Saturday, October 23, 2010

Adam Carolla and Mike Rowe Talk Skilled Trades

I strongly recommend listening to the latest interview with Dirty Job's Mike Rowe on the Adam Carolla Show. Carolla is a carpenter turned comedian while Rowe gets down and dirty every week on the Discovery Channel. Their concern is that we are sending too many kids to University to study the arts and social sciences, without enough respect and attention paid to the skilled trades. They don't teach you how to be a plumber at Harvard, but plumbers are in far greater demand than sociologists. This idea that we have to send all our kids to University is creating a serious shortage in the skilled trades. We have thousands of unemployed philosophy students and not enough trades workers. Liberal leader Mike Ignatieff wants to send all our kids to University, where they don't teach you anything about the majority of the available jobs in our workforce.

Download for free on I-Tunes or at the Adam Carolla website. It is great listening! If you are looking for Christmas gifts for friends and family, I also recommend Carolla's new book "In 50 years we'll all be chicks".

3 comments:

  1. Well said Iceman! If you want to be recession proof get a trade. There is always well paid work. You might have to move to where the work is, just part of the adventure.
    I worked in the Iron workers, Boilermaking trade for 40 years, made a good honest living. Thing of it is you learn how to do more than just your own trade. If you know how to plan a job, lay it out, fabricate it, weld it, inspect it and erect it, you will never lack well paid honest work. With a great bunch of down to earth people I will add.
    Cheers Bubba the hard working Boilermaker (retired)

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  2. Absolutely true in every respect. Me I freely confess to being not all that 'mechanical' but I have often wished that I was. I would much rather have actually built something than pushed all that paper. Just for the satisfaction of the thing.

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  3. AS a union tradesman of 25 yrs I don't recommend it, Yes I've always had employment if I was willing to travel, live in Camps and give up all pretense of family life, but my take home pay is nearly the same as 25 yrs ago, Political intervention in saftey has in fact made my job far more dangerous and the envorio BS has driven up construction costs by 60% for no transfered value, the "saftey" regime has driven productivity into the ground and I no longer enjoy the job I once loved, there is no sense of accomplishment just a sense of glad that's over and on to the next headache.
    Not to mention our labor laws are ignored as the companies try to force American labor laws on us including violating our constitutional rights.
    Get an education and move to a non-socialist country if you can find one.

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