Local Manufacturing Plant Job Fair Today

Today myself and my brother went to a local plants job fair. It's probably the best company to work for in our area. They are unionized and are aluminum extruders. The pay is good the benefits are great 401k and they aren't going anywhere.

Well during the fair I made a few obverservations. One was that there was about 100 people there which isn't bad considering they didn't advertise anywhere. What my observation was were the demographics of the applicants. I would say about 90% of the people applying were age 45+. There were about five to ten people my age there. They weren't clean shaven, dressed for an interview and they didn't have proper resumes.

Considering the rampant unemployeement in my area I just found it odd that there wasn't a better showing because this company is well known here for being the best place to work around.

I'm just wondering what people my age are doing?

Dunno, what's your age?

If it you're considered a "millennial" like I am, then MOST of them don't see manufacturing, factory work, or blue-collar jobs as an option as we've been raised throughout school and pushed by our teachers and parents to go to college, get a "good" job with "good" pay and that such work is for uneducated, low class people and not worth their time.

Honestly, I didn't fall for it though. You can't have an economy with nothing but service industries.

a reply to: Aldakoopa

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a reply to: onequestion

Considering the rampant unemployment in my area I just found it odd that there wasn't a better showing because this company is well known here for being the best place to work around.

Just wondering, what positions are open?

a reply to: onequestion

The thought of a manufacturing job makes me want to put a bullet in my brain. How our entire society can keep marching forward every single day with dull and almost meaningless work just to subsist is beyond me. Call me sociopathic. I don't care. I'd rather starve to death under a bridge huddled around a burning barrel with other freedom loving failures than to resign myself to a pointless job for the rest of my life. I think a society obsessed with wage labor is a very slavish one. Free people don't worry about preparing for an interview to rent their time away.

originally posted by: Nechash
Free people don't worry about preparing for an interview to rent their time away.

Yet their is nothing wrong with working, being successful and being able to live life the way you want and just because you would rather starve to death under a bridge makes you no more noble then anyone that wants to work.

Onequestion deserves all the credit in the world for trying to find a job and contribute to society regardless of if that job appeals to him or her.

a reply to: opethPA

If it weren't for masses of people working every day at something highly repetitive, I would be living under a bridge or off in the wilderness alone right now. They are the glue that keeps this whole civilization manifested into reality. I just can't do that. I've never been any good at doing something repetitive and boring, and the sad thing is, if I just kissed ass and took some specialist job, society would reward me for being "inventive" or "intelligent" while it punishes other people for being reliable and really charitable in their daily lives.

How is it that a selfish bastard like me can enjoy a relatively comfortable existence when hard working people in factories bust their asses for almost nothing? This entire system isn't fair to any of the people involved. The people who are least suited to life in the society are those who end up benefiting the most from it, and the whole system is really soul crushing for almost everyone. Unless you are a drunken starlet without a care in the world, you have to mind your Ps and Qs constantly. I just can't live this way.

a reply to: Aldakoopa

I completely agree. Anything that is physically hard or leaves you dirty and sore at the end of the day is stigmatized as being beneath you.

Little do some of them know that they can easily make 6 figures after taxes their first year in some of these fields if they're not afraid of hard work. There are 18 yr olds working with my husband building wind turbines that TAKE HOME $2000+ a WEEK year round after taxes, insurance, IRA, and 401K deductions.

a reply to: onequestion

Id be there in a heartbeat. I'm your age or somewhere in there...
I'll find something soon enough though. I always do somehow.

a reply to: halfpint0701

For me, it isn't about the money. I'd work for $0.50 an hour if it was something I loved doing. I don't want to put in 80 hours a week at a job I hate for any amount of money. They could offer me $500 an hour and I'd still not want to show up for work. Well, under that specific condition I might work for a year, but I'm not devoting my entire life to something that doesn't challenge me, interest me, or inspire me in some way as an individual.

a reply to: opethPA

just because you would rather starve to death under a bridge makes you no more noble then anyone that wants to work.

Thats a matter of opinion. Some people are more concerned about how many bombs their tax dollars pay for than being what you call "successful".

originally posted by: Nechash
I just can't live this way.

The beauty of living is you don't have to live that way if you don't want to and you aren't.

I love what I have been doing for a living for the past 2 decades because it's what I did when i was younger except now I get paid reall well to do it. I realize that isn't the norm maybe for everyone but the world needs people like you people like Onequestion and everyone in between to balance things out.

It's odd because my soul isn't crushed and if anything I am happier and enjoying life more now then I ever have because I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or if I can afford to buy something I want. My whole argument when I see posts about the evils of working are like I said..you need all types to make the world survive and while I don't understand someone that just chooses to live the way you do..it's just as valid as someone that chooses the opposite.

a reply to: Nechash
If you were unemployed and having a family to provide, you wouldn't talk like that.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: opethPA

just because you would rather starve to death under a bridge makes you no more noble then anyone that wants to work.

Thats a matter of opinion. Some people are more concerned about how many bombs their tax dollars pay for than being what you call "successful".

and some "free people" would rather just steal from what others have earned because they don't want to work or earn for themselves.

Both types of person, who you mentioned and who I mentioned, have nothing noble about them but in their own ways they keep the machine going.

a reply to: opethPA

Both types of person, who you mentioned and who I mentioned, have nothing noble about them but in their own ways they keep the machine going.

That "machine" is the problem, imo. Pulling back from landfill and recycling it or selling it at a flea market are the only two things I can reasonably convince my self are worthy endeavors, for me. I was the happiest doing that as opposed to working for a "living".

Being "homeless' is a stigma placed there by the media and people who are in denial about what true freedom from really means.

One day we will all be able to say Earth was our home. Yah, what did you contribute to during your time there?

a reply to: Nechash

I agree that people should ultimately do what they love. However, there's nothing wrong with taking a well paying, labor intensive job until you find that thing. Many of the guys he works with are breaking their backs every day to pay for college, pay off student loans, or just get some money banked to give them a little leg up. They work for a summer or a year, then quit and move on.

Many others, though, are there because they love the work and the pay is a very nice bonus. Plus, how awesome is it to have days out in the open air with this as your view:

Until I can figure out how to flourish happily within this world as myself, I don't want to condemn another being to a lifetime sentence of persisting here. This world has crushed every beautiful person I've ever known. One by one they either conform or face their own destruction.

originally posted by: intrptr
One day we will all be able to say Earth was our home. Yah, what did you contribute to during your time there?

I have directly contributed to saving the lives of other people or making the lives of suffering people better..
That's the lucky part of my career right now..previously I did the same jobs for industries that didn't have such a worthy end game but life isn't a fairy tale and right or wrong..financial stability makes many things easier.

You can try and tell me that being homeless is being free and I can tell you it's just a different shade of slavery for many homeless because I can show you hundreds of people where I live or in the various cities I have been that are only concerned with getting high, drunk or getting a cigarette.

To each his or her own though in the end..you choose to live how you want..others will choose to live the way they want and in the end..each is valid for that person.

originally posted by: halfpint0701
a reply to: Nechash

I agree that people should ultimately do what they love. However, there's nothing wrong with taking a well paying, labor intensive job until you find that thing. Many of the guys he works with are breaking their backs every day to pay for college, pay off student loans, or just get some money banked to give them a little leg up. They work for a summer or a year, then quit and move on.

Many others, though, are there because they love the work and the pay is a very nice bonus. Plus, how awesome is it to have days out in the open air with this as your view:

nice view, hot as hell in the summer hehe

originally posted by: onequestion
I'm just wondering what people my age are doing?

They are all working on a degree that isn't worth the paper it is printed on, so that they can get 60k in debt and 100k per year job, only to find that 100k job is 10 bucks an hour...hehe