Well, this is it, I’m outta here. I’ve carried two degrees for four years and failed to get any meaningful employment in this depressing province. The best I could get here, remotely related to my field, was temporary work. For shit pay. I was so determined to stay in NS because I knew I’d be home sick if I left. But I can’t seem to obtain a job that pays any more than 11-12/hour, despite my education and the little experience I gained from these temp jobs. The companies here expect us to have 5+ years experience and a uni degree, for their 25-35K positions! After applying and applying and applying to positions in these dead end parts and getting an interview at best, I applied for jobs related to my field out in Calgary. I got a kick ass job, that pays three times as much, with just my education alone. A job that I could never get for four years in Halifax was handed to me from Calgary in a week! On top of that, the company is giving me financial assistance for relocating! This job starts in a few weeks, I move up there next week and I can’t fucking wait! My bitch is that I wasted so much time trying to get a career here! Here’s some advice for you people, some of my family and friends included, running yourself ragged trying to get a decent job here: Fuck this place. Go west. If you can’t afford it and aren’t as lucky as I was to get the company to pay for you to move, take the bum job till you save enough to get out! This place is a hole, I’m sorry. It’s pretty to look at, but that’s about it. There are no jobs. Get out or you’ll be in debt for years to come. —Hello, Alberta
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2012.
smart decision we have way to many educated people. In this province and so many people that are determined to stay. If more people leave then wages will rise as they won’t have 50 million educated people fighting for that 25k a year job
Congrats on the new job, OB. Sounds like a sweet deal.
I never understood why or how somebody graduates from university without researching the job market in their field, especially in Nova Scotia.
You can’t assume that as soon as you step out the door of a university, there is someone standing there waiting for you with a job.
I’ve got a degree. I degree of tolerance. But that’s wearing thin these days.
An 18 year old isn’t thinking far enough ahead to be able to do what you suggest. High schools should be doing a better job of directing kids in the right direction and universities should be held accountable for taking money from kids to study in fields they know have no future in this province. Offer the courses if they want to, but they should come with a disclaimer.
===========
I never understood why or how somebody graduates from university without researching the job market in their field, especially in Nova Scotia.
Please don’t make such generalizations about 18-year-olds. When I was 18 (actually I graduated high school when I was 17), I was able to look ahead a whole three years and decided I didn’t want to go university/college right away, and wanted to work for a few years first. I wasn’t a little baby who needed to be told what to do when I was 17, I knew that the price of an arts/commerce/humanities degree was not worth it because it didn’t guarantee shit.
that is true some people have brains when they are young. When i was out of hs i immediately knocked university off my list just because it is a bad investment if you are not on a full scholarship. I took a trade instead. Going even further if i knew what i do now 7 years later i would of stayed at mcdonalds, been a store manager by now, and be making way more money then i currently am, even though my current wages are not terrible
MORE OF THE SAME
Once again I feel I must remind you that university is for an education, not for training. You must distinguish between the two. Do not blame university for your failure to find a job. That is not why they are there. There are there for the cultivation of the mind, not to provide you with a ticket for some bean-counting job.
Tip: If the reason you plan to go to university is to get a job, forget it. Take up plumbing which, so I’m told, is a very lucrative trade. Then you can become wealthy but mindless plumber.
Now, go clean out that toilet!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM. … just an FYI as someone who has a plumber in the family, the apprentice cleans out the toilets .
The journeyman plumber is over seeing his work & possibly laying some pipe & installing the new fixtures .
The way I hear it is “the new guy gets the shit jobs !”
~;)
People will hate on the OB but its true, this is for the most part a deadend province. Lets not kid ourselves, eh?
Did your Phd prepare you to be the asshole you became, MM? Just because someone chooses to not waste their life on something as useless and antequated as philosophy, doesn’t mean they’re stupid. When you come up with something origional, instead of some regurgitated crap, let us all know so we can stand in awe of your brilliance. Douchebag!!!
Strippers make how much out West?
ARTS AND CRAFTS ARE REALLY NOT DEGREES, JUST HOBBIES.
did I read this correctly? you have 2 degrees that only took 4 years?
RSVPs
: More (08/07, 4:42PM)
Well, I guess you should know.
: Stephen Harper (6:26PM)
Stephen, I never said that plumbers were “stupid.” I just said that they didn’t belong in university.
The two concepts – being a plumber and being in university – which are clearly not identical, seems to have escaped you. Concepts Stephen, concepts!
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
mm, is my shit your bread and butter?
Why not a philosopher-plumber? Sounds like sitcom material. Tony Danza stars as an out of work philosopher that is forced to take up the family trade when his father becomes ill. He goes from job to job fixing leaks and confounding laymen with his cutting philosophical insights. At the end of every episode, he makes it clear to his client why he is stupid, and the set would contain a whole lot of overt vaginal imagery, much like here. If only we could harness Monsieur’s rapier wit! Alas it would be fiction and therefore of little interest.
I have to agree with MM on this. University is to educate, not train for a trade. Even if your goal is to crew with the Calypso, surely you realize your degrees alone wouldn’t land you lead position. That’s what the lead-in jobs are for. Alberta is taking raw grads because they are desperate for any body to fill the position. Yes, that means immediate high paying jobs. great. Take advantage of the situation, but why would you expect this to be the standard in all areas? it’s a ‘windfall’ situation. Treat it like winning the lottery, or do you expect to win the lottery just because you buy a ticket? Economies are fluid, like tilting a large pan with water, it moves. I came ‘from away’ and understand your love of the *place*, it would take a jackhammer to budge me from NS. But it took many years for me to get here, in a position where I can live anywhere I want. Set some goals. stay out of debt. make lots of money and travel the world. Then come back if you want. Or stay and work at whatever pays enough to keep a roof over your head. it’s all your choice, really.
Meh. You know what,MM? You are 100% correct about education vs training. You may very well be an intelligent person, but it’s unfortunate that you feel it’s necessary to throw your intellectual weight around by sarcastically implying that everyone who doesn’t measure up to your educational resume is somehow your inferior. Here’s a reality check for you, any philosopher us idiots can name, yup…smarter and better at their “profession” (I use that term loosely) than you will ever be. The very fact that you spend your time trolling dumbass bitch websites, asserting your superiority by being a pompous ass, is testament to your insignificance in the philosophical community.
Question: How can you tell which people at a party have a Phd?
Answer: Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
THEN WHY DO SO MANY JOBS REQUIRE A FUCKING DEGREE!??!!? oh forget it…
transferable skills can be taught in school. productivity and value is taught on the job
Fuckin A+ HARPER! That about sums it up.
Waiting for that RSVP….wait….wait….wait…
Don’t let the door hit ya.
Canada’s Olympic team blow – the taxpayers give them $200 million, or 4 Bowater deals, and this is the best they can do?
Well, we can always round up the usual suspects and put the blame on bad officiating, global warming, the Harper majority and the CF-35 contract >; )
To truely gain wisdom & insight in a University setting. All that need be done is remove the toilets & all plumbing.
Let us see how long the so called philosophers take to figure out that their shit stinks like everyone elses !
Or even better would be to remove all trades, from cleaning , cooks , maintenace & grounds staff. Let the philosophers “think” all the day to day problems away.
My lowly educated brain tells me they’d be living on canned food & praying for heat & wishing they had a better place to shit, than out in the bushes !
(because no matter how hard they tried, no philosophere has ever been able to think a hole in the ground nor has any of them been able to ‘think’ a building as complex as an outhouse to appear on top of it … but at least a dozen or so of them working together could IMO possibly manage to dig the hole !)
so when does the book burning start? MM, you must go drink hemlock, you are giving philosophers a bad rep. Don’t mention the subject again, stick to what you appear to do best. Worming detailed sexual stories out of unsuspecting members for your own Astroglide fuelled entertainment.
trades do not equal stupid any more than degrees prove intelligence. May *indicate* but it’s not a sure thing. Esp in an environment that rewards the parroting of text book pap. A philosopher should have learned critical thought skills, but a plumber does the same. Troubleshoot a leak sometime. Carpenters are able to cut a 90 degree join in 7 inch crown molding in one try, not 100. and some humans can straddle both the physical trades and the ‘thought’ trade.
Book Burning? Allllll-Right! Making my list and checking it twice.
Anything with “50 Shades” in the title. This includes those books with the endorsement “If you loved 50 Shades…”
Anything where a pouty teenage girl has to choose between necrophilia and bestiality.
Anything that features the words “Chicken Soup” that is not a cookbook.
Any book that features the first name Michael followed by the last name Moore.
ALL self-published poetry collections distributed by the author out of the trunk of her Volvo.
ALL copies of “Rosie O’Donnell’s Fart-A-Long Jubilee”
add those ‘poetry contest’ compilations
Avec Plaisir >: )
See you later man! Don’t forget to write!
RSVPs
: Great Value (08/07, 8:04PM)
Very eloquent GV, very eloquent but you’ve got it reversed, i.e., it should be mine is yours.
: Furous Styles (8:48PM)
Not bad FS. The concept of the philosopher-plumber, the union, if you like, of opposites. However, at the end of each episode of the TV show the philosopher, instead of showing how his client is stupid he would, rather, by means of a dialectical engagement, compel him to examine his assumptions and the logic of his thought. When will auditions start?
: Good dog Molly (9:05PM)
Clearly, you have an insight into the distinction between education and training and, in your case, you seem to have successfully unified the two. (I assume you are not a philosopher but are a success nonetheless. So the two are not incompatible.)
: Stephen Harper (9:59PM)
Stephen, do I detect a note of rancour in your post? You must struggle to rise above such piddling concerns. But you do raise an interesting point. It is no doubt the case that there are philosophers who are smarter and better than Montrealman but, and this is the important point Stephen, you must demonstrate HOW they are. A unsupported general assertion is not enough. Psst! Stephen, there’s something I have to tell you …
: More (08/08, 9:32AM)
A somewhat insightful comment More but you must not confound the “necessary conditions” of life – things like plumbing and toilets and so on – with the “sufficient conditions” of life – an engagement with its meaning. Remember Socrates’ saying: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Toilets don’t help much in that regard.
: Good dog Molly (10:03AM)
Ah, you’ve discovered my secret.
Anyway, I must take issue with your equivalence of “critical thought” in the case of the plumber and the philosopher. In the case of the former “critical thought” involves what the Greeks called “techne,” that is, something which is done for the purpose of achieving something else. It is instrumental to that further goal. In the case of the latter, however, such “critical thought” involves what the Greeks called “episteme,” that is, something which is done for its own purpose. Its end does not lie “outside,” so to speak, but rather is intrinsic to its own activity. Clearly, the latter is superior to the former in the hierarchy of critical thought.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
MM, since your goal appears to be hell bent for leather on displaying your plumage, you plummet into the techne category, wriggling amongst the talented hamburger flippers, efficient toilet scrubbers and lobbyists of all ilk. to be episteme you should keep your thoughts to yourself. I take it we shall never hear from you again?
RSVP
: Good dog Molly (08/08, 12:38PM)
Yes Good dog, but I’m not Greek.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
M & M
I’d much perfer another philosophere than Socrates…if I had to choose
Quote-
“All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear onto god is the poor peasant as the mighty prince” –
which my dear M&M, puts the great unwashed (uneduacated) you seem to distain on the exact same pedestal as yourself in the end .
Now ain’t that a bitch !
RSVP
: More (08/08, 4:47PM)
Well More, two questions only: (1) Can you reveal the author of the quotation and (2) can you reveal what is clearly your intimate knowledge of what the “Workman” was thinking (and doing)? Write back soon.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I do appologise for not giving credit to the author – Plato
I see I put the dash in & forgot to credit him, I deserve the harshest of lashings !
As for the second question, I am only a lowly rigger who doesn’t waste time trying to tell or show others that I know &/or understand the thoughts of a deity. Plus one more time for the record, I am against man made religions, not the concept of a creator. But I realised at a very young age religion is about control !
The reason I remember that quote is it reminds me of a somewhat similar one I found when checking out the Sikh Religion in my youth…. which I recently read again in my search around news/blogs about the tragic mass murder of Sikh’s in the US.
“All men & women are created equal, like pots of different shapes, colours & sizes, all were made from the same clay by the Cosmic potter”
The above quote is from memory & so its not exact & unfortunately I do not remember which of the 10 Guru’s it is from, but a learned man such as yourself should have no problem finding the author
Have a nice day
Although I’m a somewhat seasoned metal trades worker who went to university I’m staying out of this one because I think snobbery is the main issue.
PS. If I could do it all again I would not have gone to university and studied myself for free. Then again, I was less disciplined back then and needed the “gym trainer” so to speak.
“The very fact that you spend your time trolling dumbass bitch websites, asserting your superiority by being a pompous ass”
My ears are burning….
“,is testament to your insignificance in the philosophical community.”
Fucking shit….it’s about montrealman.
I should probably start reading the comments.
RSVP
: More (08/08, 9:34PM)
First Question: I am not familiar with the quotation you attribute to Plato, More. Could you specify the exact source? In the case of the Dialogues the title and line reference would be fine but in the case of lengthy “The Republic” a sub-title and page reference would be required. In the case of the latter, I favour the Cornford edition.
Second Question: More, you must try to focus. When I was talking about “belief” at no time did I make reference to any “deity.” On the contrary, my point was the centrality of belief in a SECULAR interpretation of the structure of consciousness. You do understand that, don’t you More?
Third Question: Your quotation from an un-named Sikh source is identical to the one you previously (08/08, 4:47PM) attributed to Plato. Can you explain this, More? As far as I know Plato never ventured to India.
Have a nice day.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Your unfamiliarity in no way puts the onus on me to do your research for you.
If you want a good grade your going to have to hit the books !
#2 is self explainitory, no matter how important someone thinks they are or what an asshole someone is, they in the end are the same as anyone else.
08 /08 4:47 -quote by Plato
08 /08 9:34 -quote Sikh Guru
M&M… you gotta try to pay closer attention.
As I said, 2 very similar (IMO) quotes made hundreds of years apart in 2 different parts of the world, by 2 different people.
With a bit of research (c’mon man ! there’s only 10 of them) you’ll find the quote & the Guru that made it.
Did you spend most of University cheating off those around you ?
Or is cheating too strong a word & you just kept an eye & ear on the papers & discussions of others, get that typed up in your writing style & hope for the best ?
Didn’t you once track down anything published by another & then use it , while giving credit to the author ?
Smeagol…don’t you know anything. You can find that quote in Charles Darwin’s – “The Voyage of the Beagle.” 1839. (pp. 40-43).
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VZti9bTVeqA/T_DN…
Montreal Man.
Nuff Said. You are a fucking marvel of brain farts!!!
Love to hear your RSVP’s.
get the hell out of this place its a shithole
RSVP
: More (08/09, 6:46PM)
More, you’ve got to stop dodging the question. Of course, we both know why you’re doing it – you haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about. But anyway, I’ll (briefly) continue to humour you:
First Question: More, you were the one who brought up your so-called “Plato” quotation and, had you ever been anywhere near a university, would realize that it’s YOUR responsibility to indicate the precise source. Of course More, we both know you cannot do this since the quotation is spurious.
Second Question: More, your comment indicates that you do not have a clue as to what my distinction between the secular and religious sense of “belief” referred to. I suppose the short answer is that you are not able to grasp it for reasons best known to yourself. Well, not really. I know as well.
Third Question: More, both “quotations” come from the same source – the top of your head.
More, in the usual standard fashion you then try to launch an “ad hominem” attack on me by questioning my academic integrity. Like patriotism More, such an attack is “the last refuge of the scoundrel”. In your case, however, it is just laughable but I do pity you your corrosive envy which, as with rednecks generally, eats at your guts when the word “university” is mentioned.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
I think you made the right decision. Good luck.
More, are you there? Are you there, More? Has anyone seen More? More, stop hiding. I won’t hurt you. You do understand that, don’t you More?
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
M&M…you found the Guru or the quote from Plato yet ?
Thought not…still trying to get everyone else to do your work for you …typical so called ‘thinker’ attitude.
Well you gotta actually do something M& M….I’m not going to make it easy for you.
Go get your hands dirty at a library …or try a couple of search engines… that way ,you don’t even have to leave your computer.
If I can find them and , without anything but an old membery find another one…surely someone of your superior mental abilities & University savy, can find them
Good luck, looks like thats probably the only way you’ll get anywhere .
LOLZ – Smeagol’s pretending he didn’t read my post.
Charles Darwin’s – “The Voyage of the Beagle.” 1839. (pp. 40-43).
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VZti9bTVeqA/T_DN…
Why should anyone provide “proof”, when you won’t? Guess that makes you a hypocrite as well as a liar.
RSVP
More (08/10, 5:25PM)
More, stop your stupid tap dancing. You know you’re out of your depth. Don’t write back, you buffoon.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Ah the great thinker…unable to a little bit of their own research & then fall back on insults to attempt to make themselves look superior.
Well sir you are obviously a fake & or a charlatan. Yer so used to spewing bullshit laced with large words ( and more than likely the words of others you’ve copied) that when someone like myself asks you to do a simple search to locate some quotes you are unfamiliar with (surprise ,surprise) you can do nothing but sputter & moan about how it is someone elses job to do the work you are so afraid of.
Well sir you should possibly shut the fuck up & INYW not bother to respond.
You are a buffoon, & a puffed up one at that.
Everything you you say about depth is right back at you… perhaps you should go buy a life jacket, hopefully it comes with instructions on how to properly use it.
You sure as hell aren’t intelligent enough to figure it out on your own.
good day