My Career advisor said I should be..

[Hans627]

Originally Posted by Mollysdad

I wish I had received some good concealing as a teen.
I loved my final career, but started 15 years too late.

And what was your final carer? Just curious!

[Tim A.]

I ignored the aptitude tests, found something I liked, and worked in that field until I retired. Was my profession perfect and without aggravation? Of course not, but it was fun enough for me.

Tim

[AWCHIEF]

My high school counselor suggested I become a professional photographer. I spent the next 22 years tracking Soviet submarines.

[rmkrum]

My Kuder Preference test indicated I would do best as a farmer. Close but no cigar. No interest in digging in the dirt. School counselor suggested I should get a piano to fiddle with. No musical talent either.

Ignored all the silliness, went to school and learned electronics and computer science. Ok, maybe “server farms” are a form of farming. Found my niche and although more or less retired, still making money being paid to play with computers. I’m gobsmacked that people pay me for my hobby!

[dkdouglas]

Well my gurus of the future said I should be a doctor, but I hated blood. Finally got into computers 25 years ago and tomorrow for my New Years Resolution, I am going to draft a letter to HR and my boss informing them of my retirement. After this company laid off 25% of the team I am on last month, my leaving will be a shock but they will get over it. I didn't buy our AS to have it set in storage!

[Hans627]

My dad was a carpenter and he wanted me to follow in his shoes. But I did not enjoy carpentry work. When I took the skill tests I scored the highest score possible in mechanical aptitude.

As a senior in high school I went to a career day and there was someone touting the merits of becoming a tool and die maker. Computers were just then becoming commonplace and I remember him saying that even computers need someone to make all the various parts. So I found an apprenticeship program for tool and die making and four years later I was one. And making electrical connectors used in the computer industry at that. I must say I excelled at it so the aptitude test was right on. I eventually got a BA degree and ended my working career as the President/CEO of a metal fabrication company.

I still own part of a machine shop that employees 15 people but I have a partner who runs it for me. It is a very successful business. A big challenge is finding young people who want to work with their hands as well as their heads.

One of the reasons I enjoy having my AS is being able to work on it and make improvements.

[Ray Eklund]

I went out West, at the age of 16, to find an outdoor job that suited my liking of adventure.

Cattle Guards seemed to be popular at the time but no openings. Then Hole Watchers and Gate Openers were taking the good jobs if you had references in the Cattle Guard business.

When discharged from the Army in 1971, I applied for a job in Cheyenne, Wyoming for the Union Pacific Railroad. I filled out the form and was interviewed. The first question was- "do you have any relatives working for the Union Pacific?" I said “no". He then said, "I was over qualified with my two years of college and would not enjoy the job”.

I never applied to a Union of any kind of job, after that.

The Hitching Post Inn in Cheyenne was hiring. Miss Wyoming Convention was being held there and I was over 21 years old and they needed someone bringing in food and drinks. I also was able to keep all of the left over small Miss Wyoming cakes and put them into my clothes locker. Took some to my apartment, as well. I quit later that week, after eating the cakes. They were not that good and the waitresses were not giving me a cut of the tips.

Today the Hitching Post is an empty lot.

Discouraged, I went to the University of Wyoming in Laramie on my G. I. Bill, getting $366 a month for four years. This covered my Fall and Spring living expenses for nine months. I spent the Summers camped out in the Badlands of Nebraska collecting mammal fossils and fossil turtles, living in a tent and a 1965 Bronco. I did some hay rowing for gas money on the Ranch and great meals. I found a small fortune of fossils and the Ranchers were glad to see me show up to do odd, or very odd jobs... like tending to fences and keep an eye on livestock that were loose. Picked up a nice tan and grew my hair long... mustache too. Learned more geology, paleontology and stratigraphy on my own than four years of classes.

The Petroleum industry advised all Geology Students when they graduate. “Forget everything they taught you. We will teach you what you need to know.” That answered how I felt about the classes I was required to take to graduate.

When the Vertebrate Fossil Professor told me in a 'private conference' I was not suppose to collect fossils and sell them... I, for the first time, held my tongue. He gave me a C for his class. He had his whiskey stashed in a desk drawer and never once finished the one hour class, held three days a week. If he was sober teaching class, I must have skipped that day. There were four students. Two PhD candidates. The Museum Director. And me… a Junior at the time.

I worked in the Museum for work study to cover extra expenses. After a month I was tired of writing small numbers on fossils with India Ink. The Physics Lab wanted me to work there. I moved lead bricks for about five hours and never came back. These were my formative attitude years, doing Work Study. Again… I held my tongue… which I should more often, but now I prefer to be ignorant of how things operate in the ‘Real World’.

When I discovered that mechanical slot machines and antique jukeboxes were to be found in Wyoming and brought big prices in Missouri... I began attending classes and in my free time... dealing with various clubs and vending companies in the State, for what were illegal at the time. The Department of Justice wanted $50 every year to be registered to handle this kind of stuff. I preferred to lay low and sold to collectors. Eventually I figured out I was selling them too cheap and became a smarter business man.

I found myself married after several months of camping.

My first wife decided a geologist was a lousy computer programmer and installer. She opened up an Apple Computer shop and service. Divorced me as I could not figure out how to even put software into an Apple or Mac SE. I married my current wife. She is much smarter than me. We bought three run down commercial properties and four apartments above one of them. My job was to fix them up, keep them rented. She helped haul fire rated sheet rock on her time off, on the weekends. We rented them for nearly twenty years. Sold them all. Bought two Blue Heelers. Bought an Airstream in 2006. Had to use my ingenuity to keep the interior tight with better screws and hardware.

I organized the Airstream 2015 and 2016 New Mexico and the 2016 Wyoming Adventures, a 2016 Greenhorn Adventure… It was at that time I discovered my personality was like my old Vertebrate Professor’s breath… and also not a good socializer, nor could I carry a note for a group sing along. Take a group of people into the woods, mountains and prairies... half found it wonderful. The other half wanted to have me run naked into the forest, smothered with bacon grease to attract black bear and mountain lions. I considered it, but decided that for all the Hell I had been through over the years… this was the most fun one could ever have, with the other half of the group.

Today I am a well adjusted Human Being. I enjoy creating some obtuse Threads about one thing or another and discussing it. My understanding wife, two Blue Heelers love the outdoors. Love me for who I am, and who I will become... that is all the friendship I could every ask for.

So you fellow Airstreamers in Streamland who managed to get a glimpse at one of your own… life is what you make of it and do. Give me a break from time to time and I will smile and try to listen better and just maybe, find a few friends in the process. Happy New Year… and may our paths cross, not while towing, but at a campsite.

[Foiled Again]

In 1966 when I was in high school, I also took those tests... the guidance cou selor said "with your scores you could do anything... you could be a teacher or a nurse or sell real estate... until you get married."

Jeepers. Thrilling.

I couldn't afford a car until I was well into my 20s so I bought (and did most of the maintenance on a rice grinder [Honda]) motorcycle.

In small town Ohio in 1966...

The reactions of others were priceless..
3 months AFTER I graduated from high school the principal of the school verbally admonished me in public on main street... And then I officially joined the ranks of "fallen woman" when I addressed him rather uncivilly by his first name, and stated "judgement is a good thing, judgemental is NOT" and that he could remove his hand from my person immediately. Never said "Or else"

Didn't have to... tough biker broad... on a Honda that could reach 55 mph only on a downhill grade.

SO glad I left that place. Some things about small towns are wonderful... but the idea that "different" is a sin... whew.

Paula

[CEDRICWARD]

Ray Eklund,

You missed out on your true path in life.
You shoulda' been a writer.

Great stuff. Great humor

[eggman]

My test in the 70s came back with inconclusive results. Information was too varied and I was told to meet with my counselor immediately, implying I had cheated! My DDs test in about 2001, suggested she would be a good truck driver; she is a professional ballerina. Go figure....

[Ray Eklund]

Originally Posted by CEDRICWARD

Ray Eklund,

You missed out on your true path in life.
You shoulda' been a writer.

Great stuff. Great humor

******

First... Paula. My kind of independent woman.

When in First Grade at Somers, Montana... my parents had me skip Kindergarten. Not because they did not want me to, but Olney, Montana had a saw mill and a dry goods store. No school.

The first week of First Grade, my teacher gave me a note to give to my mother and have a parent conference. Not because I was a restless child or gave any teacher any trouble. She thought I was... retarded.

My mother was a War Bride from the Netherlands. The family did not speak... English. Dutch, or as those living in the Netherlands call... Low Dutch. A bit of French, German, Flemish and Dutch. My Dad could speak decent German, so there was good communication with the family during and after World War 2.

The First Grade teacher began to ask my mother some questions about her son, Raymond. Your son's speech is barely recognizable as any form of English... or even Canadian or the Queen's English. Mrs. Eklund... your son may be in need of special assistance. Your son also could not even write simple words.

My mother taught me... this special form of English, while my Dad worked at the Lumber Mill at Olney, Montana. She could write in Dutch... but little in English.

The teacher had sensitive ears and then understood what was the problem, after the first words from my Mom.

It took me until I was 12 or 13 to lose the accent and speak... English. I could not write much during my first few years in elementary school.

Today, I can write up a story and sell it in an hour, if I had the interest. But my 'social language' never developed as I learned to think in pictures and 'feel words' that just did not flow out of my mouth. 'Their and there', too and to were tough words for years to figure out which to use.

So when you get a group of 'Steamers sitting around and socializing... I am seeing pictures and feeling words.

I asked my wife's brother's wife who was doing some research for her PhD Thesis on how children, who speak or learned language from a non English parent, develop their language skills and which part of the brain substitutes language and thought.

No. I cannot speak not one Dutch word. Some German, yes. No Dutch.

It was beyond her comprehension. No one has probably given it one thought as it is... foreign and never brought up.

I feel for all these Children brought into the USA that are looked at as being 'retarded' or slow because they have NO English skills. The younger you are, the better you can adapt. If not... they will suffer for many years.

So... yes I have written for pay in the past. By the word or article of subjects I find of interest. But to give a lecture... the words come out as pictures at times, so I stumble for a simple word, know how many letters are in it and often the first letter.

We all have had to adapt. Just when you want to sit around and talk about grand kids and and the weather... I will nod off and go to sleep.

[LY007]

My aptitude test said absolutely I should have been a trust fund kid.

[rmkrum]

Language and literacy is tough for some. We lived in San Francisco area, and the couple that owned the house we rented spoke fluent English and Cantonese. They constantly invited us to go to Oakland to eat Chinese food late at night. Took a while, but we finally figured out that neither of them could READ English or Cantonese. They invited us because my wife could read the Chinese characters on the menus...and then the three of them could discuss what to order. Me, I just enjoyed the heck out of good food that the other couple paid for, and we had a nice conversation every time. They were very good friends, successful in life and business, but just had trouble reading...

[Silverpuller]

Originally Posted by cwf

Since the New Year, 2018 is screaming toward us, Here is a different angle on 'resolutions...',,, it is really a loose idea... did you experience these pigeon holing evaluations? How close did they get in your best job?



In the 60's it was all the rage to test students for their best 'occupational aptitude'.



I was offered one job.... I should be in a Federal Fire Watch Tower, hundreds of miles from any other human being...



I wasn't hired.... there wasn't a Watch Tower that met those requirements... supposedly. That's ok.. I really love working with my hands, mechanics, electronics, flying... motorcycling.. etc... but now I can't do that stuff like before.. but still have the knack and itch...



Today, it is possible, I might be able to bring my AS to a remote place to man a 'Fire Watch Tower'... how would that work out? ... I wonder.

Good luck with that. The fact is that, compared to yesteryear, there are many fewer manned fire towers remaining today. In our State, Idaho, there are a bunch that are unmanned and available for sleepovers (for a fee). Unfortunately many of those wouldn’t be trailer accessible.

[Linda71air]

My test in 7th grade said I should be a Banker, Interior Designer or a Mechanic! What a combination. The only mechanical items on the test were pictures of tools and multiple choice answers of what they were called. Since I often helped my Dad in the garage with what ever project he was working on, I learned about basic tools. I later became a purchasing agent and credit union auditor.

[CEDRICWARD]

Mollysdad,

I wished I had been given counseling about my 'concealing' in my youth.
I would have become a better person.
https://goldtradercommentsaugust2010.blogspot.com/

[Woosch]

I don't remember my middle school counselor recommending anything specific, but I do remember something being said about computer programming. No such thing as a PC then but they just got some sort of computer we could look at. Kind of looked like a box with some flashing lights on it. I don't know what it did exactly. Seemed kind of boring.
Took the ASVAB test a few years later and qualified for just about everything in the military. One job got my interest and led me to a rewarding career after four years in the Navy.

[Fly at Night]

Such advice was not dispensed at our academy, but we reaped the benefit of other "assets"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNWsQIEqISc