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Old 05-17-2021, 06:11 PM   #15
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...Back in the late 80s, I was paying $16/hour for top technicians in the plastic industry, with all of the overtime they wanted. Fast forward to the turn of the century (that sounds so old) and I would spend 2 hours training production workers on safety requirements in a classroom before sending them out to work. It was not unusual to have a supervisor come to me after the first break to tell me they walked out the door after 30 minutes of real work and never came back...
Just curios... how much does that job pay today. 30 years later does it still pay less than $20/hr?

I know I wouldn't be too motivated to work as an experianced technician in today's economy for that kind of wage. One can make similar wages with no skills at Costco...
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Old 05-17-2021, 06:17 PM   #16
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I ended up fixing the problem myself. Not that it hurts any service center, but the repair wouldn't have been that much, but I'd been planning on at least 3k-5k for some upgrades. Now I'll look in to alternatives, learn how to do some of it myself and hire mobile techs for the rest. I just don't have the tools needed for some of it.
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Old 05-17-2021, 06:53 PM   #17
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The "education" system is shoving kids away from blue collar trades into white collar positions. That means fewer technicians to do the real work added to the higher demand.
My son in law does mobile RV repair and is booked pretty solid now.
I work within the post-secondary education system and I teach a trade, as do my colleagues. I can assure you with utmost confidence this is not the case. We aren't "shoving" anyone. What we ARE trying to do is increase the pay, benefits, and working conditions within our respective trade industries by working closely with the local business owners to narrow our training and education to meet current labor needs. We're there literally to train the local workforce and to INCREASE the labor pool.

People have a right to pursue the career of their choice, and if we need more tradespeople we have to treat them better and make it an attractive pathway. It once was.
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Old 05-17-2021, 06:55 PM   #18
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Just curios... how much does that job pay today. 30 years later does it still pay less than $20/hr?

I know I wouldn't be too motivated to work as an experianced technician in today's economy for that kind of wage. One can make similar wages with no skills at Costco...
This ^^^^ Even if the hourly charge rate is $100 hr, factor in travel time and overhead, including the typical costs any independent owner has, including health insurance for the family. It still needs to be a job you really enjoy.
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Old 05-17-2021, 07:06 PM   #19
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Just curios... how much does that job pay today. 30 years later does it still pay less than $20/hr?
Inflation adjusted, it should be about $35/hour. It would be interesting to know how much the referenced job actually pays today.
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Old 05-18-2021, 05:38 AM   #20
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Kids used to gain interest, and skills, from helping Dad or Mom fix the car, maintain the house, etc. Since most parents don't have that skill or interest, the kids don't have that opportunity. However, they do emulate what they see and are exposed to online.

If we want more skilled workers, we need to get them interested long before high school. I had wood shop in 6th grade, with industrial machinery (i.e., no safety guards). That sure wouldn't happen today! But I had been working with power tools since I was 5 or so.

I ended up in a white-collar job, but my spare time has always been spent doing "manual labor". There is no greater satisfaction than making a high quality piece of furniture, or even a home repair/remodel better than the trades people I've hired when I didn't have the time to do it myself.

I suspect those that stated you would rather work at Costco for the same money have never enjoyed working with your hands. For me, you would have to pay me at least twice as much there to do such a mind numbing job!
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Old 05-18-2021, 05:50 AM   #21
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...

I suspect those that stated you would rather work at Costco for the same money have never enjoyed working with your hands. For me, you would have to pay me at least twice as much there to do such a mind numbing job!
I would prefer work with my hands then Costco...

In some industries the technicians can be on call 24 x 7, never know when a problem is found that needs to be fixed, product delivery schedule rules.

If I was a tech making Costco level wages, I would say see ya' and go to Costco where I'm making the same amount of money and not worried about getting called in at 2 am on my day off.

It's often a qaulity of life issue too. The norm of 'Dad is never home' isn't so normal any more, and it shouldn't be.
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Old 05-18-2021, 06:19 AM   #22
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I am new to RV ownership but learned very early that no local dealerships want to work on RVs that they did not sell. I learned this after my purchase from a dealer that is three hours away from me, my bad. Although when you go to an RV show all the sales people tell you that you can buy from me and any dealership that is close to you will service it. Sales people are just trying to make a sale and do not worry about your service issues - "buyer beware".

Just recently I had a major issue that made my motorhome useless to take on any trips and I could not figure what to do next. On another forum I got all kinds of weird suggestions including to by a simpler Travel Trailer so it would not have as many issues. (???) As I struggled I remembered the expensive Service Contract I was talked into and contacted them and to my surprise this was covered, the first good news I received. But since it could not be driven I needed to get a mobile tech to come out, submit an estimate, and get approval from the warranty company. Life seemed good. That was over a week ago and still have not got any return calls from any of the mobile techs I contacted. What Next?

I emailed the Dealer where I bought it (the one 3 hours away) and the owner was kind enough to have one of his techs contact me to help out anyway he could. He put me to work testing electrical systems that involved crawling under the motorhome and anything else he could think of to assist me. Armed with the information he was going to contact the factory to see what we could learn (I still have a phone message with the factory over a week ago and have not been called back).

Good news/Bad news results, just as fast as the problem occurred it has gone away. So now you don't know when it will come back, or not. But, I do not know if I can trust the system, or trust I will ever get this fixed.

It is frustrating for everyone when this happens and we all have to know that there is no one waiting to come fix our issues. You need to establish contacts that you can rely on in emergencies and that takes time but we all have to keep trying.

Good Luck to all and stay safe,

Jim
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Old 05-18-2021, 06:23 AM   #23
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Originally Posted by Mr_D View Post
The "education" system is shoving kids away from blue collar trades into white collar positions. That means fewer technicians to do the real work added to the higher demand.
My son in law does mobile RV repair and is booked pretty solid now.
I see you live in Vancouver with a year around RV climate. Repair is a good job there, but in many climates repair and update work is a very seasonal thing. Most people want year around, steady work, and RV repair isn’t that in many parts of the country.
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Old 05-18-2021, 07:04 AM   #24
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Kids used to gain interest, and skills, from helping Dad or Mom fix the car, maintain the house, etc. Since most parents don't have that skill or interest, the kids don't have that opportunity. However, they do emulate what they see and are exposed to online.

If we want more skilled workers, we need to get them interested long before high school. I had wood shop in 6th grade, with industrial machinery (i.e., no safety guards). That sure wouldn't happen today! But I had been working with power tools since I was 5 or so.

I ended up in a white-collar job, but my spare time has always been spent doing "manual labor". There is no greater satisfaction than making a high quality piece of furniture, or even a home repair/remodel better than the trades people I've hired when I didn't have the time to do it myself.

I suspect those that stated you would rather work at Costco for the same money have never enjoyed working with your hands. For me, you would have to pay me at least twice as much there to do such a mind numbing job!
You sound a lot like me. I learned a lot from my dad growing up. I think so many kids are being raised in single parent homes, so often live in an apartment where there is no place to work on the car, no place to store any tools.

Apartment life is a perfect example of the problem. If you go back 50 years or more, few kids spent their whole youth growing up in an apartment. They saw their parents doing maintenance, spinning a wrench is what I called it. Now days, living in apartment, you call maintenance when something breaks. I was in a homeowner association for some townhomes for a while. Townhomes were owned by the individuals, they would contact us to change a lightbulb, fix a leaky faucets. Got upset when told that was their responsibility.

My high school stopped having shop classes when I got there. Not sure if it was safety as much as lack of decent equipment and lack of a teacher. Budget was tight. But after taking a welding class in college, I was asked to work on the LSU campus in a engineering research machine shop. I learned so many skills there.

I do think that payrates for a lot of technical skills have been depressed. Even as an engineer with practical knowledge, I found myself unable to keep my pay inline with inflation. So, I went back to school and traded in my pale blue collar for a lily white collar job.

There is something to be said for the satisfaction of seeing a real product, something you can touch, and pointing to it and saying I made that. A couple of years ago, my wife wanted a swing to hang from the pergola in our back yard. She gave me a rough sketch of what she wanted, and I built her a swing. I get so much satisfaction from seeing her swinging on it in the back yard, and when visitors come by, she always brags that her husband built that swing for her.

Think about the satisfaction you get when you solve a problem with your RV without having to call out a service tech. Isn't that feeling great?
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Old 05-18-2021, 07:26 AM   #25
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My high school stopped having shop classes when I got there. Not sure if it was safety as much as lack of decent equipment and lack of a teacher. Budget was tight. But after taking a welding class in college, I was asked to work on the LSU campus in a engineering research machine shop. I learned so many skills there.
Where education is concerned, we are always quick to slash budgets and then complain about the apparent lack of practical skills our kids have upon graduation. We love to blame the schools for social ills while at the same time taking away the resources to teach those skills. When the ax falls, it's almost always Arts, Trades, and Athletics that take the first and deepest hits. This is especially true in high schools.

When we blame the schools, we're literally blaming ourselves. Schools are funded (mostly) by local property taxes and are overseen and directed by locally elected school boards. The meetings are open to the public and everyone has the right to be heard. Don't like it? Work to change it.

Of course, we could always teach these skills at home, as my parents did with me. I could do basic maintenance and repairs on the family car long before I was old enough to drive it.
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Old 05-18-2021, 07:50 AM   #26
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I have never bought rv in area we live and have always been able to get service. Cash is king. Always tell them you are new in area after relocating and they tend to soften up. We also full timed for years and got work done in several locations. Do not fear using Mobil techs. Most are smarter than the guys trying to learn the trade at a dealership.
Safe travels

Enjoy the journey
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Old 05-18-2021, 08:35 AM   #27
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That hasn’t been my experience. My selling dealer was horrible. They only fixed half of what I needed and half of that wasn’t done correctly. The final straw was when they stole most of my electrical adapters while my RV was being serviced. I contacted Entegra and they gave me the names of a couple of nearby Jayco dealers, one who took me in, no questions asked and fixed everything under warranty in 2 weeks, prior to my leaving Washington for Florida. Then here in FL I had an issue with my levelers and my satellite that I couldn’t fix. I cold called a local dealer and they took me in right away without even asking me if I bought from them. They too, fixed everything in a reasonable timeframe albeit now my warranty has lapsed, I had to pay. Maybe I was just lucky but my life experiences say otherwise.
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Old 05-18-2021, 09:03 AM   #28
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Working on Rv’s

Being a retired mechanic at a local Ford dealer that over the years many of us old timers kept telling managment to give us some apprentices so they could learn from us, they Flatley said no! There excuse was they could not afford The financial burden, which i get to a small extent, however you look at the cost of a trade school, then the cost of tools, let alone having to pay for food and a place to live! Only to get slightly more than minumum wage, i cant blame kids for wanting to work for costco.
For me i began to see the shift in the education system years ago stating the kids then should all be getting a formal education an get “A better quality of life” HORSE FEATHERS i say! That as a tradesman there is not a Damm thing wrong making a living with your hands! Then throw in legalized marijuana, that **** takes the drive from them!
Kids today just cant catch a break, there whole system has let them down an we have no one to blame but ourselfs! There are some that are trying to help, but face it... it takes a village an frankly who among us will guide them? We the people have failed in that we have all been in such a hurry to make our own lives that we failed to listen to those who saw what was happening an be able to act!
I often wonder why my path took me to working with my hands, but then i look at the “guides” that helped shape me, it wasnt just one person, however the journey was rife with several fine folks that knew they couldnt do everthing to help, but they could all do something an they did. If we could all remember to reach DOWN from time to time an help someone up... just a little, how far that great act of kindness would imprint others to do the same.
It would be Soooooo easy to blame so many for the failures of our kids, grad kids, neighbor kids... i can say this, “we are the leaders we have been waiting for” we have paid for where we are, dont be affraid to get involved! One of my favorite sayings is “Give a man a fish an he eats for a day, however teach a man to fish an he can feed himself forever”
I promise to get off my stump, however in closing i will say writting this just helped me to understand “i can do more”...
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