Maybe Ms Mackey does a good thing by helping start the conversation but she falls way short in indentifying the whole sliding problem. I’ve been watching it develop for the last half century when people began moving off the farm at a much higher rate. In my high school graduating class (1960) only 5 of 100 kids lived in town. At our recent 50 year reunion only 5 of the same 100 still live/work a farm.
To me, it started in the late 60’s when it got easier for people to make a living with a very limited skill set. Never mind the beginnings of the welfare state by LBJ, that’s a big factor, but specialization in the work place, unionization rules demanding simple jobs, and a whole range of related developments made it possible for people to make a good living with a limited knowledge base and skill set.
We saw the progression of job titles such as administrative assistant, human resources specialist, account executive, financial advisor, security analyst and on and on and on. Many, if not all, larger companies gradually took the basic military model of defining jobs in very simple terms to minimize training and “getting up to speed” time. But now when a company goes titsup these people are useless to anyone else. One can see that every time a news guy interviews the folks in an unemployment line. It turns out these formerly well-paying jobs aren’t really worth much in an economy going global on roller skates. A whole lot of folks who thot they were valuable now find out “not so much”.
Way too many people thot they’d grabbed the gold ring when they got that first good job. Don’t have to keep learning skills. Don’t have to do any more homework. Don’t have to read anymore of those books—just too HARD! The boss should pay me if he wants me to study on my own time-—how many times have I heard that -—going back to the mid 60’s. ( and by the way: they’ve gotten fatter) It doesn’t take me long to convince my own employees that they have to keep learning. At first they tend to resist but then the light comes on. Most of the people who’ve worked for me over the last three decades now have their own businesses-—they learned how to do research, they learned skills they never dreamed of, They learned how to root out and recognize opportunity, and when they thot they had a base made a run for it. Many still feed my company work as subs and I’ve not yet seen one fail. AND-—no one who’s ever worked for me is now unemployed.
There only 12 million of us left in this country, USA, that actually manufacture something. The rest are overhead, non-production, service, riding in instead of pulling the wagon. If you find yourself in a tough spot take a look in the mirror and see if you are pulling, riding, or just sitting on the curb clapping at the parade.
You taught them, you deserve to be proud of their achievements as they are your achievements..are you available to run for President?