Jobs That Americans Can't Do

So THAT's why they can't afford car insurance; it's because they've been paying their taxes instead.

Posted by Cameron Wood at April 6, 2006 1:44 PM

This is absolutely spot on. My husband is also self-employed in the category of "jobs Americans won't do" and I completely agree with everything you said here.

Posted by Lana at April 6, 2006 3:17 PM

Rudy Rios will probably be an ideal candidate to design the Latino English tests if RaZA and the Open Borders' crowd has their way.

Reported by Taranto at his "Best of the Web" today:
No 1's 2 Dum 2 Teech in a Publik Skool
"Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration," reports the Houston Chronicle:

Rios, who still retains his duties as an English-as-a-second-language teacher, was copying and distributing a flier that read: "We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be passed against all immigrants. We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us (sic)," according to district officials.

"Gude thing he still gots his job 2 teech english 2 da immigrant kidz cuz itd B 2 bad F dey mist sumpin so importent 4 dare future.",,,Taranto

Posted by LARWYN at April 6, 2006 4:14 PM

I do not get "four months of effective vacation."

I get a bit over two months when I do not teach in front of students. One should not mistake that as time when I am not working. Papers don't grade themselves, lessons don't create themselves, and beaurocratic nonsense must be attended to.

I make about a bit more than I did as a 23-year-old, with fewer benefits. With a Master's degree plus.

I really like my job, and getting punched in the head a few times by students doesn't bother me in light of the great stuff that happens in my classroom, but this is not a cushy job. The stress level is high, and people crack. The teacher shortage (which I think is a bit of a fiction) isn't due to a shortage of trained teachers, but the 50% turnover rate. If this job were so cushy, why would half leave in their first 3 years? Afterall, they get 4 months off!

Oh, and at the end of a 9-hour day spent teaching and counseling 100+ teenagers, people tell you that a) you're doing a lousy job b) your job is easy.

Posted by Rita R. at April 7, 2006 5:47 AM

Well said. The interesting thing is that no group is harmed more by the influx of illegals than America's blue-collar workers -- many of them black -- who lose jobs to the willing-to-work-for-next-to-nothing border crossers.

Seems to me that if the Stupid Party (aka the GOP) did the right thing and enforced laws against employing illegals, wages would rise -- ain't market forces grand? -- and usually reliable Democratic voters might follow their wallets and vote for the other guys.

But that would require the Stupid Party to be principled -- and smart; doesn't seem likely, given recent history.

Posted by Mike Lief at April 7, 2006 7:50 AM

Ah....
Seems I've heard this before...Oh yeah..."The Grapes of Wrath". Here in Phoenix, where on Monday, we are having a big demonstration by and in support of illegals that has the official blessing of the City of Phoenix (which is spending up to $10,000,000 of taxpayer money to pay for security, to close major streets, etc. for the march, the Gov (what's his name), and the local polls. It amazes me that we are again paying so that people that have already broken our laws can demonstrate and wave their flag in our country....What is wrong with this picture????? Why isn't the Gov calling out the National Guard (no they aren't all in Iraq) the Border Patrol and the Highway Patrol and telling them that we have buses waiting and we will arrest anyone that shows up and deport them right back to Mexico, confiscate their cars and any cash they have as a fine....Instead, the average city/state/county worker is being told that the can "telecommute" on Monday or don't have to come to work...and they are all treating it like it's a big picnic.......its utter insanity...................

Posted by moondog at April 7, 2006 8:04 AM

Well Rita, as we used to say "your milage may vary." I am not disparaging the job that you, personally, do in the least. I know you a little, but too well to do that.

But from where I've been --watching, paying for, and participating in schools -- in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and most of all California and Washington, I score the time off for teachers as:
All federal and state holidays plus Christmas vacation plus Spring Break plus Summer Vacation and that adds up to 4 plus months in those environs.

I also note huge medical and dental and other side benefits plus a socked in pension at 90% of highest salary when you retire.

I sympathize with teachers that have been so hamstrung by the law and by their various administrations and schoolboards that to even start to discipline a disruptive student their first and last recourse is to call the police.

Nine hour days? Surely not all are 9 hour days. And I point out that most jobs in America on the "professional" level easily count out to nine hours or more on a regular basis.

As to the salary, well, if you look at it as pay for an eight to nine month year, it doesn't seem so very little after all.

Of course, things never look as rosey from within as they do from without, I'll grant you that.

If indeed half leave in the first three years (and I'm not buying this out of hand, but I could be persuaded. How many, for instance, "leave" to go to private schools, to get other degrees, or to go into school administration/) might it not have a lot to do with looking at their lack of control and class determination and the insane pet theories of outside education experts that require "way new and way cool" lesson plans and approaches.

Regardless of the plaints and the hoots of "professionalism" teaching is not rocket science, unless of course Wile E. Coyote in the form of theorists and school boards and other sooper-geniuses are designing the rocket.

There are three generations in the form of 10 teachers in my family from Minnesota to Washington to California. They all tell pretty much the same tale.

Posted by Vanderleun at April 7, 2006 1:25 PM


If a Senator or Congressmen make 175000 a year with Benifits and three months off why not just
off shore it to say India we could have a vote
via web, pay them 50,000 a year get the same results as now and all the pac money could go to Teachers

Posted by greg chambers at April 7, 2006 2:33 PM

Works for me. Indeed, the Teachers would benefit since they wouldn't be plopping down their multimillions in PAC money to begin with.

Posted by Gerard Van der Leun at April 7, 2006 2:35 PM

Now we Americanos! We quit pickin da stinkin tomatoes. No worry. Boss senda for our couszins.

DINOCRAT:
"We always laugh when we hear President Bush say that nonsense about the illegal immigrants doing the jobs that Americans will not do.

(1) we suppose that is true, if he is stating that Americans will not fix airplanes, work in nuclear plants, or clean up in Wal-Mart;

(2) do Bush’s comments imply that...
once these illegals get their anmesty, they will suddenly stop doing these jobs, and we will need even more illegals?.....DINOCRAT

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2006/04/07/thirty-years-of-blather-on-illegal-immigration-thirty-years-of-doing-harm/
Dinocrat »
"12,000 days of blather on illegal immigration, 12,000 days of doing harm"

Has record on the blather from 1972 until the Reagan Amnesty in 1984.

With quotes from the NYT'S just for the fun of it.

Posted by LARWYN at April 7, 2006 3:18 PM

Sigh. Yeah, I actually do put in 9+ hour days on a regular basis. I'm in at 6:45, and rarely out before 4. That doesn't include grading/prepping in the evening and on weekends. And no, my job is definitely NOT rocket science. It's a lot of pressure, though, and a HEAP of not sayin' what I'm thinkin'. (It's also a lot of fun. I've never laughed more in my life.)

If you could off-shore the NEA, DESE and Dept. of Ed. with the senators, we might all live in a better world (I live in a right-to-work state so don't have to join the union neener neener Californians! The NEA is just an embarassment.). If they had to go before their constituents/voters (ie. teachers) for their funding the same way school districts do, how long do you think they'd last?

(Yeah, the Mexicans are starting to take the construction jobs from Americans around here, too. I'm not sure it's the pay amount as much as day laborer vs. salaried/benefits worker. This isn't rocket science, as they say. Neither is immigration policy. When the economy is hot, y'all come on in; when it cools down, you folks just better get on home now. Economy must be cooling down right about now. Do Mexicans get credit cards? This could redeem them.)

Posted by Rita C. at April 7, 2006 7:31 PM

Actually, from the stock market, to corporate earnings and profits, to unemployment (4.7%!) the economy is anything but cooling despite the efforts of the Fed to get it to chill out just a little. Indeed, if numbers trump numbers probably the only thing keeping unemployment from going into the negative numbers is the presence of illegals in their millions. What that does do,however, is depress wages on the lower end of the scale. Especially in right to work states.

And, before offshoring the free-riders in the educational establishment, we might first thing about reducing the so called "Schools/Colleges of 'Education' " to rubble. I can hardly wait until these whackjob establishments declare "Education" to be a "Science" right up there with "Sociology."

I accept that you work hard, Rita. Never doubted it. But, I note in passing, that for many millions of Americans you have yet another stealth benefit. In at 6:45 and out at 4 = No Traffic!

Posted by Gerard Van der Leun at April 8, 2006 8:27 AM

Rita, I'm a parent of three, I work in .edu administration (IT), my mom was an ElEd type, my sister taught ABD teens, I'm friends with teachers, and I even married a teacher's daughter. I think teaching is one of _the_ hardest and most valuable jobs (along with nursing, cops, clergy, and a few others).

Are you overpaid? Not at all! But recognize that many of us who "make" more than you also pay out a lot more (for health insurance, primarily, as well as things like continuing professional development) and we don't have the retirement plan you do.

Here in Rhode Island, teachers with enough years in the school system get a fat health care & pension plan. Salaries are grouped into "steps" based purely on years of service. I work in a small private university and, even in IT, we scrounge for money.

Good on you for doing such genuinely noble work. Apropos of your "HEAP of not sayin' what I'm thinkin" I applaud you: I couldn't do it for other people's kids and I can't even do it at home. :7)

But please just recognize that even while many of us are voting to pass school budgets thaat mean cuts in other areas, we have an eye on the line item for benefits. By all means, you deserve it, but we aren't blind.

And if you ever come to Little Rhodey, stop by J&W and I'll buy you lunch in one of our marvelous cafeterias.

Posted by Will E. at April 11, 2006 6:49 AM

http://clicheonline.com/2006/04/25/president-bush-is-saying-illegal-aliens-are-doing-jobs-americans-wont-do.aspx

^^Im starting a list on my (slightly biased) blog on jobs Americans wont do. Since my blog gets no traffic, im the only poster, but I still got a list going from personal experience:^^

1) Truck Driver
A) Over the road
B) Local
2) Packer
3) Shipper
4) Receiver
5) Clerk
6) Forklift operator
7) Agricultural worker
8) Guard
9) Clipboard dictator
10) Washer
11) Rinser
12) Diesel mechanic
13) Something to do with the Satellite comm in the cab
14) Dairyfarmer
15) Metalworker
16) Meat packer

I forgot military, they earn beans.

17) Military

Posted by Bob D at April 25, 2006 3:47 AM