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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAndrea Mitchell Full Of (You Know What)
Andrea Mitchell is on progressive talk right now pushing the meme that the new job market means that you will have 6 or 7 careers instead of one job over time. That we need to be ready to be retrained over and over for 40 or 50 years. That is so much "sorry" crapola that it is not even funny. The lie makes my blood boil.
That idea is such a dead end for workers because what they are telling you is that you have to uproot yourself continually. It has never worked and never will. It is like transplanting a tomato plant every week during the growing season and expecting it to produce tomatoes. It does not thrive. It dies.
Nothing survives in a constant state of turmoil.
ALL WORKERS WANT IS A JOB WITH SECURITY AND A FUTURE. THEY DON'T WANT TO BE A DAMNED JOB GYPSY GOING FROM JOB TO JOB TO JOB. AND THEY DON'T WANT TO SPEND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS GOING TO ENDLESS SCHOOLS THEY PAY FOR THEM SELVES.
I interviewed thousands of workers at Jobs Service for 24 years and what is just said is ALL THEY WANT. THEY DON'T ALL WANT TO BE ZILLIONAIRES.
They just want to live and have relationships. They want to be able to be with their families and raise their children. And they don't want to work until they are 90 or dead. And if the 7 career model is the new reality workers are ROYALLY screwed.
The multiple career meme is the BIGGEST DAMNED FRAUD OF THE 21st CENTURY.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)the very wealthy...
madokie
(51,076 posts)In my work career I've been a dozer operator, both frame and finish carpenter, electrician upgrading foundry machines to process controllers from relay controls and finished off my work as a concrete finisher. So I've had a few changes thought out my work history.
Of all the different jobs I had I liked finishing concrete the best. Once you get cement in your blood its hard to change. All jobs except the dozer operator I worked as a working leadman/foreman.
My wife on the other hand still works where she worked as a student in high school. Some of those years she was a stay at home mom raising two sons.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)will not be doing the same thing for 30/40 years. The world is changing rapidly -- particularly with technology -- and a lot of people have to be prepared to change with it or they will go the way of the buggy whip makers or switchboard operators. I'm not saying that is desirable, but I don't see much way around it. I do believe the government and employers should participate in the retraining of people. And, I don't believe in out-sourcing jobs overseas.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)eh, Mrs Greenspan?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Very few people stay with the same firm for a lifetime because the companies themselves are likely to be restructured or move offshore.
As for static job skills and stable occupations in knowledge industries, forget it. They are constantly changing, and 6 mos. away can make you obsolete - most employers aren't equipped to do much retraining. So, it rests in the individual in knowledge industries to reinvent him/herself multiple times with (hopefully) complementary skill sets or face permanent layoff.
lector
(95 posts)So far in life, I have been a Crawdad pecker checker (don't laugh it paid for my books), then the Army,Musician for 8 years on the road. Then I owned a auto sales (S.B.), then I owned a stained glass business,
Now I am selling trailers to red necks. That's 3 jobs, and 3 small business. I am semi retiring soon and going back to Stained glass.
PavePusher
(15,374 posts)There, fixed it for you.
yellowcanine
(35,701 posts)As a rule most people do not change careers 6-7 times during a lifetime. They may change jobs, which isn't the same thing. And you don't count the hamburger flipping jobs which may have earned you gas money as a teenager or helped get you through college. Those aren't careers, they are summer jobs.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)in their work and place of residence.
Mrs. Greenspan undoubtedly knows it.
I wonder how well she'd hold up after 40-50 years of constant turmoil as a lower middle class person? Not well, I suspect.
Also, the constant need for self retraining consumes a lot of time that some might actually use to get to know their neighbors and get involved in their communities, another thing that the ptb don't want us to do.
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)new outrage.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Because those 40 and 50 year long jobs with bennies and insurance are over, and millions of older Americans have worked and left the last job they will ever have.
Look around - all the evidence says she is right, it's a service economy, and people better learn to deal with it - see [link:http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/dont-expect-many-new-factory-jobs/|here.
Btw, your assertion that
"Nothing survives in a constant state of turmoil."
Is probably 100% accurate. But spending time bemoaning the idea that things are no longer like they once were seems like a waste of time, with so much else to do to figure out how to build and work for the next hundred years.
Because that will make damn sure nothing survives.