Since you have mentioned several times that after earning a B.A. degree you turned to construction work.

Yes, the exigencies of circuмstance and duty compelled to do so after year or so spent in frustrated attempts at seeking white-collar employment.

For those of us out here currently working on an equally useless degree, can you give some insight into how you managed to find a job in the construction industry? Can anyone just walk in and become a construction worker, or did you have to have an inside connection?

Don't work on a useless degree, first of all: get your General Ed.'s done and move on to something practical. Consult your counselor and as many persons as you can trust.

My family has been in construction for generations, and when the family has no jobs I just hang out at random Home Depot locations.

I don't like that I am a construction worker because I am not a "hands-on" learner: I have to read about something to learn it. It makes for much frustration at times between whoever is calling the shots at the work site and me. There are many things about construction that are in no book, and I have to learn the hard way.

Also, I have had many accidents and almost killed myself a couple of times. I have probably been exposed to so much stuff (asbestos, grout sealer, cement mix dust, sawdust, poison, &c.) that I will certainly contract a cancer or disease of some sort, as my relatives have before me.

The debt urgeth, however: it is sickness unto debt, I reckon.

Rather fittingly, the other day at an university I saw written on a toilet paper dispenser: "Pull here for a Fine Arts degree" and "Pull here for an English degree."

 :roll-laugh1:



Well, in all fairness it was not all in vain: though I tend to bore my co-workers with Shakespeare references, the degree did give me skills that no one else at the work site has: like the ability to have a cultured conversation with the homeowner(s) if they are the sort to stop by and greet the workers.

Also, I got my folks' mortgage re-negotiated through the sheer power of wordiness. Yes, if you think I am wordy here on CathInfo in my posts and PM's, the letters I wrote and the conversations I had with the agents of the bank had them going insane with frustration. Apparently, polysyllabic words, together with morphological and syntactical creativity, makes one appear as a jerk who will sue you if you try to pull a fast one with the paperwork and procedural technicalities.


So, I guess it's was not that much of a waste.

Anyways, there was a man who was much more learned than any of us (in Holy Writ and sacred theology as well as the sciences and letters), and who actually had a right to royal sovereignty in the old Jєωιѕн theocracy, but laid all those things aside to live as a humble and hidden worker for the love of Jesus and Mary, and therefore is the greatest Saint after the Mother of God:

So do you work for an actual construction firm, or are you more like a day worker (like the one's standing around at Home Depot's)?

I'm a day-laborer who works for various individual contractors and proprietors. I have never worked officially for a construction firm: too much politics, taxes, union dues, &c.

You had better watch out! You might be having some competition soon....  

I hope not: you have the rest of your academic career or early youth to figure out a better option.

Please be assured of my prayers!

You know, Hobbledehoy, we don't always agree on things, but I really enjoy the old pamphlets and woodcuts you post. Some have happened to be very timely for me. Compared to alot of young guys today, you seem to have your head screwed on pretty straight. I will offer an  extra decade for you today for your personal intentions.  

Well, Hobbledehoy, I always thought you chose to be a labourer. What do you plan to do once you've paid off your debts?

An animal trainer!? What kind of animals have you thought about training? A good trainer can make some decent $$. My mom used to train dogs. She said it was very rewarding.

5) Become a teacher (also, not gonna happen! I can't teach a stone to stay still!).

Stand-up comic? Can you get a degree in that?

Was listening to somebody on the radio yesterday who earned a PhD  researching aspects of gift-wrapping. I am serious.

Dear Hobbledehoy,

Please go and visit the Franciscan Capucins or Dominicans in France.  I visited them a year ago and was very impressed.  I wish I could have stayed for months.  However, I am a married vocation and needed to return to my construction job;)  Also, do not forget about the Benedictines in Brazil.  Just drop in on one of their doorsteps and you will be speaking French or Portuguese in 3 months, guaranteed.

May God bless your endeavors!

Thank you very much for these suggestions!

If ever I am to ingress unto Holy Religion, it shall one of the contemplative and cloistered Orders that I shall choose.

I do not know if I would go with the Carmelites or a Monastic Order that uses the Holy Rule of St. Benedict and remains ever faithful to the spirit thereof, like the Carthusians.

I certainly do need to go in a retreat sometime in the not-too-distant future, and the Monasteries of these Orders would be a choice place.