Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

From 1975 till 2020 worked in the skilled trades/Managing Trades people/Engineering.
I would come home covered in grease/dirt/soot etc for a good part of my career. And as most tradespeople have to do, worked innumerable Saturdays/Sundays/Holidays/Long Weekends etc because that was when the equipment was not running and maintenance could be performed on it.
As most trades people know, when first hired, we were given the most undesirable work hours and the worst repair jobs no one else wanted to do. No big deal that is all just part of it.

Earned a very good living for our family doing this "undesired" manual work.

I also do manual labor now that I am retired;
garden daily, all home, appliance and vehicle repairs, hiking and fishing.

In our area Mexicans are the main workers in the construction industry - but not because it is undesirable work - they work harder, smarter and more economically than other workers- in other words they are the most desirable workers to do the best job, the quickest, at the lowest cost.

In other parts of our area "Americans" with every advantage imaginable sit on their asses drawing welfare and every other type of government aid available moaning about how hard life is and how they are treated unfairly.

 

Terminology debates are pointless. There’s a big difference between wiring communication systems and filling potholes

 

We grow watermelons as well as most every other common vegetable in the south - green beans, corn, okra, potatoes, squash carrots, strawberries etc. Also have fruit trees that bear fruit- apples, peaches, cherries as well as blackberries, raspberries and grapes. Everyone in our family would be very familiar with picking and harvesting this produce.

When I was a youngster we sold newspapers on the corner and collected pop bottles for change.
Latter we cut grass $2 a yard, raked leaves, shoveled snow and took out garbage for extra money.

Didn't you have to do the same?

To work through college was a dishwasher at a Ramada Inn, helped paint houses on the weekends and then would work as a janitor in the college helping to dump trash and clean floors to help pay tuition at a discount.

Many Americans have lived a much different life than yourselves apparently.

I was doing nothing special - most everyone was doing the same thing I was. Latter I was drafted into the service where I learned a trade and after discharge got my start in the skilled trades.

Most men in my age group and who grew up in our area have a very similar story.
It's no big deal or special story at all.

 

Correct!
I cut grass until I was 17 and then cleaned toilets, painted, cooked, drove boats, and guarded everything from parking lots to nucular weapons until I earned enough experience to be valuable to a defense contractor and then Big Bell.

Then perhaps people ought to start paying them AND their payroll taxes.
Perhaps some benefits too.
Both parties of the government AND about a bazillion small businesses and homeowners are participating in nothing less than human trafficking by hiring people under the table.

At the risk of getting back to the Key Bridge - there's a good chance that those workers might have been for-real, legal residents or US citizens, even in a horribly corrupt and inefficiently run state like Maryland if they were working for a state contractor fixing a state road.
MOST adult states ACTUALLY CHECK on these kinds of things when they have state paid contractors working for them.

Yep.
In a lot of 'flyover country' that's 'Ops Normal' but not just for the men.....

We assisted my baby girl in going to our local community college AFTER she picked blueberries, waited tables, and did the "mall job" thing. In other words, her "College Experience" was earned in full.
After marrying she was picked up as a student intern for a .dod.navy.mil job and worked full time, while going to school 'full time' and pregnant with my first grandchild - FOREVER ridding me of using "I'm too busy to....." as an excuse for anything important in life.
When she picked up her 10 year pin as a Civil Serpent and JUST when I thought my pride as a father peaked, she left the gov-mint and 2/3 of her pay to teach elementary school children their R's.

But of course.....we've had politicians in the past who think that teachers are not 'real' workers.

I have a brother behind the tinsel curtain who makes close to 7 figures and has an exceptionally gifted daughter. On my last video call I asked her in front of the family if she'd told my brother that she wanted to go to Columbia University.
We all had a good laugh since there's a ZERO percent chance that either parent will spend one single dime for college until my niece works her way through the local junior college first or leaves the house on her own hook.

 

ah yes city college while working. Hard but Good times .
After the first 2 undergraduate yrs Community College (nearly free - mid 70's) - then running cost numbers for last 2 years at State College (part time tuition practically free & paid by welding at a dirty foundry full time - yes dirty Foundry is redundant). Lots of shop classes available that time frame. Millwright apprenticeship. Journeyman pay allowed part-time Law School over 4 years instead of full-time in 3. Electronics & shop skills now keep the house in ship shape as well as the motorhome running during retirement.
Grandkids want gaming computers. Gave a list of dirty jobs to build a resume but they want no part.
(sigh)
No wonder they don't like the scripture via Thessalonians, "you don't work - you don't eat"
Good thing there rich Uncle Sam will dole out free stuff. Maybe their free Obama phone will have gaming apps on it.

.

 

are you still working on a watermelon farm? very few american teens work anymore. most are involved with school, sports and other extra curricular activities.
there are some american barrista's, but i wouldn't call that hard labor.

 

I agree with what you stated.
Your experience mirrors mine and many others as well as our children's.

In our area people doing roadwork would be state, county workers or approved state contractors and the workers would have great benefits. I am sure it is different in other states .

Reading some of the other post makes a person begin to wonder if there isn't a great cultural divide in America as far as experiences, expectations, and willingness to work for what you earn/get vs " the entitlement mentality".

Many of these post reek of entitlement mentality and victim personification.

The Mexicans I come in contact with are generally smart, industrious and successful in their occupations,
Our construction industry is dominated by Mexican Americans because of their work ethic, craftsmanship and skill.

In our area many Mexican Americans work in the fast food industry alongside their American counterparts.

Toyota and other local factories have special hiring process with incentives to attract Mexican Americans for the factory jobs as it is very hard to find competent labor to fill all the jobs and the Mexican Americans work out so well.

Mexican American farm labor is a highly sought after commodity that pays well and is hard to come by - Tobacco farms, berry farms and may other labor-intensive farm task are all competing against each other for this labor and you had better be ready to cough up quite a bit of money and perks to have the limited number of farm hands work for you during peak season. And yes many American teenagers and others are also taking advantage of this seasonal labor demand and resulting financial bonanza.

The United States Military Service is a wonderful pathway to citizenship as well as learning highly marketable skills for immigrants, naturalized citizens, young Americans and anyone else willing to get off their rear ends.

America is the land of opportunity.

There are too many successful immigrant stories to detail here.

If you have time read about one of the most prominent founders of Home Depot and learn about his story -
yes, he is an immigrant.
From Poor Jewish Boy to Founder of Home Depot (collive.com)
"Whether you think you can, or that you cannot—you are right.” Bernie Marcus shared that in the United States, in particular, if a person believes in himself and works hard, it is only a matter of time until success will come his way."

 

For those who won't take the time to read:
Here is a video of Home Depot Founder Bernie Marcus: a child of Russian Jewish Immigrants who fled to America to escape persecution - he grew up in New Jersey in the 4th story of a tenement with no heating or air-conditioning with parents who didn't speak English. He was dirt poor, a stutter who was rejected from schools here because he was a Jew.
What does he think of America and the opportunity that exist here in America?

 

how did we get here from a brige collapse and immigrants fixing potholes?

 

If I'm not mistaken, all the fatalities from the bridge collapse were among immigrants (well, not necessarily first-generation, and probably documented) who were fixing potholes at the time.

 

Ummmmm.......

I'm a third-gen American.
Am I still an immigrant? (not necessarily first-generation, and probably documented)
Probably not, I would imagine.

I have a friend who is my county road supervisor, and one of my 'Oscar-Sierra' plans (if Big Bell implodes) is to beg him for a job running one of those tractors you see cutting grass on the side of the road.
Full time, about $20/hr, with benefits.
It's relatively simple work.
There are ALWAYS openings, but you have to have some relatively rare qualifications.
You have to have some common sense (like knowing a 'bush-hog' is not an animal and how to back a trailer) and you have to have a valid ID, be able to pass a drug test and not have any active warrants, and you must possess the ability to wake up at 0500-0600 (weather depending) on week-days.

Spoiler Alert!
Alcohol and Jazz Cabbage are DRUGS.

We ALL suffer from the 'soft bigotry of low expectations' but after working in telecommunications for 25 years (today!) as a defense contractor for 8 years, and 32 years as a sometimes part-time squid????
I think I can suffer the indignity of having people look down on me as a common labourer.....

 

Bow thrusters tend to be in the front end of the ship - otherwise they would call them something else.
Normally the power plant in container ships (A diesel engine in this case IIRC) is in the back with the shaft, rudder, and screw (propellor.)

Bow thrusters are not independently powered, so I'm not sure why they would figure in the 24-page report except to point out the obvious.
If you lose propulsion on a ship that only has one engine room, one rudder, and one screw - it's not really all that big a deal.....

.....unless you're in constrained waters (example: a port that is operated by a corrupt or an incompetent government) or on the open seas in a storm.

Recently, we've seen examples of both.


Sailors on the big salt NORMALLY take informed chances.
Humans, fixing potholes on a criminally deficient bridge probably do not, no matter HOW societally valuable they are to other humans.

My Humble opinion.
As of yet uninformed by a 24-page NTSA prelim, which I will let other people read and comment on.

 

The simultaneous opening of LR1 and HR1 inclines me to think they were responding to something real, rather than spuriously opening at the same time.

 

agreed. i'm more interested in how we got from immigrants filling potholes to humble bragging about how we started out with a paper route and wound up president of the united states

 

at the rate i'm going, i'll be older than the current candidates by the time that happens to me

 

I think a thread describing early non-career jobs held in Prius Chatters' youth could be very entertaining. Maybe not here, but nearby.