Get A Job

         I was raised on a farm.  My father thought getting a good education and going to work for a big company was the best way to be set for life. 

        Graduating from high school was what Dad considered a good education.  He thought job security was such that I could retire from the company worked for.  Working for a big corporation was a good option in the 1940s and 1950s.  The 1950’s probably were one of the greatest times of prosperity for the United States.

        A job was good for my brother who was nineteen years older than me.  After WW II, he went to work for Douglas Aircraft, which became McDonald Douglas, and later Boeing. 

        Labor was represented by United Auto Workers. Bob retired at sixty-one with full a pension and benefits.  He told me when he was eighty-three that he had received more money from his pension than he had received in wages for all the years he had worked.  We may never see that again.  The plant is now closed.

        If you are unemployed, it may be even harder to get a job.  Some human resource departments have a policy of only hiring people that are currently employed. 

        If you want a stable career, consider learning a trade.  Trade school is an attractive option compared to a four-year college degree.  A four-year collage degree is very expensive and many are worthless.  A degree in basket weaving, gender studies or art history will not be a good investment. 

        Once, when I was a plant manager for a small manufacturing plant in a small Midwest town, I needed a new office manager.  I had an applicant who’d been a bank manager in town.  He’d been let go because of a merger.  While definitely overqualified, I still felt he was a good prospect.  He lived in town and he didn’t want to move.  He would be taking a cut in pay, but was financially independent because of his past career and family money.  

        My corporate management did not consider him the best choice because of his over-qualification.  I hired him anyway.  He worked out well, and with my recommendation, he took over as my replacement for plant manager when I left the company.  Unfortunately, many HR departments don’t feel the same way I do about overqualified and unemployed potential employees.

        “Get a Job” is chapter two in my book Business Fits.  It goes into greater detail on this subject.

 

Business Fits by Terry Oliver Lee is available on Amazon as an e-book or a paperback. http://BusinessFits.com