You know you're getting old....

Indeed, this is true, I should have been more accurate in my choice of wording. By "BA in EE" I meant "BS in EE."

I've all but given up on the job market, so I haven't been following the availability as of late, it's depressing. I just checked several online services to see what I could find to illustrate, but there are little electronics-related positions open near me. Not like I'd be qualified anyways. But those that are open, are specialty positions which do command a large salary, and all want multiple EE degrees and/or years of experience. That would be fine, if you happen to have devoted a decade of your life and tens of thousands of dollars to getting there. I guess I just consider electronics an interesting hobby.

I was "offered" what I think was a military journeyman position once, which did include a very large salary. The job was to repair radar equipment on ships. Very dangerous work, hundreds of feet up, damaging microwave energy, high voltages, etc. To this day, I don't know if it was legit or just a ploy to get another recruit enlisted. But I passed on it none-the-less.

I do clearly recall several times seeing positions open for electronics service/repair/design where they were asking for the ability to comprehend and administer electronic circuts (isn't that an EE?), and offering $10/hr. The electronics service end of things seems to pay especially low, such as repairshops. You still have to know what you're doing though. Once in highschool I tried applying at a few in town, but nobody would give me a chance, despite taking all three years of electronics offered. Also I've seen industrial panel wiring for $9.50/hr and even applied for that position, but was beat to it, likely by someone with a BS in EE. At my old engineering job, I worked with an EE who was doing PLC engineering and made $15/hr. I made $13/hr installing and configuring custom workstations to control the custom PLC's. The president of the company however, once bought $250,000 worth of paintings (and a mural) to hang up in the office. Apparently he was a highschool grad.

Regards, Mark

for

For an interesting experiment in human nature, and one guaranteed to aggravate, :-] at just the right moment, you'll know when that is, look at someone with a furrowed brow, and speak in a slightly "Freddie the Chainsaw" maniacal voice with a deep low volume tone saying, " I hope you get exactly what you deserve"! The amusing thing is that most everyone must feel they are getting more than they deserve as most seem to react rather negatively to the above exercise. :-]

Louis--

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:35:34 -0500, "Mark J." Gave us:

Skivies fit rather tightly, whereas "bloomers" can bunch up really badly. I know from a past life in the 20's. :]

--- That's because, from birth, they have been taught that they are superior beings and have been supplied with, and taught how to use, the tools which will assure their ascendancies into positions of leadership.

Vis a vis, if you have the slightest doubt about the correctness of your position when confronting a foe, you'll lose. You'll have to, since your foe will want to vanquish you and, sensing your guilt, will put you in a position from which you can't recover. Goodbye... Even if you _knew_ were right and you managed to let yourself get talked out of it, you lose.

-- John Fields

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 09:38:29 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

Yes. In Cinti., they advertise at $12.50 / hr at Wendy's as the respondents, if any number only around 50, and they are all college students.

In SD CA it goes for min wage, and 250 hispanics apply for it.

We aren't in China, so I want a goddamned wage that IS commensurate with my skill set, not some asshole telling me how "We could do it cheaper in China." Hell it takes six iterations for them to get an HV transformer right such that it won't fail, and those were the good transformer makers! This country needs help when a sit on his ass, PC set up tech level twit is called an admin, and makes more than an engineer that actually DOES work every day, every hour.

On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 10:23:57 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

That's silly. A person can take a simple MSCE course and they start between 60k and 80k. The good ones, that is. Screw being a computer engineer, the admin jobs are

Hell computer consultant helpers get $90 an hour around here, while the consultant gets $175 an hour.

Engineers have been absolutely screwed over the years, if one weighs skill set over pay. We are far more skilled than ANY IT admin, yet those lame, coffee and doughnuts bastards get way more, and get on the "good" side of the executive branch of a given company as well.

Just like I could never charge a guy $100 for working on his TV, when the problem was a blown fuse, I can't see paying some lame f*ck "admin" huge bucks for sitting on his ass over 50% of the time.

Jim, it depends on if you ask those few still employed design engineers or those who've already lost their income when their jobs were outsourced to France, India, or China.

Harry C.

And do you actually _have_ this "BS in EE" that you're talking about, or just making excuses for not bothering to _get_ a "BS in EE"?

Plus, I guess it depends on how hungry you are. I've done $8.25/hr assembly work when that was all the work there was. Well, all the work I was suited for in my condition at the time. %-}

But I hung in there and kept learning stuff, and kind of worked my way up. Now I'm so important and I do so much stuff that I don't even _have_ a job title! ;-)

Back on-topic: I was about 7 or 8 when the press releases came out on the first transistor. My dad, salesman and finagler that he was, got his hands on a couple of military tech manuals that explained the physics of how transistors work in terms that even a soldier (or an 8-year-old whiz kid) could grasp.

Which might have something to do with it: if you don't love it, it's not for you. If all you're looking for is easy money, take up court reporting. ;-)

Good Luck! Rich

and

which

energy,

ploy

$10/hr.

made

bought

Then go get one, rather than sitting and whining about how hard things are.

Good Luck! Rich

Yep, When I was whining about needing money one summer at about age

It was 42 years ago, but my starting pay at Motorola was $6600/year.

...Jim Thompson

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 01:37:58 GMT, "Rich Grise" Gave us:

Don't be an idiot! Too late!

Two things...

One, I went to my 40th high school reunion a few years ago. Those of us that busted our asses to get a degree were certainly in the top quartile of the moneymakers of that group, but the one goofoff that went straight into the plumbing trade out of high school was the one driving the Mercedes and living in the penthouse. I asked him how he managed to make so much money. He said that if he bought a pipe for a dollar and sold it for two dollars he was happy with his 1% profit. Do you think I had the cojones to tell him he was wrong? Hell, HE was the one driving the Mercedes.

Two, I don't care if you top post or not, but if you bottom post and don't snip, I go right by you.

Jim

Plutocrat. I went to work in '58 fixing TVs for 65 cents an hour. In '67 straight out of college I was the top graduate working for Teledyne at $8400/annum.

Jim

Jim Thompson shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

->Yep, When I was whining about needing money one summer at about age

->16, my father (still quite the sage even now) said to me, "Anything

->keeping you from pumping gas?" So I worked the summer pumping gas and

->learning how to take cars apart, for $1 an hour.

->

->It was 42 years ago, but my starting pay at Motorola was $6600/year.

->

-> ...Jim Thompson

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Weir wrote (in ) about 'You know you're getting old....', on Sat, 7 Feb 2004:

That's a very old story.

The richest member of my HS class (1958) was Bill Corns... he went straight to work for his father hauling commercial garbage.

...Jim Thompson

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 15:00:02 -0700, Jim Thompson Gave us:

in

snip,

Don't forget to check out alt.binaries.sounds.78rpm-era for many of the songs he listens to. ;-]