Blue Collar Riches

I was listening to something on NPR, some time ago, where they
were talking about the highest paid blue collar jobs in the
country. They were talking about the crane operators that load
ocean going ships. Those folks make over $80,000 per year.

That is a lot of money; nothing to sneeze at, but people right here
in Kansas City make that, and then some; driving trash-trucks.

The reason I bring this up is because of a conversation I had,
earlier today, with one of my aquaintances at work. We both drive
front-load trash trucks. Front-loaders have arms and forks on the
front end of the truck which fit into the sleeves on the sides of
special trash cans that are lifted over the top of the cab and
dumped into a hopper on the top of the truck.

We were speaking ill of our supervisor who is on an extended
vacation. My aquaintance's particular issue is that he was being
paid a few pennies less per yard than drivers who don't drive any
more miles than he does. (We are paid by the cubic yard, the
more yards you haul, the more money you make.)

At our company there is a two-tier system where some drivers
make a bit more if their route begins outside of a twenty mile
radius from the domicile, which he claims his does.

With the number of yards he hauls, at the lower rate, his route
pays him just over $1144 per week. That's $59,488 per year, for
about 50 hours per week. (I know that that is less than $80,000
per year, but I'm working my way to that.) This is very good
money, and I told him so. At the higher rate his route would pay
him $1320 per week, $68,400 per year, which would be even
better, of course. A difference of nearly $9,000 per year.

That's a big difference, but is it enough to be upset about? He
has an easy job that makes better than the national average for
what he does.

What upsets my buddy is not that he doesn't make good money;
he knows he does, because he's tried the same job in other parts
of the country and they pay a fraction of what he gets paid now
for the same job. His problem is that there are some drivers who
make in excess of $100,000 per year and have new trucks to drive.

Why do these other drivers make so much money? Know one
knows for sure. From the outside it seems completely arbitrary.
The company we work for is local, though I've been told it is the
ninth largest in the nation. That's a big company to be based in
a community who's population is only a tad over a million people.

I suspect it has to do with the supervisor we were both
complaining about. He makes drivers angry enough to quit, and,
to get them back, the owner calls and offers them outlandish
deals not to go to work somewhere else. I have contemplated
quitting for the sole purpose of recieving that call begging me
to come back, but I feel I would lose integrity by doing it
before I've reached a saturation point with my butt-hole boss.

I ended my conversation with my buddy by telling him to get in
touch with his inner-trashman; to be more zen-like, and count his
blessings, for he does have an easy job that pays well. Why get
bent out of shape? After all, the drivers who make all that
money will work sometimes seven days a week showing their
loyalty and that they are worth all that money.

Who would want that kind of head-ache?

Pondering the RIAA

smircthink
I was farting around on YouTube, looking at this and that, when I came across a video by one of my favorite bands. It was of a song I hadn't heard before. I thought I might like to have that new song on my iPod, and set about thinking of the best way to do this.

The solution is simple. I have a shareware application called Audacity I got from the web, which I set to record, then play the YouTube video, and it makes a 'wave' recording of it. Then I export the 'wave' as an MP3. Add it to my iTunes library and I'm done.

As I was beginning this process I felt a twinge of guilt. Not that I was breaking a law, but because I didn't wish to steal from one of my favorite groups. Though, that really isn't the case, because I may not have purchased the CD in the first place, depending how much radio play the song recieved. Why would I want to buy something that I could hear on several different radio stations, several times throughout the day?

It is a bit like the pre-crime concept in the Philip K. Dick story, Minority Report. If you imagine all the digital thievery going on every moment of every day on the web, there is no way that all those folks would have purchased all the music they are downloading.

That is why the RIAA has illegally bribed our government into enacting absolutely draconian laws to impose on twelve year girls and little old ladies: they see the money the are NOT raking in, whizzing around out there in cyber-space . . . this universe that they don't understand . . . and they want it, they want it all!

Corporate sponsors of the RIAA do not understand the world as it is. They understand production, product and profit margins. Make it, truck it and sell it. All they know is that you are getting what they are selling without going to a store to buy it. That's why they want to come into your house and look at what's on your hard-drive.

You notice I haven't mentioned the artists. It isn't that artists are not concerned about getting paid. They do want to get paid and most of them would like to be rich, but it is not the reason for their existence. It isn't the reason they became what they are. If they made no money, they would still do what they do.

What's my point? I ripped the audio from the video and put it on my iPod. I don't care if corporations shrivel up and die. If corporations die music won't disappear. Well, people like Britney Spears might not exist, but who would care?

An artist would practice his craft if he had to pay to do it. He would work fifty-five hour weeks driving a trash-truck just so he could make a video of himself playing a ukulele to upload onto YouTube.

The sad fact is corporations won't die. They are a disease that we are destined to live with forever. If they cannot find a way to make music profitable then they will move onto to something else. They are just lacking in imagination when they start pushing around the unwashed masses.

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