HOLY SHIT! People are only getting paid $16 an hour for an unskilled, entry-level job that doesn't require a college degree?! Someone must remedy this!!! Shit, they should pay new hires half that. And they should be grateful for the health and dental and all the other benefits.
It happens all the time in my business. People pack up their wives, kids and "lives" to move away for another job. It's an accepted part of the job in an industry with far fewer workers than the car-manufacturing business. I'm currently working for my fourth teevee station.
Presently 95% of my worldly possessions are in a storage locker 2500 miles from me and my car is parked on the street there, in front of a friend's apartment. While some people would love to live in Hawaii, I'd much rather live in Portland. But I had the good fortune to hit the job market when there was a glut in managers there and my asking salary was a bit high for what people were paying so eventually I wound up moving where there was work--never mind the tremendous inconveniences of living in the middle of the fucking ocean.
How long you been out here? I was supposed to be out for six months and that would've been almost perfect. I've seen 70% of the tourist stuff, made it over to the Big Island, and did a bit of surfing. But it's fucking small. 3/4 of a million people, living on a rock, some 20 miles across. You drive around and the ocean is on your left and the mountain is on your right. Then for variety, you drive the other way and the water is on your right and the mountain is on your left. Or if you want to get REALLY adventurous, you drive ACROSS the ridgeline and go through the tunnel. On top of that there is nothing to buy and what there is to buy is way overpriced. I'm driving a car that cost the same as a month's rent. And that doesn't reflect getting a great deal on a car, that reflects how fucked up housing prices are out here. But they are paying me big piles of green money to do work I am fairly good at and I'm either not smart enough or lucky enough to figure out how to sell that skill in the private sector so far.
As an addendum to this thread, I had NPR on a couple days ago and I guess the UAW had another brief walkout over at Chrysler. It'll amuse me to no end when the whole Big Three go under and people like Chris wind up having to hustle blowjobs behind the local gay bar to make ends meet.
I've heard rent is through the fucking roof in Hawaii. But then again they definitely don't have room to spread out, so I guess land would be expensive. I myself would not want to live there.
About the only way for the Big 3 to survive is to close down every American plant, fire the workers, and start from scratch with non-union labor.
