Canada's economy the envy of the world

[Professur]

I'm also not a computer tech. Hell, that should be obvious from my questions on how to get a simple wireless network up n'running. A comp-tech job would last me about 2 weeks..if I ever got the position in the first place - however unlikely that might be.

I beg to differ. I remember well the comp job I offered you ... and I know you well enough to know whether you could have done it or not. And I'll go on record saying that I could have taught you everything you'd have needed for that job in under a day. I can say that with confidence because that's exactly how long it took me to train up the guy we did hire ... who had no experience in the field previously. Didn't take me any longer to train up his replacement. Or the two guys who came after. Or the three kids we got on stage. Or the pair of teachers we had in last week (who were so impressed with what we did with the sagaires that they want to build a laptop lab at their school in our image).

That comp job wasn't like what I did in the field. It wasn't what can be termed a deep water deployment (always in over your head). It was (and still is) kiddie pool depth, supporting 4000 nearly identical machines ... with a factory trained level 2.5 tech as your backup.

And it was 85% administrative anyhow. I do all the heavy thinking still. The others are pretty well point and click off a check list.

But that's all past and done. I won't offer you again, just as I won't offer my brother in law. I only posted in this thread in the first place, to point out that Canada is hiring still, even if you're not finding what you want. I'm just curious tho ... did you ever even look up what the 'pole climber' position entails? You might be surprised at how little actual pole climbing is involved. All new housing has their wires run underground. Not that I give a damn one way or the other.

Edit: I taught the job to V2.0 5 years back. You know how old that would make her. It took her about 20 minutes to pick it up.

 

[jimpeel]

I don't climb poles and I don't lay lines; I'm not a computer/network tech either, Prof. You, of all people, should understand that I worked hard to get the skills and experience that I have in the design field and would like to at least stay in the same area-code of job-types. Hell, you lament the fact that it took me this long to realize where my skills lay. You have marketing/advertising/design related positions open..I'd be more than happy to look into it and get you that finders fee.

After I was laid off from Quantum Corp. in 2001, 9/11 hit and the design/drafting/engineering market dried up.

There were no H1B, H2B work visas and relocation was out of the question. "Local candidates only" became the watchword.

I sold the house, bought a 31' Airstream trailer and was ready to move anywhere. I had resumes in nearly every state in the union and still couldn't find a job.

When I celebrated my one-year anniversary being out of work, I started looking for a maintenance gig which paid a salary plus housing. We ended up becoming the resident managers of a unit of a small motel chain.

I went from $72,000/yr to $5.15/hr. I still had the debts of a guy making $72K. Because I was able to eliminate the two things which take most of my disposable income I was able to pay my bills. I didn't have to bankrupt and everyone else didn't have to pay my bills.

Conversely, I have dealt with numerous engineers and designers who have the attitude you do. They are waiting for the right job to come along. They won't take half of what they made before but will deplete their savings and live on unemployment until the end. Some income, even Wal-Mart income, is better than living on the dole.