Goodbye Bronwyn

[Lemon]

Re: my recent experience with apprentices,
A comment was made above about doing your time in the railways. Unfortunately large employers with a social conscience no longer exist. Ie. The railways, the BHPs of the world, who used to put on 200 apprentices a year are long gone.
Most apprentices now are employed by a training college who places them in work piecemeal, and they get pushed pillar to post. Some lucky ones stay with a larger employer for their time. Few , some do, get kept on at the end of their time in this situation.
The wheel is slowing turning, as older tradesmen retire or leave and the value of properly breeding your own trades is seen as useful, some of these employers are putting on trades apprentices themselves.

Probably 5-10 years ago it was truely awful, no apprentices put on at all. The only elecos being trained were those in the IT industry, and they came out as fully qualified cable pullers, who had difficulty wiring a GPO.

Some trades are dying, if you wanted to be a boilermaker you would struggle to find employment as fully qualified. As a welder, yes.

 

[Burt de Ernie]

How would it be received if it was a third year medical student teaching a first year medical student how to be a doctor? Not well I'd wager.

Irrelevant comment because only universities can teach degrees. Being a doctor is a "qualification" i.e. you must have completed a doctorate whereas being a third year apprentice is not a qualification however, a third year medical student could definitely teach the practical side to a first year student. This of course does not take into account the multiple levels of qualifications required in any medically related job.

Anyways, I thought we were talking about tradies.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

We've come to accept planned obsolescence in electrical items such as televisions, phones and fans. If a fan stops working after 2 years we are not surprised and just buy another cheap fan. Many electrical items can be made to last much longer but this doesn't suit current business models. I wonder if one day we will accept such a proposition with residential housing.

Residential housing went through that stage, after the war the prefabs weren't meant to last, some years ago a guy bought one in Williamstown with the intention of knocking it down, only to find a preservation had been put on it for historical interest.

 

[Dave70]

Huge shortage of brickies at the moment. Good tradies are getting up to and over $1 per brick and can do 1300 bricks per day standing on their ear.
Sadly for young folk, you dont get to start on 100,000k per year so you may have to put in the hard yards for a while.
But never mind. Sure there will be a bunch of contractors only to happy to sponsor foreign workers on 457 visas to fill the gap while your time doing a B of A and taking a gap year.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Not quite but it was a long road and three degrees to get to a point where I earn a wage considered slightly above the mean (very slightly above but I do also love my job). On job experience and attitude (and hard work) at least as valuable as uni, would have been better off financially learning a trade.

Wouldn't swap my life for another as I'm really happy - just not what I was led to believe.

Just remember money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

 

[Airgead]

You can't buy happiness... but you can rent a reasonable approximation for a while.

Actually you can't. Lots of studies have shown that as we gain more in material possessions, our level of happiness goes down. the only people who gain happiness from more stuff are the ones who have absolutely nothing.Once basic needs are met and we are comfortable, extra stuff doesn't make you any happier.

What does bring happiness are family, a sense of belonging to a strong community, a sense of purpose in what you do, a level of autonomy in controlling your life, gaining mastery in skills.

All the things we now devalue in favor of making more money to buy more **** that just makes us more miserable....

 

[seamad]

You don't see Gina smile too much, and even then she's tried to pinch her kids money, seems no amount of money is enough.

 

[Airgead]

And Rupert looks like a bundle of fun doesn't he...

 

[seamad]

almost as much fun as gerard henderson and his equally terrible wife, imagine going to a dinner party with them, I'd van gogh my ears with a spoon and stick bread rolls in the wounds

 

[Dave70]

The always miserable, Richard Branson.

{edit - Thats Branson, not Bronson}

 

[Airgead]

True... but for Sir Ric, its not so much about the pursuit of money and power, its about doing something he believes in and having a good time. The fact that it makes money is a bonus. He started Virgin records out of frustration at not being able to get good music due to restrictive sales policies that increased prices. it became a success because he gave people what they wanted - good music at fair prices.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them ... from the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to attempt it.

 

[Coalminer]

You can't buy happiness... but you can rent a reasonable approximation for a while.

Actually you can't. Lots of studies have shown that as we gain more in material possessions, our level of happiness goes down. the only people who gain happiness from more stuff are the ones who have absolutely nothing.Once basic needs are met and we are comfortable, extra stuff doesn't make you any happier.

What does bring happiness are family, a sense of belonging to a strong community, a sense of purpose in what you do, a level of autonomy in controlling your life, gaining mastery in skills.

All the things we now devalue in favor of making more money to buy more **** that just makes us more miserable....

Rubbish

I was happy with K&K and bottling

then I got kegs and was a lot happier

Then I got a Braumeister and went all-grain

Now I'm a a bloody lot happier

The only thing money can't buy is poverty

 

[wide eyed and legless]

What does bring happiness are family, a sense of belonging to a strong community, a sense of purpose in what you do, a level of autonomy in controlling your life, gaining mastery in skills.

All the things we now devalue in favor of making more money to buy more **** that just makes us more miserable....

There is no need to devalue what you said in your first sentence, though it does happen sadly to most people, if it hadn't been for my wife telling me to take time out 2 1/2 years ago so I could get to know my daughters I am sure I wouldn't have a family, and be leading a miserable life, I didn't even have time to sit on a computer when I was working, not for reasons other than work related.
I have put this poem in a post before, it was in all our bedrooms, back of the toilet door and on top of the trophy cabinet our Dad put them up to give us a winning attitude to sport, but it is also a good outlook to have on life.

Thinking
If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

 

[Elz]

Huge shortage of brickies at the moment. Good tradies are getting up to and over $1 per brick and can do 1300 bricks per day standing on their ear.
.

For how long?

Brick-laying robot on the job in Victoria:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/money/business/2013/11/07/brick-laying-robot-on-the-job-in-victor/3469565/

Lays 3000 bricks a day

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Not very good at pointing apparently.

 

[Airgead]

Rubbish

I was happy with K&K and bottling

then I got kegs and was a lot happier

Then I got a Braumeister and went all-grain

Now I'm a a bloody lot happier

The only thing money can't buy is poverty

Come on... everyone knows all grain is a basic need....

But on a more serious note, your progression from K&K to all grain and the happiness it brought you was more about mastery and purpose than money. The increase in your brewing skills would have made you just as happy on a bolted together gravity fed system knocked up out of scavenged parts as it did n a shiny new braumeister.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Huge shortage of brickies at the moment. Good tradies are getting up to and over $1 per brick and can do 1300 bricks per day standing on their ear.

Enough to make a bloke give up plumbing

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Sadly for young folk, you dont get to start on 100,000k per year so you may have to put in the hard yards for a while.

Reminds me of when I started my apprenticeship. I think the total that year was about 6-700....Thats not ******** either. That where all trades from sign writers - upholsters - sparkys - fitters . All in the one big building

There was on particular group of a particular ethnic mix ( whom I wont name for fear of being racist but they where .....) who drove hotted up Gemini's, and wore jewelry, who did nothing but whinge and carry on about how they where leaving to work for more money at McD's.

The instructors had an open door policy. You where where open to walk out the door never to return. The instructors didn't care if you left, was your choice. They where more interested in teaching the apprentices who wanted to be there. They actually factored in an attrition rate with the intake. Nothing to have 60-70 leave every year.

By our 4th year we where earning more than the guys who left

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

You can't buy happiness... but you can rent a reasonable approximation for a while.

Actually you can't. Lots of studies have shown that as we gain more in material possessions, our level of happiness goes down.

No wonder I am so happy. I dont own very much.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Haha...Just heard the best description of Mark Latham on SBS tonight.

" Australia's professional angry white man "