WaIIy wrote in
:

Larry, were you raped in homeschool or something?



No, actually I'm a former South Carolina Technical Education Electronics
Department Head who had to fight long and hard to get employers and Human
Resources management like "WaIIy" to give my kids' resumes that second
look, especially when I first started the electronics program at our little
TEC school. I worked very hard to convince them of the seriousness of my
department as there is really little certification for such schools.

Once the department had an employer references base to point to and get
recommendations from for the newest survivors of my electronics boot camp,
I had little trouble placing them all in quite nice technician positions,
though maybe not in the local area to the dismay of my school president.
The phone companies got wind that I wasn't trying to tell them they were
all going to be engineers and taught a great basic electronics school they
could use as a base to build on in their own telephone schools.

The $outhern Bell HR representative in Columbia used to come to interview
my class each year. I asked him why he drove all that way when a much
larger TEC was just down the street from his office. "Oh, I need
TECHNICIANS!", he exclaimed. "At Midlands TEC, they tell them they are all
going to be junior engineers and they're not interested in jobs behind
wiring frames and switching racks. Your guys can't wait to get their hands
dirty!", he continued. My reputation for turning out a quality product was
great, but my salary was $14,200/year for working 12 months, not 9, so I
had to find a real job that didn't pay like a hobby. TEC always assumed
you had a military retirement check in your box each month and were looking
for a hobby. My first year teaching in 1971, I was paid the princely sum
of $7,200.

I'd loved to teach. I took a black kid off a farm tractor plowing tobacco.
He was the first in his family to graduate from high school. Today, he is
head of the long line telephone switching center that feeds busy Myrtle
Beach, SC, with long distance calls. Not bad for a kid from Tobacco Row,
eh? His father insisted I sit with the family at his graduation....(c;
Noone ever reproduced that feeling I got when they all had good jobs
outside my doors....instead of working at some mill as an indentured
servant with no future. We called him "Scooter" in class. His secretary
wasn't amused when I asked, "Is Scooter in, today?", outside his
office...(c; His golf club serves an excellent lunch at their clubhouse.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and you're outlined in
chalk.