Make Sure Your Kid Has A Job For Life. Teach Them A Trade.
I'm sure by now you've seen that businesses are looking for people to work in the Quad Cities. Factory jobs at places like John Deere. Restaurants like Jimmy John's that actually are putting recruitment ads in their sandwich bag. Another field that is dreadfully short on workers and can lead people to owning their own company and working hours they want, is the trade field. Pick one, any one. Plumbers, electricians, hvac, general carpentry. All these fields are looking for people.
It was 4 months ago that I decided it was time to finish the stairs. They had that lovely golden oak color on the stairs and handrails. After some searching, I was able to find a flooring guy that could come in and do the new stair risers to match the floor. I painted the rest of the parts white and the stair case was starting to look like something from 2021, not 1994.
Then it was decided to take out the "old fashioned" wooden poles and replace them with hip and stylish metal poles. Apparently that was a mistake. Not because it will look bad, but because nobody will do it. For weeks places were called with the project that I needed somebody to do. For weeks, I got no as an answer. Not because they couldn't do it. It's really not that complicated. But because they were so backed up due to a lack of skilled labor that a project this size wasn't worth their time.
Finally I got somebody that said, yeah, we can come take a look at that and give you an estimate...in 2 months. Two months for an ESTIMATE! I don't need an estimate. Take my money and get it done. But, being a legit business, they scheduled the estimate for today, June 10. After about a 15 minute walk through with what needed to be done and a couple pictures, everything was set.
I talked to the owner/estimator about how long he thought it would take before the work could be done, and he wasn't sure. Somebody would be letting me know. As we talked I asked about his labor shortage and he said the same thing that all say, we can't find people to do the work. Nobody has the skill and/or nobody wants to do the work. He also told me that not only are they short now, but that some of the more experienced workers have told him they plan to retire soon (early retirement of course!) and he needs to find apprentices to take over what they are doing. So not only is it bad, it's getting worse.
Again, none of this is this businesses fault. People need jobs done. But there is nobody to do them. I wish I knew how to do more of this stuff on my own. I don't have the tools...and I definitely don't have the talent. I'm like Homer Simpson when he tries to build the brick grill. You know the episode Yeah, that is me.
If you want your kid to always worry about if today will be their last day on the job, push them to be in radio. But, if you want them to have job security and take money from poor saps like me that can't do this stuff, teach them the skilled trades. It will pay off now and for the rest of their life. I'll post a picture of my stairs when they are done...check back with us down the road.
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