Note to any straight-shooters looking to go the military route: Lying your ass off at MEPS is pretty much required. If you're too honest, the guy that lied will get your job.
Your recruiter will help you out on how best to lie. Just listen and you will be fine.
Great advice, sir! I'm scratching actuary science off my list of possible majors. Electrical engineering or econometrics sounds like the way to go and maybe I'll minor in some kind of computer science major. This college bubble needs to collapse soon.
I keep hearing about age discrimination against older people, but wherever I go, older people have greater upward mobility whenever they take entry level positions, even when they dont perform any better than the young. Also, I noticed that people who have children also move up, even when they don't exercise flexibility or when they have to clock out to solve family problems. What gives. Does the business world have a misguided sense of sympathy for old people and parents?
I have no kids and I like to work the inconvenient shifts, but I get passed over in favor of these people all the time.
See this as well and gets old. Have my associates degree in banking and cant even get a teller job because A) I didnt knock a girl up and have a kid or B) Im not over 30 something to get the job.Gets old when I see people get the job over me because one of these reasons.Also same with you I have a flexable schedule and 6 years of Customer service behund my belt.
Much of the video is good, but I have to disagree with the military advice. The military the Captain believes in exists only in the movies. The "real" military will challenge you alright -- it will challenge your ethics.
Want some better advice: If you're 18-22 thinking of blwoing 50k of your daddy's money he doesn't, take up a trade and go live in a camp.
Welder, pipe fitter, surveyer, power engineer (boiler engineer) for example.
Look up towns like Fort McMurray, or Tumlber Ridge, where someone with two brain cells and the willingness to show up after the first paycheck can be making good coin, with low expenses.
Its a rough life, have an exit strategy, but 4 years getting journeyman ticket means you'd be set to go do what ever you want, go to school, travel, take a decade off and enjoy the decline.
Yeah, getting chewed up as cannon fodder in some hellhole is a significant downside. Navy and Air Force, on the other hand, don't strike me as being so expendable.
Also, unlike any civilian job, if you've got an intolerable boss, you can't just say "Fuck you" and walk away. We've all had (or at least heard horror stories of) stupid bosses asking you to do stupid things, and for stupid reasons. In the civilian work force, all that's lost is your time, energy and respect, as your boss tries to brown nose his superiors with his department's performance. In the military, you could very well die to satisfy his vanity and pride.
The morality issue... We could argue forever about where we personally think the line between right and wrong is. But regardless of where the line is now, I expect the armed forces are going to be ordered to do increasingly objectionable acts for increasingly flimsy reasons.
The military is an option, yes, but think long and hard about the downsides.
The military can pay for your training in the trades. Job skills may also minimize some of the risk a military member will incur on a deployment.
Say the Army invested almost a year into training you to be a UAV pilot or electronics technician. Your chance of being attacked while on a convoy should be minimal. Some of these skills are worth a good deal of money on the civilian side of things, and the security clearance pays extra.
I am a baby boomer, father of two recent college grads in hard sciences. I have no objections to anything the Captain says. Essentially he's correct. But he and the rest of us need to take this farther.
When I left college and started in engineering without a degree, all I needed to do was show that I was talented and I would get work I liked and could excel at. I also made pretty good money. This was in the early/mid '70's.
But things started changing in the '90's, when credentials became more important than talent. I started having considerable difficulty remaining in engineering, and decided to get more credentials. Unfortunately, due to personal and locational circumstances, the only advanced credentials I could get was a law degree and license. I finished by the time I was roughly 47. And now I've learned that, after a short time gaining experience, no one wants to hire someone over 50. In fact, some federal reports refer to people over 50 as unemployable.
So what the Captain says about the baby-boomers isn't entirely accurate. If the rare boomer has a job, then right, s/he isn't going anywhere until s/he's ready. But if s/he isn't employed, they are not likely to be in the future.
So what this means, to me, is that basically my kid's cohort has about 15 years of work life available to them. They don't get respect until 35, and they're unemployable by 50.
Maybe this is why Romney et al. want to do away with real health insurance. If we have real, effective health insurance, people will live well past the 50 year mark where they are of value to the corporate overlords and financial titans, like Romney, Dimon, Blanckfein, the Kochs, and the rest of the parasites.
Couldn't agree more. I learned how to service helicopters and took jobs in the back of beyond, Middle East, oil rigs, jungles, deserts etc. By the time I was 35 I had a mortgage free house and a commercial investment property. Made the raising the family a lot easier.
Military life is a great financial choice, provided you don't get your legs blown off. The VA is shit and you'll rot in a hospital somewhere.
As for ethics, that's a separate consideration.
Anonymous,
Maybe civilian pensions will get nationalized, but military pensions aren't going away. You're talking about reneging on payouts to a bloc of one million professional killers.
For crying out loud, use your head. At the worst, they'll start chipping away at those military pensions slowly.
Denise: Thanks for the link and thanks for proving my point! I wasn't saying that the article that I linked to was right or wrong. There's no doubt that there is global warming going on, but debate over what is causing it, whether it be natural causes or man made causes or a combination of both. Hence why I put causes in quotations. I'll leave this up to the scientists who are researching both sides of the argument.
Hence why it's good to read both far left, far right, centre left, centre right, moderate and libertarian news sources just to make sure. I'll be sure to evaluate these sources under much better scrutiny.
That advice doesn't sound as bad as it would have 10 years ago.
ReplyDelete"And that ain't going to go away."...
ReplyDeleteIf i were you i wouldn't be too sure about my pension. It might just get nationalized.
Note to any straight-shooters looking to go the military route: Lying your ass off at MEPS is pretty much required. If you're too honest, the guy that lied will get your job.
ReplyDeleteYour recruiter will help you out on how best to lie. Just listen and you will be fine.
I gotta disagree about the military...
ReplyDeleteyou might get killed or have to kill over a war we shouldn't be in anyways...
Great advice, sir! I'm scratching actuary science off my list of possible majors. Electrical engineering or econometrics sounds like the way to go and maybe I'll minor in some kind of computer science major. This college bubble needs to collapse soon.
ReplyDeleteGlobal warming breakthrough:
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it
I'm pretty neutral when it comes to global warming and its "causes" but this doesn't surprise me in any way. Governments just love those carbon taxes!
I keep hearing about age discrimination against older people, but wherever I go, older people have greater upward mobility whenever they take entry level positions, even when they dont perform any better than the young. Also, I noticed that people who have children also move up, even when they don't exercise flexibility or when they have to clock out to solve family problems. What gives. Does the business world have a misguided sense of sympathy for old people and parents?
ReplyDeleteI have no kids and I like to work the inconvenient shifts, but I get passed over in favor of these people all the time.
See this as well and gets old. Have my associates degree in banking and cant even get a teller job because A) I didnt knock a girl up and have a kid or B) Im not over 30 something to get the job.Gets old when I see people get the job over me because one of these reasons.Also same with you I have a flexable schedule and 6 years of Customer service behund my belt.
DeleteMuch of the video is good, but I have to disagree with the military advice. The military the Captain believes in exists only in the movies. The "real" military will challenge you alright -- it will challenge your ethics.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.johntreed.com/militaryhonor.html
Want some better advice: If you're 18-22 thinking of blwoing 50k of your daddy's money he doesn't, take up a trade and go live in a camp.
ReplyDeleteWelder, pipe fitter, surveyer, power engineer (boiler engineer) for example.
Look up towns like Fort McMurray, or Tumlber Ridge, where someone with two brain cells and the willingness to show up after the first paycheck can be making good coin, with low expenses.
Its a rough life, have an exit strategy, but 4 years getting journeyman ticket means you'd be set to go do what ever you want, go to school, travel, take a decade off and enjoy the decline.
Yeah, getting chewed up as cannon fodder in some hellhole is a significant downside. Navy and Air Force, on the other hand, don't strike me as being so expendable.
ReplyDeleteAlso, unlike any civilian job, if you've got an intolerable boss, you can't just say "Fuck you" and walk away. We've all had (or at least heard horror stories of) stupid bosses asking you to do stupid things, and for stupid reasons. In the civilian work force, all that's lost is your time, energy and respect, as your boss tries to brown nose his superiors with his department's performance. In the military, you could very well die to satisfy his vanity and pride.
The morality issue... We could argue forever about where we personally think the line between right and wrong is. But regardless of where the line is now, I expect the armed forces are going to be ordered to do increasingly objectionable acts for increasingly flimsy reasons.
The military is an option, yes, but think long and hard about the downsides.
The military can pay for your training in the trades. Job skills may also minimize some of the risk a military member will incur on a deployment.
ReplyDeleteSay the Army invested almost a year into training you to be a UAV pilot or electronics technician. Your chance of being attacked while on a convoy should be minimal. Some of these skills are worth a good deal of money on the civilian side of things, and the security clearance pays extra.
I am a baby boomer, father of two recent college grads in hard sciences. I have no objections to anything the Captain says. Essentially he's correct. But he and the rest of us need to take this farther.
ReplyDeleteWhen I left college and started in engineering without a degree, all I needed to do was show that I was talented and I would get work I liked and could excel at. I also made pretty good money. This was in the early/mid '70's.
But things started changing in the '90's, when credentials became more important than talent. I started having considerable difficulty remaining in engineering, and decided to get more credentials. Unfortunately, due to personal and locational circumstances, the only advanced credentials I could get was a law degree and license. I finished by the time I was roughly 47. And now I've learned that, after a short time gaining experience, no one wants to hire someone over 50. In fact, some federal reports refer to people over 50 as unemployable.
So what the Captain says about the baby-boomers isn't entirely accurate. If the rare boomer has a job, then right, s/he isn't going anywhere until s/he's ready. But if s/he isn't employed, they are not likely to be in the future.
So what this means, to me, is that basically my kid's cohort has about 15 years of work life available to them. They don't get respect until 35, and they're unemployable by 50.
Maybe this is why Romney et al. want to do away with real health insurance. If we have real, effective health insurance, people will live well past the 50 year mark where they are of value to the corporate overlords and financial titans, like Romney, Dimon, Blanckfein, the Kochs, and the rest of the parasites.
S Harvey
ReplyDelete"take up a trade and go live in a camp."
Couldn't agree more. I learned how to service helicopters and took jobs in the back of beyond, Middle East, oil rigs, jungles, deserts etc. By the time I was 35 I had a mortgage free house and a commercial investment property. Made the raising the family a lot easier.
Robert:
ReplyDeleteMet Office denial.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/16/daily-mail-global-warming-stopped-wrong?newsfeed=true
Intelligent "neutrality" involves evaluating the credibility of alternative views.
Military life is a great financial choice, provided you don't get your legs blown off. The VA is shit and you'll rot in a hospital somewhere.
ReplyDeleteAs for ethics, that's a separate consideration.
Anonymous,
Maybe civilian pensions will get nationalized, but military pensions
aren't going away. You're talking about reneging on payouts to a bloc of one million professional killers.
For crying out loud, use your head. At the worst, they'll start chipping away at those military pensions slowly.
Denise: Thanks for the link and thanks for proving my point! I wasn't saying that the article that I linked to was right or wrong. There's no doubt that there is global warming going on, but debate over what is causing it, whether it be natural causes or man made causes or a combination of both. Hence why I put causes in quotations. I'll leave this up to the scientists who are researching both sides of the argument.
ReplyDeleteHence why it's good to read both far left, far right, centre left, centre right, moderate and libertarian news sources just to make sure. I'll be sure to evaluate these sources under much better scrutiny.
If you took the Captain's advice and studied STEM, you aren't going to find a job after age 40, due to age discrimination.
ReplyDelete