The Old Folks Home

[ChickenCanoe]

Skyscraper window washer... that's a job I wouldn't want to have. You'd have to pay me quite an astronomical amount of money to do that. And even then, I would just outsource it.

I thought about getting a job doing repairs on cellular towers when I couldn't get work in any of my other fields. It paid quite well, but I declined. At my age, I don't want to climb that high.

I also had an opportunity to do automation programming on Nigerian oil platforms. As it turns out, I was wise to decline that one too.

It sounded like a good gig. High pay (about $50 an hour) 12 hours on, 12 hours off and every 9 months you got 3 months off and flown anywhere you wanted to go. I could have spent long vacations in Europe or Asia with my family. I could have also fallen prey to pirates.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

CC, just did the math. Finland as a whole is about 485 acts of crime that threaten health or life per 100 000 inhabitants.

You guys are just so nice. That sounds like the violence rate of Northern Europe.

Alaskan, no. But it was still your fault

That's a good one. We have to blame someone and preferably someone that isn't in trouble.

 

[vehve]

CC, yeah, there's a reason that kind of jobs pay well. If it sounds too good to be true, well... it usually is.

Oz, it's always fun to laugh at yourself with someone. And you probably get better service thanks to that e-mail address.

 

[vehve]

Quote: Kirkkonummi where I live is much more violent - 603 per 100 000 (year 2009). Still not so bad in my opinion though.

Everything is always Alaskan's fault.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Early on in the never ending Iraq war, a few friends that were electricians and pipefitters were planning on going as contractors. I don't think they ever did but the pay rate was very enticing.

 

[vehve]

Early on in the never ending Iraq war, a few friends that were electricians and pipefitters were planning on going as contractors. I don't think they ever did but the pay rate was very enticing.

When I did my military service, there were some private sector recruiters over at the pioneer company, trying to get people to work in the Middle East. The pay for IED disposal technicians was pretty good, around 8000 euros per month. You have to be insane to do it though, I don't think they got anyone interested.

 

[dsqard]

Early on in the never ending Iraq war, a few friends that were electricians and pipefitters were planning on going as contractors. I don't think they ever did but the pay rate was very enticing.

DH went over to Iraq in 2009. It was supposed to be for a year but wound up being 7 months due to our having to move to Utah. I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to deal with selling one house, buying property and getting another built, living with my mother and DH being overseas. The pay was a lot but when you really did the math, he was working 12 hours a day seven days a week and was being paid straight time for all those hours. Should have been more in my opinion but I wasn't the one who went. You couldn't pay me enough money these days to go over there as a contractor. It is a lot more dangerous now than it was in 2009.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

When I did my military service, there were some private sector recruiters over at the pioneer company, trying to get people to work in the Middle East. The pay for IED disposal technicians was pretty good, around 8000 euros per month. You have to be insane to do it though, I don't think they got anyone interested.

Being in the army and crawling along the ground searching for mines with a bayonet was very dangerous and I was only getting $75 a month.

No wonder I'm a little weird and take risks.

DH went over to Iraq in 2009. It was supposed to be for a year but wound up being 7 months due to our having to move to Utah. I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to deal with selling one house, buying property and getting another built, living with my mother and DH being overseas. The pay was a lot but when you really did the math, he was working 12 hours a day seven days a week and was being paid straight time for all those hours. Should have been more in my opinion but I wasn't the one who went. You couldn't pay me enough money these days to go over there as a contractor. It is a lot more dangerous now than it was in 2009.

Being away from home is never worth the money, no many how much it is. After all, it's only money.

 

[ozexpat]

One of the best paying jobs I ever had was cleaning bricks on weekends during high school.

We were restoring and enlarging a 20,000 sq foot mansion on one of the original land grants in Oz. The property was originally 270,000 acres of prime wheat and grazing land.

My father was heading the project and they were taking down 4 brick thick internal walls to use the bricks (they were made on the property 150 years ago) - while replacing them with common bricks.

The mud was basically lime and very soft but the laborers that were tasked with cleaning the bricks were ridiculously slow. They could not clean them as fast as they were being put back up. Eventually my father negotiated with the squillionaire owner to pay us the same amount per brick that the clowns were making and my brother and I would doo more bricks in a day than these guys could do in a week.

We made 10 cents a brick and cleaned 1000-1200 bricks a day. Thats 400-460 2014 dollars a day when I was 15. My 1963 Volswagen called Herman was the fruit of that gig

 

[ozexpat]

Being in the army and crawling along the ground searching for mines with a bayonet was very dangerous and I was only getting $75 a month.

No wonder I'm a little weird and take risks.


Being away from home is never worth the money, no many how much it is. After all, it's only money.

Imagine moving to work in a country that has 11 times more gun related deaths than where you lived before.

Just get on a plane from OZ to the USA