I had a good chat today with my mum who brought up the new industry thats going to be big in Nova Scotia. This is the second time Ive heard about how many coding jobs are coming our way in the not so distant future and how the provincial government sees it as (at least) a partial solution to high rates of unemployment and heavy reliance on employment insurance by seasonal workers. ok. Im no fool. its goddamn hard to find a decent job at home and its been that way for a while. that being said i think we can do a lot better than a bunch of computer programming jobs. I was in high school when the 3 main coal collieries closed and put a pile of people out of work. as far as I can remember they even dynamited 2 of those mines and flooded them with ocean water to prevent anyone from ever using them again. Brilliant. not that I think those were great jobs either, it just seemed like a stupid thing to do once youve spent all that time energy and money digging a giant tunnel out under the sea. Before during and after those closures we heard all about the people on the verge of losing / those that lost their pensions. I can understand why people would be pissed about that but I dont think there was ever any guarantee of long term employment - companies can pull out whenever they want and make way for the next opportunists (around that time it was a bunch of call centres......ahhhhh....yeah) This seems to be standard practice in the province and tends to leave people with a feeling that they better take whatever they can get when they can get it. I think thats bullshit and just contributes to this short end of the stick syndrome thats been going around here as far back as I can remember. Since when are we not able to determine our own futures? Since when are we given to thinking things like Gee we better take those coding jobs or theyll go to New Brunswick!! are we a bunch of children that cant see through that kind of manipulation? Sometimes I wonder. One of the worst things about being critical of these types of initiatives is when people confuse my criticism for wanting to keep Cape Breton/Nova Scotia/The Maritimes stuck in the past. To the contrary. Id like to help pave the way for this province into the future so that we dont have to go like beggars looking for handouts every time the contracts or resources run out. I think its going to take more than jobs to pull people out of a way of thinking where they always have to take what they can get and never get what they actually want. What DO people in Nova Scotia want? a bunch of coding jobs? I doubt it. I have enough trouble trying to understand how we got to claim coal mining as such an integral part of our identity. I cant image what you have to do to someones mind to get them to love that kind of suffering. Its awful. I dont imagine this next round of job opportunities to do much better. Ive seen enough of the world to know people dont think like this everywhere. Nova Scotians are incredibly hard working people. It amazes me how hard they are willing to work SOMEWHERE ELSE for gods sake. Whats going on here? Is this as much of a losing game as I think it is?
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 05:44:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015