School or my own way?

That situation sounds heavenly.
I'm in the U.S. though.
$22 an hour plus overtime seems incredible.

 

It really isn't that hard. My girlfriend is working in a mine right now as an student-occupational nurse (of which every large industrial camp will have several). They pay her the same rate as a first-aid attendant because she is a student (to become a level-3 first aid attendant, you have to take a 2 week course), which is a $250 daily rate. Her shift is 3 weeks (21 days) in 1 week out.

That is for a 2-week course and a clean piss test. It is because of gigs like that that I can't figure out why people wash dishes.

*The situation may be different in the US - I've never tried to work there. It is different in Canadian cities where there are more people than work.

 

People wash dishes because here a "$250 daily rate" is absolutely unheard of.

I hope you don't mind me saying so but that is almost unbelievable. Not that I think you're lying, I'm just incredulous over the fact that, not only is your girlfriend making approximately 63K a year because of a two week course, but also that these jobs are easy to come by.

The most money I've ever made in my entire life is when I worked at a train yard, hopping on the back of cars and jumping off to switch the tracks over when the engineer told me to do so. The competition for this job was fierce and the only reason I got the position was because of a friend. I made $10 an hour.

 

And at the risk of your life...that sucks

 

It takes a special kind of person to work 21 13-hour days in a row in an isolated work camp. Oftentimes, it really sucks.

I won't give the sub-contractor that she works for (although if you really cared, I'm sure you could figure it out), but she works at Milligan Mine, which is in the construction phase. Google it, if you want.

 

Well like I said, it isn't that I don't believe you, it's just that you make it sound as if these jobs are so common they can't keep them filled.
It must have something to do with our locations. Where I am now, I was unemployed for a year, and only after searching for that long I was able to find this, a minimum wage dish-washing job. And part-time at that, ha-ha!

About what I said in my previous post, I forgot to add, there was one point where I almost had the opportunity to start up a freight brokering business with a friend.
If that had panned out I might have been pulling around $250 a day, however we couldn't afford the $10,000 surety bond so it didn't work out.
So, it isn't entirely unheard of, but in order to make that kind of money here I was going to have to start my own business, lol.

 

They don't bang on people's doors asking them to work there. But they aren't difficult to get either.

When things were really crazy during the oil-boom, Grand Prairies' wages were so inflated that people were making 20 bucks an hour to work in Tim Horton's or sell CDs.

 

Go to school for 4 years and get a chem engineering degree. Work for about 4 years living off about $20,000 a year. When they start taking money from your paychecks for failure to repay your debts, quit your job you'll have $100 grand in the bank, go to South America and learn how to sail boats.

When you do, buy a boat in South America. Fix it up with a nice paint job and and post it online. When someone buys it, sail it to them. Charge them a little extra if they want sailing lessons.

You can also have your own little boat in a little while, buy some scuba equipment and get certified in a year or two. Take some tourists out around the reefs of Guatemala.

Maybe hunt for some sunken Spanish gold.

That's my eventual life plan. I'm a pirate at heart. I can't help you figure out what you want to do with your life. But education isn't overrated. Pedagogy is, but it can by a means to an end.

A career you enjoy. Or don't enjoy while you save up to move off to do something you really want to do. :biggrin:

 

Ten fucking dollars an hour, for hard dangerous semi-skilled labor? Shit, that's ALMOST a living wage! We better hurry up and bust those unions, next thing you know they won't wanna live in the projects or buy a new car that they won't pay for before they die every 5 years.

America, the land of the free*!






*free to either work as a wage slave, or starve, while the richest have sums that they could not spend if they went on a rest-of-their-life shopping spree. Please note that starvation may also occur during aforementioned wage-slavery, and don't forget your I-9's and W-4's and at least 4 currently valid identifications to prove exactly WHO is starving.

:leaving:

 

Thanks for all of your inputs, guys. I really do appreciate your honesty and support. I think I've just been overwhelmed lately. It's hard to think about when you see all the debt racking up and so many people not even using their degrees. And realizing I have no clue what I want to do and all the options I don't even know about.

I just need to remember, I WANT to find out. I WANT to see my options and I WANT to have something to show for all the hard work I've put into the past several years.

I think I may take a Physics class sometime soon and see how I handle that.

 

Bunnie, if you are at all inclined, Nursing is an honorable and well paying job requiring no more than 2 years traing to become an RN. My second to youngest son has a BS degree and a two year RN. As an RN he knocks down $35.00 an hour and is only in his first year after graduating. He's converting the RN to a BSN which will open more opportunities for him. It's a noble profession that can go anywhere and make you a living wage. I knew a traveling nurse whose job was to escort patients from remote areas to hospitals. She flew her patients first class, was given access to executive lounges in airports and was accorded consideration and respect for helping her patients. She contracted to various travel insurance companies.

 

I'm not sure that all provinces are the same, but the one in which I live, minimum wage is $10.25 an hour. That means the lowest of all jobs pay that at least, bare minimum. Grunt labour and fast food type jobs will earn you that, at the bare minimum.

 

I'm not sure about this. I'm at a University right now and came right after highschool and I don't know if I'm cut out for it. I felt much more productive at home in highschool with my minimum job somehow. :/

 

yea, that's been thrown at me by many people, but I really have zero interest in nursing. i can't stand that environment. needles, blood, guts, those feces bags, people suffering. no thank you. they couldn't pay me enough in the world to make up for the anxiety all that would cause me.

 

k.

 

i dropped out of high school after 1 year, and started working...
it worked out really great for me!- but maybe it was the easy path!

i feel like for some of us school works against our nature in such a bad way...
but i also feel very envious of it, like looking into another world!!

i have just started going to community college, to get my GED and try to expand my world......
and maybe that is the best thing for some of us.. to get working and let it play out, and maybe go to school when it feels right......

 

It was just a thought, didn't mean to throw it at you. Works for some/not others

 

didn't mean that in a bad way. shoulda said toss, not throw. lol

 

I could never hack school, so I dropped out at 17, had a string of unsatisfying and low-to-medium paying jobs, and at 23/24 I made some major realizations, gathered a bit of focus, and, in the space of a few years, a couple of certifications. Now I'm working a job I don't even consider to be work, earning up to four times what I need to sustain myself, and doing so on a tropical island.

The opportunities are out there, and for the right person they are abundant. It is so much easier than you would think to have a life most people only dream about. But you do need to figure out for yourself what you want to do, no one can do that for you. And personally,I had no idea what I wanted to do until I started traveling, and it was through my travels that I realized it was possible to do what I'm currently doing. So that might be a good place to start - especially if you like learning stuff.

 

I am not in your position, I'm going to graduate high school next year (hopefully).
I just recently figured out that I do not want to go to college, because it's not for me. I know what I want to do with my life and that is to not do things I don't enjoy, i.e writing papers to impress people just to get a piece of paper.
I'm going to get a job of some sort, move to a cheap place, wait until I find a rich guy, and he will travel with me around the world.
I have been traveling with my own parent my whole young life, that's how I know I want to travel more. I haven't been everywhere, though I have been to many places around the world.
And every place has a different vibe, feel, people's attitudes differ, weather. Gotta find the perfect place for you, then settle down for good. I have already! Thanks to my Mother who is and was so open to traveling with me all my life! God bless her