I am not to be confused with someone who is highly educated but who is having to stoop to being a barista or something because they have no choice and are doing it just to get by. I am educated but better you confuse me with a man who is doing the **** he wants to do. The Trotsky in this bunch, I am. But now I have an employer and I am an employee.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're an engineer who can write code. My first suspicion would be ageism behind you not getting jobs you are over qualified for in your field.
It's a big problem, I know someone who is employed by a cement company as a casual through labour hire. He's been there a year on rates starting at 32$/hr then 40$ for time and a half and 50$ for double time. He often gets those long hours and high rates. A 12 hr shift nets him 450$. The labour hire company also takes a cut, so I'm guessing that 12 hr shift costs the cement company, at least 600$.
As a company driver he would be on about 27$ hr with no middle man expense. He's worked there for almost a year and never been late, with crazy hours like 4.30am starts at times and never screwed up yet. He informed the manager a week before his 6 month mark that released him from the obligation to the labour hire, that the company could hire him directly. Since then, 3 other cement trucks drivers were hired ahead of him. One being a female bus driver around his own age, and two men in their 30s. All had no previous experience driving cement trucks that involves at least two or three weeks extra training on top of the truck licensed they would have already had.
Why wasn't he hired instead for a permanent full time position? He's over 50.
There's that and some employers looking for the unicorn employee. He was unavailable from the cement company for a week, when he took a job driving a sewerage truck, literally pumping **** for 26$ hr. Not just septic tanks, but portaloos. He said doing septics, the pump motor still pushes air through the tank and the smell is unavoidable, also when emptying it out. It's also inside the cab of the truck, driving with windows up. Pumping out the portaloos, he had to lift up the toilet and shove the hose into a big pile of toilet paper, s.hit and p.iss and jiggle the hose up and down to get it into the hose so it doesn't block up. Literally **** work for a fully experienced truck driver. The owner gave him three strikes, out for these things: 1, suggesting they wash off the thick hose that had poop and toilet paper stuck to it. 2 not knowing about a short cut in an area right away. 3 missing 2 portaloos on a big berry farm. He's sure that was a misunderstanding and he had done them as he had been told about them when he was there. The truck owner said he had a call from the farm they were missed. He didn't get a chance to find out if he was right, they were the same ones he was told about and did, let go. No great loss, he's fine doing the cement truck work, as a casual. Maybe the pump truck owner will find a desperate immigrant willing to get face to face with piles of poopoo and breathe the smell of sewerage all day every day until something better comes up. I told him it's not worth it and be thankful he didn't get stuck with it.
At the end of the day, as long as the work you're getting is reasonable, it's better than nothing.
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