Tweet
No, this isn’t my problem, but on another of the boards which is restricted to answers by LEOs only a young man (assumption) facing rejection by the agency of his choice has basically wailed, “Now what do I do with my life?”
I can’t answer that question for him. I can only pass on some answers which I have seen around me.
My father was born in 1932; during the Great Depression his father had supported the family by driving nitroglycerin. It was dropped into wells in the oil fields to break up the underground rock formations and coax the oil to flow more freely. These days nitroglycerin is considered too dangerous to transport; if you are going to use it you have to actually manufacture it at the point of use. But back in the 1930s the labs which produced it were back in town, and the professional drivers would take it by truck out as far as where the paved road ended. That’s when grandpa took over. He would take their truck and drive that ticking time bomb out over the ruts and cow paths and fields to where the rig stood and turn the load over to them before driving the truck back. For risking his life he was paid the princely sum of fifty cents a day. Dad grew up in a canvas tent and eating vegetables which his parents planted in their garden. He didn’t know he was poor; that’s just how people lived.
My father graduated from high school in 1949 and was the first of his family to go to college. He had always done well in math and science and had his heart set on becoming a nuclear physicist. It didn’t take long at LSU in Baton Rouge before he learned that, good as he was, he just didn’t have the chops for nuclear physics. So he enlisted in the Air Force and while there qualified for pilot training. He had been selected as a fighter pilot, but this was during the transition from props to jets and his training base had a shortage of jet trainers. There were few billets for P-51 pilots, so he volunteered for helicopters (his words: “If I was going to fly slow I wanted to fly REAL slow!”). He became a rescue helicopter pilot in Korea and rescued at least one downed aviator from behind enemy lines that he still talks about (“He never let me buy a drink the rest of the time I was there!”). Upon leaving the Air Force and returning to LSU with real-world experience he became an aerospace engineer and eventually ended up helping to put men on the Moon and fly the Space Shuttle. He recently celebrated his 88th birthday; he has 8 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren with more sure to come. Not a bad life.
My brother-in-law was born with cerebral palsy. For the first seven or eight years of his life the doctors said he would never walk. He eventually proved them wrong, but he still walks with a major limp. He went to Texas A&M and eventually graduated with a civil engineering degree; it took him about nine years. During that time he met my sister, married her, and began raising eight kids (I’m still single…). He’s done everything from selling guitars, teaching guitar, and currently works as a mortgage broker helping people buy homes. They’ve never had anywhere near enough money, but they’ve home-schooled all eight of their kids all the way and raised them to where they all truly love each other. You might point to his income or bank balance and smirk, but he’s an unqualified success as a father. What really matters in the long run?
I had the kind of performance in junior high and high school to make people think that I was the next Thomas Edison. The difference is, Thomas Edison had a work ethic and, at least back then, I didn’t. Still, I enlisted in the Navy, made it through Nuclear Power School, and qualified for the Naval Academy. I washed out after one year; personality conflicts with the upperclassmen. Still, I returned to the enlisted ranks and completed my six years of service, in the process becoming pretty damned good with boilers, steam turbines, pumps and the like. When I completed my service I briefly considered law enforcement but realized that I just didn’t have the skill set for it; one of the reasons I ticked off my seniors at Annapolis was that I had a very hard time remembering names and faces. I might have done better in the fire department—if every Marine is a rifleman, every Navy man is a firefighter—but I found that people were willing to pay me for taking care of boilers, air conditioning systems and pumps. I’ve been a building engineer in large commercial facilities for nearly 30 years now. I’m not rich by the standards of Wall Street, but I sleep each day (night shift!) with a clear conscience. I don’t regret any of the choices which led me here.
After nearly thirty years dealing with outside contractors I’ve come to realize how very wrong it is to focus on ‘me, me, me.’ Our schools are training kids to believe that even the marginal ones should go to college, and the colleges are largely churning out graduates with worthless degrees. I was talking with a senior manager of one of the plumbing companies we used for a major project a couple of years back. His company was crying to find high school graduates who could pass a drug test and show up on time on a regular basis, who had enough math to compute ¼ inch per foot and enough English to read and fill out a job ticket—and they couldn’t find them! He told me of one of his plumbers, a lady who had been a school teacher with a master’s degree. In her second year as an apprentice plumber she was already making more than she had teaching school—and with more job security.
Don’t turn up your nose at the trades. Yes, they can outsource my job—and they have, fairly regularly—but they can’t offshore it, not as long as they want to keep the lights on and the A/C running. If you can run a pipe or pull a wire you will likely always be able to find a job. Remember what the Master Carpenter said when you are considering your choice of a career: “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. (Mark 10:44, KJV)”
Just a thought.
I can’t answer that question for him. I can only pass on some answers which I have seen around me.
My father was born in 1932; during the Great Depression his father had supported the family by driving nitroglycerin. It was dropped into wells in the oil fields to break up the underground rock formations and coax the oil to flow more freely. These days nitroglycerin is considered too dangerous to transport; if you are going to use it you have to actually manufacture it at the point of use. But back in the 1930s the labs which produced it were back in town, and the professional drivers would take it by truck out as far as where the paved road ended. That’s when grandpa took over. He would take their truck and drive that ticking time bomb out over the ruts and cow paths and fields to where the rig stood and turn the load over to them before driving the truck back. For risking his life he was paid the princely sum of fifty cents a day. Dad grew up in a canvas tent and eating vegetables which his parents planted in their garden. He didn’t know he was poor; that’s just how people lived.
My father graduated from high school in 1949 and was the first of his family to go to college. He had always done well in math and science and had his heart set on becoming a nuclear physicist. It didn’t take long at LSU in Baton Rouge before he learned that, good as he was, he just didn’t have the chops for nuclear physics. So he enlisted in the Air Force and while there qualified for pilot training. He had been selected as a fighter pilot, but this was during the transition from props to jets and his training base had a shortage of jet trainers. There were few billets for P-51 pilots, so he volunteered for helicopters (his words: “If I was going to fly slow I wanted to fly REAL slow!”). He became a rescue helicopter pilot in Korea and rescued at least one downed aviator from behind enemy lines that he still talks about (“He never let me buy a drink the rest of the time I was there!”). Upon leaving the Air Force and returning to LSU with real-world experience he became an aerospace engineer and eventually ended up helping to put men on the Moon and fly the Space Shuttle. He recently celebrated his 88th birthday; he has 8 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren with more sure to come. Not a bad life.
My brother-in-law was born with cerebral palsy. For the first seven or eight years of his life the doctors said he would never walk. He eventually proved them wrong, but he still walks with a major limp. He went to Texas A&M and eventually graduated with a civil engineering degree; it took him about nine years. During that time he met my sister, married her, and began raising eight kids (I’m still single…). He’s done everything from selling guitars, teaching guitar, and currently works as a mortgage broker helping people buy homes. They’ve never had anywhere near enough money, but they’ve home-schooled all eight of their kids all the way and raised them to where they all truly love each other. You might point to his income or bank balance and smirk, but he’s an unqualified success as a father. What really matters in the long run?
I had the kind of performance in junior high and high school to make people think that I was the next Thomas Edison. The difference is, Thomas Edison had a work ethic and, at least back then, I didn’t. Still, I enlisted in the Navy, made it through Nuclear Power School, and qualified for the Naval Academy. I washed out after one year; personality conflicts with the upperclassmen. Still, I returned to the enlisted ranks and completed my six years of service, in the process becoming pretty damned good with boilers, steam turbines, pumps and the like. When I completed my service I briefly considered law enforcement but realized that I just didn’t have the skill set for it; one of the reasons I ticked off my seniors at Annapolis was that I had a very hard time remembering names and faces. I might have done better in the fire department—if every Marine is a rifleman, every Navy man is a firefighter—but I found that people were willing to pay me for taking care of boilers, air conditioning systems and pumps. I’ve been a building engineer in large commercial facilities for nearly 30 years now. I’m not rich by the standards of Wall Street, but I sleep each day (night shift!) with a clear conscience. I don’t regret any of the choices which led me here.
After nearly thirty years dealing with outside contractors I’ve come to realize how very wrong it is to focus on ‘me, me, me.’ Our schools are training kids to believe that even the marginal ones should go to college, and the colleges are largely churning out graduates with worthless degrees. I was talking with a senior manager of one of the plumbing companies we used for a major project a couple of years back. His company was crying to find high school graduates who could pass a drug test and show up on time on a regular basis, who had enough math to compute ¼ inch per foot and enough English to read and fill out a job ticket—and they couldn’t find them! He told me of one of his plumbers, a lady who had been a school teacher with a master’s degree. In her second year as an apprentice plumber she was already making more than she had teaching school—and with more job security.
Don’t turn up your nose at the trades. Yes, they can outsource my job—and they have, fairly regularly—but they can’t offshore it, not as long as they want to keep the lights on and the A/C running. If you can run a pipe or pull a wire you will likely always be able to find a job. Remember what the Master Carpenter said when you are considering your choice of a career: “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. (Mark 10:44, KJV)”
Just a thought.
Comment