STRANGE PRIORITIES

     I paid a visit to a friend, an old lady who recently turned 95 years old.  She said to me, "Connie, I never thought I would end up like this."  She lives in a nursing home.  I'm Connie Palmer and I have know Miss Lydia since I was a little girl.  She and her husband never had children and since I found out she was in a facility, I make it my business to check on her.

     When she first went to the nursing home, it was clean, comfortable and full of seemingly caring and competent people.  I later learned that new management took over.  They began to cut corners on patient care.  They laid off aides and nurses and removed some of the management staff.  In other words, they made big changes for the worse.

     The makeup of the aide staff seemed to change every week.  The low morale meant that they constantly argued among themselves, often in the halls where the patients could hear.  The food was inedible.  There were shortages of gowns and towels, and medical equipment was so inadequate that patients who needed special help waited for hours.

     On that particular day, I found Miss Lydia in her room crying softly as she sat in her wheel chair.  By this time, she had grown feeble and requirement assistance for most of her needs.  The next day, I made new arrangements for Miss Lydia.

     I know you're asking what this has got to do with me, the reader.  Just this:  the cost-cutting decisions of that facility were made on a profit basis.  I directed my anger from the aides to administrators and government regulators.  The aides were expected to give basic care--duties that were often distasteful to them and demeaning to the patients--for paltry pay.  No wonder staff turn-over  was mind boggling.

     We say we respect our elders, just as we give lip service to the preciousness of our children.  Yet, workers who care for both children and the elderly are sadly underpaid.

     I enjoy a good burger as much as the next person, but if i were going to fight for anyone's pay to be raised, it wouldn't be for fast food workers, but for those workers who take care of our most precious resources, our children and the elderly.  Let's get our priorities straight.

BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A JOB?

I’m Beatrice Bell—Bea to my friends—and I am happily retired.  I’m not looking for work, either part or full time because my friends, Hattie and Connie, I manage have managed to stay busy trying to solve a couple of cases of criminal activity that came our way.  But that’s a story for another time.

I bring up the subject of work because for the past 3 or 4 years this country has been in a job crisis.  Every politician is either shouting about the need to create jobs, or they’re boasting about how many new jobs they’ve brought to their communities.  I was kind of curious about these jobs that have been created and those that will be created in the future. Back in the day parents urged their children to be doctors, lawyers, or teachers.    As trends changed and the economy grew, there were many non-traditional jobs that were open to men and women alike.  This was especially true in the manufacturing industry.  These “good jobs” paid salaries that helped grow  the middle class.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics  (BLS) has looked at categories of jobs that will likely disappear by the year 2018.  Some of them surprised me.  Others I never thought about.

By 2018, it is predicted that there will be 700 fewer jobs for judges— magistrate judges, and magistrates—then there were in 2008.  This will be mainly due to budget cuts. Surprisingly, another reason is that judges once left for better paying jobs in the private sector, but they now stay on the bench because of the economic down turn.

Fashion designers are among those jobs are predicted to become distinct.  It is estimated that by 2018 only 200 more designers will find work in that field.  To quote Carol-Hannah Whitefield, who was a finalist on Project Runway in 2009, “The world doesn’t need another [fashion] designer.”

Thanks to improved software, Insurance Underwriters are doomed to extinction.  It’s easy to see that job being absorbed by others, especially since they punch in figures and the software lets them determine if a client is approved or not.  Add to the fact that the insurance field is in such turmoil; the future for underwriters looks grim.

Remember in the not too distant pass when we all had money to travel and we’d call a Travel Agent?  Now, thanks to web sites such as Priceline.com, Hotels.com, Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects 1,200 fewer travel agents to have work in 2018.

Everyone knows how the newspapers have disappeared from the scene and along with them the job of Newspaper Reporter.  The BLS states that 4,400 jobs will disappear by 2018.  It’s no wonder.  With the Internet, people who can read want the news fast and quick.  

You get the picture.  So where are these jobs of the future coming from?  It looks as though the service industry will be a mainstay.  The health field will provide jobs.   Unfortunately the majority of the jobs of the future now pay less than $30,000.  Everyone knows that people need jobs but with rising prices and inflation, they will barely sustain the middle class life style that many of us have enjoyed in the past. 

The bright side is that our children may have to struggle a little more to create their version of the good life. History tells me that just like in the past, the job market may change but there is every reason to believe that the jobs will be there and the future will be bright.  So muse on that.