This is why I come to these forums. Not just RC is talked about but every now and then we get another great thread is started. T-Maxx your right about some stuff and then wrong. “Wrong” is not the word. Maybe just young. I have never used my parents name or friends to get ahead in this world. I have built my experience and reputation purely with my own 2 hands. The one thing my dad did to help me was teach me a good work ethic. I don’t know what you have done for work in your life but I am sure you have had co-workers that do 80% of a job and stop. My father never let me stop at 80%. It was either 100% or nothing. Growing up I hated doing some of the little stuff or the 20%. But 20% is 1\5 of a project or job. That’s a big part. I owe everything to my father for instilling that in me. Besides that my reputation is my own. So to set the record straight the Cabinet job and the Stair company I worked for both did multi-million dollar jobs. Both companies’ bosses came looking for me based on my reputation. I did not know either of them by face. I had heard there names but nothing else. I did not go apply for a job with them. One of them tracked me down in a Wal-mart. Both knew of me. In this my reputation carried me. But I was also lucky to have been taught by some good people. The experience I have comes from some great people. It would be like Michael Jordan teaching you to play basketball. You would play better learning from him then a little league coach. College has that for you. They bring together some great professors to teach you. Some of them are the top levels of their fields. Believe it or not I was looking at Robotic engineering at Penn State. It sounded great to me. But I found I loved simple building and construction. So I gave up going to college for something I love. I have never looked back. JThiesses has a good point. A degree would help me get more money. It would be the icing on the cake. I am fine were I am at. I have enough and that’s what counts. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I have no more need for more money than what I have right now. Money is not happiness. You can’t buy it. But your happiness is for sale. If you spend 16 hours at a job you like but your family hates then you have sold their happiness. Greed is bad. That’s why I won’t get a degree. I don’t see the point. I do get irritated with people above me in a management position that have a degree and my work makes them look good and they get paid 40K to 60K more. That bugs me like you would not believe but that is a choice I choose. There are some that will get a good career based on luck but they will not go far because luck will not build a work ethic or reputation. LOL I had to laugh at Jerry’s train story. It is so right. I look at the world the same way. There are 2 types of people here. 1 type is just surviving. They go to a 9 to 5 job 5 days a week and wonder why they hate their job and life. They usually live in a poor area of any town and don’t really care. Then there is the other type. They are conquerors. They want more then just the minimum out of life. They want better and will work for it. Which type are you??? As an engineer you figure out problems. I see a problem in your thinking. You said “almost all of my friend’s parents own companies so they are extremely good at what there parents do for a living. They are lucky that they have the tools to exceed what others do.” What tools do you have that you are not using? If you think your friend have tools look at the problem in another way. What tools do you have? Stop thinking about what you don’t have but use what you do. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. I have plenty of weaknesses but I use what I have for strengths. Learn yours. You’re too young to worry about all this. You don’t have to decide what to do for your life right now. The average American today changes careers not just jobs but careers every 7 years. WOW. Do what you love, the money will follow. I hope this is not too much to read.
