twenty years of schooling and they put you on the dayshift...

Unfortunately, as basic farm style skills have atrophied in the general population, fewer and fewer people are even interested in learning how to do trades jobs. Schools started two-tracking about the time I got to HS, academic and shop. Shop was for the dummies. My mother had big dreams for me, based on engineering of some type (both my paernts came directly from farm familes) I think being the primary goal. Yeah, well...my math skills meant I'd never be an engineer. My interests leaned more to following the old man's "profession," auto mechanic, aka grease monkey back then.

Instead, I joined the Marines and ended up playing with expensive aircraft with the props on top.

From there it was a straight jump to...yeah, right. After drifitng for a couple years, I went to college, and ended up doing most of my writing work on motorcycles, cars and woodworking, with stops at home building and remodeling, while living in the country.

I don't have a clue as to an answer, but I do know we need top tradespeople in almost all fields. The pay in many is now almost as bad as that for schoolteachers, though, so improvement in skills is less likely.

The one encounter with an inspector was when we were selling our flatland house. The buyer wanted an inspection, the results of which made me laugh initially and ultimately led me to put the house back on the market. The inspector was a class A fenderhead. The finding that set me off was a back bedroom which had two problems:

1. A dead electrical outlet.
2. An electric switch that did not operate anything.

Yup. The switch controlled the outlet. The buyer came back and bought the place "as is". grumble, jo4hn

================================= I don't have a clue as to an answer, but I do know we need top tradespeople in almost all fields. The pay in many is now almost as bad as that for schoolteachers, though, so improvement in skills is less likely. ================================

SFWIW, because of his interest in all things cars, and lack of available trained personnel, Jay Leno has established some scholarships for mechanics to work on his car collection.

Evidently it is possible to earn $100+K as a properly trained mechanic these days.

Lew

And it doesn't matter what the Wall Strteet boys do either. You still need your car fixed.

Well school teachers around here do pretty damn well for themselves. Average Teacher Salary: $82,520 That's the _average_.

Seen this a number of times with inspectors and 3 way switches that operate lights on two levels, like balconies and porches ...

Where are you? Around here the average is more like half that and the very top is less than that.

Tim Douglass

You can hit that in CT. One school district also has 20 sick days, 5 personal days, plus the usual holidays. Many families live on far less than teacher salaries these days.

Long Island, NY There are a number of school districts around here that are up in that range.

system. Pay teachures more than athletes. Ummm. Tim, you have a misspelled word in your sig: it should be

ol system. Pay teachures more than athletes.

U mus b unedumucated! At leats meens at a minimunum.

Good article, perhaps in the future it would be more appropriate to just post a link to th original copyrighted material.

Go buy the book it was excerpted from.

Regards,

Tom Watson

Or the color of the walls or carpets.

Just as scary to me are the realtors who insist on staging a house to the nth degree, like people can't figure out that a room can be used as a bedroom, because there currently isn't a bed in it, or that one end of the kitchen can be used for dining because it doesn't have a table? Or even more sadly, that experience has proved them right...

--Glenn Lyford

Yep.

I agree with them to a point. At least I've found it easier to look at homes that are furnished than ones that aren't. Even though I brought a laser tape measure with me when we were house hunting, it was easier to judge the size of furnished rooms than unfurnished.

The big thing they drive home is neutral colors and to "de-junkify". In those I agree 100%. I'd add *NO F-ING WALLPAPER*. After my last house, I *hate* wallpaper.