Take 2

[George Mena <George -dot- Mena -at- ESSTECH -dot- COM>]

Hmmm... let's try finishing the message this time before sending it...

Continuing the US professional thread here (with apologies to Peter, Paul
and Mary for butchering one of their song titles in the subject header)...
:D

Some good points have been made so far:

* US technical jobs are crying to be filled.
* Some companies will pay relocation expenses and some won't.
* Laid-off US-born workers seem to be at risk, especially if their jobs are
filled by folks with H1-B visas.

Most kids today don't seem to notice the sciences and technologies.  Perhaps
equally disturbing is the fact that a lot of today's students are also not
necessarily interested in high-tech careers.  The San Francisco Chronicle
ran such a story not too long ago on that very subject.  See
http://www.sfgate.com and go to the Business section for more details.

We definitely live in different -- and perhaps less stimulating -- times.  I
remember being exposed to a lot of different types of literature of a
scientific and technical nature as a kid.  I checked out a book once on
celestial mechanics from the hometown library.  I loved reading about
astronomy at home. Later, when my dad would bring home books on automotive
repair, woodworking and electrical work for the back yard, I'd find myself
reading it.

Some time back, I'd taken in a movie and caught a late dinner afterwards.
During my late dinner, a couple of teenage boys, maybe 18 or so, came in and
sat down at a table adjacent to me.  Somehow, we wound up talking about
cars.  Next thing I know, I'm talking alone with one of the kids about how
to do a brake job: what the master and slave cylinders do, why you don't
want air in the brake lines, why bleeding the brake lines is a two-man job,
the whole thing.

This kid couldn't hear enough out of me on the subject, and I've never been
a professional mechanic in my life.  Talk about a young man starving for
some real knowledge on something that mattered to him.  He was a high-school
dropout, I eventually learned.  Made me wonder what was going on in that
young man's life.

Also, a young man who used to live across the street from me was always
being asked by his mom to keep her car working.  One day, he asked me to
show him how to tune up his mom's car.  When I asked him where the book on
his mom's car was, he looked at me like I was from another planet.  He
didn't know there were books on cars available at places like Kragen, Grand
Auto or Pep Boys!

I took him down to Kragen, bought the book and the parts he needed for his
tune-up (his mom also had a drinking problem and didn't make -- or hang on
to -- a lot of money).  Lo and behold, by reading the book and following the
directions, he got the car tuned up right.  Later, he even did the brakes.
His mom wanted me to double-check the kid's work by driving her car and
seeing how the brakes felt to me.  They were fine, of course. :D.

This young man wound up graduating from continuation school in San Francisco
at age 20, a full two to three years behind the folks he should've graduated
with, had he come from a stable home.  Eventually, he was able to join the
Army and at least try to have a shot at a better life, even though his poor
academic skills limited his options even in the Army.  And that's a real
loss for all of us, because the kid was good with his hands.  Problem was,
his problem solving skills still needed development that should've happened
in the public schools and the home environment.  Even though I'm not a
parent, incidents like this one make me worry about today's kids, especially
on the education I think they're NOT getting.

The rest of the world doesn't necessarily have this problem, though, which
has to be factored into this thread that Nancy Hickman started.  We can
worry about protectionism all we want, but worry won't get the jobs filled
or the tasks performed.  At the same time, though, a parent's failure to
take an active interest in a kid's education today could find the kid living
on the streets tomorrow wondering where his -- or her -- life went.  And
that's not a problem exclusive to the USA, even though it sure looks like it
from here.

When I was growing up here in the Bay Area, science fiction and science fact
were one and the same because we were in a race to the Moon with the
Russians.  Today, we're more concerned with making money rather than making
progress.  We know today that flying to Mars is a two-year journey one way.
Going to Mars would probably open the door to the development of newer
technologies that we'd have to have in place in order to make the trip a
success.  Yet we wonder who's going to pay for it all and why we'd want to
go to Mars at all, given the unresolved societal issues we have here.  And
God help whoever we send to Mars, should that space crew experience an
Apollo 13 or Challenger scenario occur in Earth-Mars transit.  Screw-ups
like that on a mission like this are truly scary and tend to be rather
fatal.

Robert Kennedy once said:  "Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?'
I see things that never were and ask 'Why Not?' "  If I had to say something
along those lines, I'd probably say "I see things that used to be right that
now are all wrong.  How did this happen and how do we make sure this Never
Happens Again?"

I think about that.  A lot.

George Mena, Tech Writing Consultant
(with special thanks and prayers of gratitude to Lew Jr., Art Jr., Brian,
Charlie, Don, Loran, Dewey and Catfish, wherever you are.)


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