A $100,000 Factory Job. What's Uncool About That?

Do they require that all applicants have 5 years of experience?

Kids today.

It's easy not to trust the manufacturing sector. From decades of union corruption when you couldn't even get your foot in the door unless you were related to someone who had a union card, to the companies deliberate elimination of apprenticeship programs that forced younger workers out of the system altogether back in the 1980's and '90's because there was no way the kids could show up already pre-trained, to a generation's worth now of downsizing and outsourcing, it's easy to understand why younger people don't want to take a chance on an employment sector that turned into it's own worst enemy.

My own history in manufacturing has badly jaded my opinion towards this industry but it's not my bias that would cause me to encourage people to look elsewhere. It's from having been there and having come out of it with way too many scars from all the knives that got stuck into my back. They say they need you now when things are picking up, or when there's a boom on. When things slow down they don't even want to know your name, much less look you in the face when they tell the staff that "due to current business conditions you are now surplus to the company's needs".

Good times don't last and bad times arrive fast and hard, and when it does all that "we're a team, we're a family" crap that management pushed comes to an end PDQ. The employee social clubs, the golf tourney's, the X-Mas parties, and the so-called "bonuses" are just an illusion designed to delude you into thinking that you're more than a number to them. If I had a second chance to do it all over again I never would have gone anywhere near manufacturing.

"An aspiring machinist -- a popular factory job -- can start training at 18 and then do a one- or two-year manufacturing apprenticeship. In five years, he or she could be making more than $50,000. In 10 years, that could double to $100,000."

A machinist isn't a factory worker, it's a skilled trades worker. Similar in many aspects to other trades jobs.

A factory worker is to most people a line worker, a machine operator or a shipper/packer.

NOW: "Hey Kids!! A factory worker can make $30 an hour, isn't that great!!! Drop out of university and come on board!"

LATER: "Hey White-Collar voters! A factory worker can make $30 an hour, isnt that OUTRAGEOUS??? They didn't even go to university!!"

From my experience, the best paying factory jobs also usually have the worst working conditions, which is why they pay more than everyone else in the unskilled sector.

I spent a summer working at the Owens-Corning plant here in Edmonton. As a student, I earned $16/hour at time when minimum was around $7/hour - so the pay was pretty nice.

It was hot, mind-numbing work bagging insulation for 12 hour shifts. The shifts were especially brutal because you'd work two on nights, get five days off, work 5 days, then get 2 nights off and it just repeated. I was constantly exhausted because my body couldn't adjust to the weird schedule.

Because of the terrible air quality, you had to wear a mask constantly, which made the heat even worse. At the end of your shift, you were covered in insulation fibre and had to carefully brush it off, lest it destroy your eyes (it loved eyelashes for some reason) or any skin your coveralls and work gloves didn't cover.

The full-time guys, who may or may not have been unionized, made somewhere in the vicinity of $30/hour, which is was a pretty decent wage in Edmonton.

But you couldn't get me to go back and work there for any money - I simply couldn't do a lifetime of that. I know my strengths & weaknesses and would prefer to use my head instead of my back anyday of the week.

Hell, I'd rather work two service industry jobs instead if I had to (which I have done at times) to make ends meet.

Shocking News for the World!

I'M A FUCKING SPAMTARD!!

SPAM ALERT! SPAM ALERT! SPAM ALERT!

Someone was busy last night.