is the opinion that if you don't go to college, you are generally going to be a blue collar worker. I don't get that??? I "sit behind a desk" all day and have no degree. I also bet my guys make more than most blue collar workers. The lowest end of the pay scale for my guys is starting at $90k and most go well above that. Probably 80% (I'd have to sit down and think about it :D) of my guys do not have college degrees, I can only think of two off-hand that do. I just went through the last year of interviewing guys and not once in my interviews or discussions about these guys with my VP did the question or conversation come up about wether they had a degree or not. It's all about if you can do the job and how well you can do it. Another huge factor for us is if you'll fit in with our team. If not, you can be an MIT graduate and it wouldn't matter.

With that said, I'll probably get my degree some day. I have no false illusions that it will further my career because it won't. I mostly want to do it for myself and to show my kid that he can do what he wants and on his terms.

The one thing that drives me more nuts than anything else is the self-entitled attitude that so often comes with a degree. I've seen it time and time again, guys that think they have a degree so they are worth more than xyz because they don't have a degree. I see this for guys that apply for some of our senior positions but have no real world experience. They think they should be on easy street because they have a masters degree when they usually end up getting chewed up and spit out in even our first round of interviews. The same attitude is very prevalent at my wife's work. She does have her degree, but she's gotten to where she is today largely without her degree. (She only got it two or three years ago)

If you get a degree for the right reasons, more power to ya, but dont expect to have a hand-out because you have one.

I think it's about the same where I'm at, extended team of about 10 people and 3 or 4 have a degree. Things might have changed since I graduated but I only had one class directly involved with what I am doing now.

I was talking to one of my neighbors, he's a security/auditing person related to IT. I was talking to him about how upper management is pushing degrees and wants people to have them and he indicated that he didn't have a degree but he was the exception at his company, he said the secretary had a doctorate. :eek:
 

Rottenbelly

I stink.
Location
Cedar city, Utah
What kind of jobs do you people have??
.

I have a odd job. I fly back to Paducah Kentucky and get on a towboat for 28 days going up and down the Mississippi river from St Louis to New Orleans.
Then I fly back home for 28 days to play. I am a 1st mate Merchant Mariner.
Absolutely love only working 6 months out of a year.
Tried to get Mike to come out for a dirty jobs episode.
My Boat.....
0aaa1042.jpg
 

pELYgroso

'Merica
Location
LEHI, UT
Roofing contractor w/ a minor in Gun Holsters here. I went to a year of college, mostly for the fun of it before my mission. While there, I decided that since 90% of the people there (Rick's College in Idaho) were just there for the piece of paper and had no idea what they wanted to do, I wasn't going back unless I had a firm game-plan for school. I got back from the mish, got a good job as a job coordinator for a large roofing company (had prior roofing experience w/ my dad's company in Oregon), and after a few years started my own company and have grown every year. At the end of last year I started StealthGearUSA w/ a friend and we have grown it (in our spare time) to the point of him being full time now and making a decent living, 2 full time employees w/ health benefits through StealthGear, and were really close to the point where I can jump on board full time and get off of roofs! I'm definitely looking forward to that! Although I might just throttle the roofing down to a point where somebody else can run one crew easily and I can still have that going in case Obama is successful in putting an end to guns for personal protection. I've never really looked back at college. Although I do hope that my kids look hard into going to college, I think that the right attitude and work ethic can get you very far! If StealthGear and Roofing came to an abrupt halt, I have 2 other solid business plans that would bring in enough income to live on w/ only minor initial investment. I think I have business ADD! Always another idea coming into my head that either gets trashed after some thought, or put on a back-burner list to think more about later.
 

moab_cj5

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Long but very worth the read.


For those that don't do FB:

Yesterday, I shared a short video of Megyn Kelly wherein she vowed to march against the policies of Apple if they removed her from their platform for supporting women’s rights. Along with the link, I indicated that I’d stand with her, (or march, if it came to that,) and asked the group who would join us. Most agreed that the underlying issues – free speech and women’s rights - were worth defending and answered in the affirmative. But many others did not. Consider this love letter, from Jessica Pranger..

"Nope, not for one second would I stand next to this farce of a woman. Mike, your desperate grabs at popularity are embarrassing. Stay in your lane, please. I thank you in advance for not inserting your bullcrap pandering for women in any other scenario that includes women. You don't belong and you most certainly are not choosing the right woman to be in complete support of. She is a brainwashed, phobic, fear driven, fear mongering blow hard... much like the faction you love pandering to so much. You and your ilk are so off base that I am actually embarrassed for you."

Hi Jessica

Thanks for your response, and thanks for following this page. Obviously, you’re not the only one to dislike Megyn Kelly, and you are certainly not the only one to admonish me for wandering “outside my lane.” The question is, do you care at all about the underlying issues? If not, that’s okay, but if you’re going to share your feelings with 6 million people, why not take a moment to include some actual thoughts? Specifically, some thoughts on the right to speak freely, and the right for women to compete fairly? Those are the issues in question, not your feelings about Megyn or me. Unless of course, your feelings are the only thing you have to share?

You say that Megyn is not the “right” woman to follow, or offer my “complete support" to. I didn’t say that Megyn has my “complete support.” All I said was that I’d stand with her on the underlying issues; just as I would stand with you, if you were muzzled by a big tech company for publicly supporting the rights of women. (For the record, if there is one, I support the right of adults who wish to medically transition from one sex to another. I do not, however, believe that biological females should be compelled to compete or shower with biological males.)

As for your personal comments about Megyn Kelly, I don’t share your view that she is a “farce” of woman, but even if I did, I’d support her right to speak freely, and her daughter’s right to use a locker room free of biological men. Do you? Who knows? You haven’t said. All you’ve argued here, is that I'm pandering to women. You seem to believe that because I’m not a woman, I have no right to hold an opinion on anything related to women. If so, am I also precluded from expressing an opinion on slavery, simply because I’ve never been a slave, or owned a slave? You advise me to “stay in my lane” in much the same way people used to tell women and minorities to “know their place.” That strikes me as a convenient way for people to silence those with whom they disagree, without offering an actual argument.

I get it. The world is tired of celebrities using their platforms to weigh in on the headlines. It’s painful, (for me, anyway) to listen to Alec Baldwin talk about his views on a great many topics. Why? Because Alec Baldwin is a funny and talented actor whose work I enjoy immensely. His opinions, however, have made it difficult for me to enjoy his work. Not impossible, just difficult. Why then, would a celebrity, or a company for that matter, knowingly put their fans and customers in such a position? Why did Bud Light make it so hard for so many of their customers to support them? Why did Target? As I type this, I see that Alice Cooper has been dropped by a cosmetics company for suggesting that children are not in a position to decide for themselves what gender they are. bit.ly/45p3Bx9 And poor Carlos Santana...he doesn’t know what to do. A few weeks ago, he declared during a concert, “a man is a man, and a woman is woman.” The outrage was swift, and Carlos issued a lengthy apology on Facebook. But two days ago, he removed his apology, and replaced it with a poem! bit.ly/3KZOaDh. So, did Carlos Santana wander outside his lane? Did Alice Cooper? Alec Baldwin? Bud Lite? Target? Or, did they all take a highly principled position on a topic that mattered deeply to them, and exercise their first amendment rights?

As the CEO of a non-partisan, apolitical foundation that deals with issues surrounding workforce and education, it’s not in my interest to upset you or anyone else. And so, for the most part, I have limited my comments to workforce and education. But I’m also a citizen, Jessica, like you. And like you, I’m worried about our county. I’m worried that people have become increasingly unable to separate the message from the messenger. I’m worried that we've entered into a time when the experts disagree on every serious topic, where journalism has been replaced almost entirely by editorial partisanship, and everyone on both sides of every issue believes the "science has been settled" in whatever way confirms their own beliefs. Climate change, Covid, mask and vaccine mandates, immigration, homelessness, transgender rights, criminal justice, reparations…the certainty is everywhere. Mostly though, I'm worried that people - and corporations - are determined to silence the opposition, rather than make any attempt to persuade, or even put forth a rational argument.

If you were on this page twelve years ago, you know that I was boycotted by a big trade organization called the TRSA. bit.ly/3OWPQ1A Basically, the Textile Service and Rental Association was upset with me because I had “wandered outside of my lane,” and participated in a campaign that promoted disposable shop towels. Because they represent thousands of workers who clean dirty textiles – tablecloths, napkins, hospital bedding, and so forth – they objected to any kind of disposable alternative, and demanded that I apologize for participating in an endeavor that jeopardized the livelihood of their members. When I refused to apologize, or distance myself from the people who hired me, the TRSA published a list of everyone I did business with – Discovery, Ford, Wrangler, Caterpillar, Viva, and Kimberly Clarke - and then called for a general boycott of all things related to Mike Rowe. In short, they tried to silence me, and then they tried to destroy me. It scared the hell out of me, and I fought back - on this very page - and they eventually went away. I wonder, though, what would happen today? And to be clear, I’d prefer not to find out. But not if it means forgoing my right to speak freely, or standing by, while women’s fundamental rights are being cast aside, or being told to shut up or else.

To sum up, Jessica, this page is “my lane,” and you are a guest on it. To be sure, you've said some rude and unpersuasive things, but I would never ban you or block you for those reasons. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that this page is not really my property. This page belongs to Facebook, and you and I are both here with their permission. Tell me, if they were to close “my lane” because of this post, would you object? Would you join me in protest? Or would you celebrate my banishment?

That was the question inherent in Megyn Kelly's video. I’ve answered it as best I can. You should, too.

Love,
Mike
 

Jesser04

Well-Known Member
Location
Kaysville Utah
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