The $100K jobs no one wants

[bearishgurl]

[quote=craptcha]A friend of mine is a trucker. He used to spend weekends at home and go coast to coast during the week. He now spends one week at home then three weeks on the road. He has a wife and two daughters.

Another guy I know came here with his wife and two sons about 10 years ago. The wife and the kids went back to their home country after few years. He spends 8-9 months trucking in the US (lives in the truck) and 3-4 months with his family.

A cousin of mine has been working on oil drills (Middle East, Africa, Northern Sea) for almost 30 years. 2 months at home, 2 months in the field since more than 20 years ago. They have one kid. They wanted to have more but he lost fertility along the way.[/quote]

craptcha, I think a lot of the scheduling issues your truck-driving friends had in the past have been addressed by the major transportation firms in recent years. If you watched the video in the OP, it stated that drivers were being used regionally and trading off to other drivers as they reached the end of their “region” for just the retention reasons you mentioned. And 4 day on, 3 day off schedules and other quality-of-life changes have been made. The industry is trying to make the profession more “palatable” to potential drivers. The current cohort of drivers is aging fast and it is not uncommon to see a whole table full of drivers at a truck stop all OVER the age of 70. These road warriors won’t last forever and the industry is desperate for new blood.

I don’t think a oilfield laborer is a good job for a parent, either. It is a good job for a young adult who is just starting out in life and needs to save up money to get where they need to go. Five years married to a rig is about as much as anyone could be expected to do. That would net enough money to buy vehicles, a house, have a savings account, pay for some job training (all debt free) and even get married!

The petroleum engineers and other professionals in the field don’t usually spend more than ten days per month away from home, unless they accept a long-term assignment on an offshore rig or an overseas assignment (in which they may be able to move their families, as well).

I just found this short video on a career in petroleum engineering (which appears to be CA-based).

MCEE Fall 2012 Magazine – wait to load:

http://www.ou.edu/content/dam/mcee/magazine/MCEE-MagazineFall12.pdf

Plus these great videos.

ETC.

It all seems so v-e-e-ery interesting … and lucrative, as well!

[bearishgurl]

[quote=flyer]Going forward, regardless of what jobs they take, it will be very interesting to see the stats on what percentage of young people make enough money to support themselves–especially those who were raised in CA–and aspire to continue the lifestyle their parents have provided.

As I mentioned before–my kids were lucky–but, from what we’ve seen and heard from friends–it’s not a pretty picture out there for kids trying to make the “big bucks,” AND live where they want to live.[/quote]

Obviously, people have to live where they can afford to. If that means 5+ miles from the beach, so be it. If it means buying a <1500 sf house to be as close to parents as possible or live closer to the coast, so be it. I've brought up on this forum dozens of times, that, for the most part, Gen Y housing "expectations" are thru the roof! I have no doubt that their expectations for everything else are also extremely, unrealistically high.

Even though I am a staunch low or no-growth advocate, I realize we have the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act (1982) to thank for keeping our young people in the state (or causing them to return after attending college elsewhere).

Government money in CA for new infrastructure in new subdivisions ran out decades ago. If it wasn't for MR, there would have been very little building since 1987 in SD County and ALL (yes, ALL) of the properties already built at that time would be so much more expensive today. The only building that would have occurred would have been been infill and on smaller parcels adjacent to and between long-developed areas, as well as the individual spec or custom homes scattered throughout the county.

I have come to the conclusion that if all SD Co had was higher-priced older homes (like SV), Gen Y (and likely a good portion of Gen X) would have left the county, never to return. Even if they could qualify to buy a smaller, older home, they don’t want it. The only reasons they buy them in SV are because the daily commute across bridges is brutal and they make a lot more money working there (as opposed to here). Given the choice, 95%+ of Gen Y want ~newer or ~new construction over a more desirable location for the same or lesser price. MR allows them to have those choices.

[flyer]

Good points–BG.

Bottom line is, whatever choices people make, as long as they can support themselves through retirement that’s fine with me!

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

[carlsbadworker]

I do not have time to read all the posts but a higher paying job doesn’t mean it will always have such high salary. And some job tracks can limit your options down the road. It is actually very easy to switch jobs from pushing one kind of paper to another kind. Auto service techs? Good luck if tech innovations make your job obsolete.

[patb]

which just means that the illegals haven’t taken over plumbing yet.

[Ren]

Being a plumber can be brutally hard work (think cast iron bathtub/stairs) and isn’t a job for the 50+ age set. You also don’t make great money unless you’re the owner. Still, I would encourage my kids to do that if I knew they would manage their money well enough to retire early.

HVAC – another high-paying job for the owner, but imagine replacing an attic furnace in an inland empire summer.

Anecdotal – I know an early 40’s crab fisherman. He works two seasons per year (6-7 months total?) and makes over $150k in that time. He’s got seniority, so he doesn’t do the dangerous work anymore – he sits in a nice warm cabin operating the crane. I’m not sure I would ever have been willing to put in the work he did to get to that point, and probably physically incapable now. He says that most 20-somethings wash out after one season.

[livinincali]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea]
(a) You conveniently ignored that no one has made thorium cycle nuclear reactor or no one is likely to make one in coming decade. No one with any credibility has proven that it will be economical. Why didn’t you just say fusion reactor instead. And by the way after buliding nuclear plant for 60 years we still do not know how to reliably dispose off hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste that keeps on piling all over this country and the world.
[/quote]

Huh. Oak Ridge had a working experiment LFTR in the 1960’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment. In addition there’s at least a few experimental projects going on right now, including the Fuji MSR, the Chinese Thorium MSR Project, and a project in Prague.

LFTR would be a great stop gap measure until working fusion is achieved. Nat Gas could also serve in that role for some time.

[scaredyclassic]

i am way stronger at 50 than I was at 20.

i think I could get the crabs or plumb.

I feel like I can pick up anything.

[spdrun]

Working fusion has been achieved. The nearest working reactor is just several billion miles away.

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=livinincali]
Huh. Oak Ridge had a working experiment LFTR in the 1960’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment. In addition there’s at least a few experimental projects going on right now, including the Fuji MSR, the Chinese Thorium MSR Project, and a project in Prague.

LFTR would be a great stop gap measure until working fusion is achieved. Nat Gas could also serve in that role for some time.[/quote]

There is a huge difference ( i.e. many decades) between demonstrating a experimental reactor (or presenting a cool powerpoint at a TED talk) and actually building hundreds of commercial reactors each producing 1000s of MW of electricity all over the world and running them for decades safely, reliably and economically while getting rid of the waste they generate safely.

P.S. : IMHO Running out of U-235 is not the primary problem with the adoption nuclear energy today (which is what Thorium project/others seems to be focused on). Someday that will also be an issue. However more immediately, (a) Making a safe, economic and reliable reactor and (b) disposal of waste in safe and reliable manner is what is hampering atomic energy.

[spdrun]

US civilian reactors have consistently proven to be safe. Disposal of high-level waste is primarily a political problem.

[enron_by_the_sea]

[quote=spdrun]
US civilian reactors have consistently proven to be safe.
[/quote]

If “consistently” does not include three mile island or many low level incidents that are reported on regular basis by regulators!

Maybe you mean, there hasn’t been an incident where many people have died. Maybe so. But is it because of sheer luck or by design?

[quote=spdrun] Disposal of high-level waste is primarily a political problem.[/quote]

Sure, call it whatever you want but the bottom line is that it has not been solved!

How come people are called NIMBYs when they oppose Yucca Mountain or CA high speed train but they are visionaries if they oppose fracking or Keystone pipeline? I smell certain double standard.

For some people the risk of something unanticipated happening 100s or 1000s of years after you made a certain decision is a non-issue or trivial. But for many people, it is the other way. Who is right?

At least fracking/Nat-gas does not cause problems that will only be found out 1000 years from now!

[spdrun]

Moronic argument.

Burning natural gas releases CO2. Less than oil, but it still does. Climate change is an immediate/near-term problem, not one 1000 years in the future.

Slit the petroleum/gas industry’s throat as soon as possible, retrain the workers to work in other energy industries, and let’s move into the 21st century.

And yes, I’d be comfortable a few blocks from a modern nuclear plant.

[livinincali]

[quote=enron_by_the_sea]
There is a huge difference ( i.e. many decades) between demonstrating a experimental reactor (or presenting a cool powerpoint at a TED talk) and actually building hundreds of commercial reactors each producing 1000s of MW of electricity all over the world and running them for decades safely, reliably and economically while getting rid of the waste they generate safely.[/quote]

It just depends on how motivated you are. If we were to lose access to all foreign oil and experienced massive energy shortages a Manhattan style project could design and build commercial LFTRs in less than 5 years. It’s just that we currently have an alternative that works and is still cost effective.

Energy Policy is something this country has lacked for decades. In every unit of GDP there is a unit of energy. Some GDP advances can come from efficiency, others have to come energy production. The problem is just about everybody in this country wants to drive their car and turn on the lights at an affordable cost, yet complains about power plants and CO2. In essence they are just too dumb to understand the realities of risks and rewards associated with energy production.

[quote=enron_by_the_sea]
Maybe you mean, there hasn’t been an incident where many people have died. Maybe so. But is it because of sheer luck or by design?
[/quote]

Mostly by design. It took a completely god awful design and significant bypasses of safety systems to cause Chernobyl.

[spdrun]

Chernobyl (RBMK reactor) was basically a poor copy of a 1st-generation Hanford plutonium production reactor modified to produce some electricity. Oh, and the control rods had the cute property of SPEEDING UP the fission reaction when first inserted.

Those reactors are basically irrelevant in a safety discussion of modern reactor tech. Fukushima is more relevant — but again, it was a mid-60s design.

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