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Whole story is a bit long. This happened to me.
My wife was the supervisor of a computer department at a bank. I was the Business Analyst for a software company. The bank outsourced their computer work to a company in Kansas City. Software I was working with was sold to a company in England. We both qualified for unemployment.
Unemployment offered us extended benefits and offered to pay for us to take courses to become certified as Microsoft Certified System Engineers. We naively believed that the people in the Unemployment Office had knowledge of emerging job markets. It turned out they only had knowledge of how to get Federal money.
Here's how those classes worked. We would have had to pay $100 each to take the 7 tests to get the certificates. Pay $100 again if you don't pass the first time. By the time we were halfway through the classes we learned that Microsoft had changed how their advanced systems operated and was promoting their current versions on the fact that tech staff could be reduced by 75%.
But somehow, Microsoft had convinced the Feds that offering Microsoft certificates should have government subsidies. The course materials were purchased from Microsoft. A big chunk of the testing fees was paid to Microsoft.
It gets worse. If either my wife or I had actually gotten the certificates for the rapidly shrinking job pool serviced by those certs, we would have reduced our employment opportunities. Put an MCSE on a resume and a salary search by a potential employer would have shown that people with that cert were making about $40K. It would not have shown that people with that certificate were being laid off. Try getting a $30K job when you have the credentials for a $40K job.
60 people on unemployment started those classes. 6 finished. Of those 6, 1 actually got the certificate. He got a job in the industry. He became the instructor teaching the classes!
I was pissed. I had stayed out of the job market nearly a year to take the classes I was advised to take. Being out of the job market that long decreases chances for employment. Getting trained for non-existent jobs is a bit less than worthless.
I found that the funding for those classes came from the County, the State, and the Feds. I expressed what happened and the fact that the government had spent a lot of money (much of it going to Microsoft) and had actually damaged, rather than enhanced, my opportunites for decent employment.
I sent my complaints to my county rep, my state reps, and my fed reps. All of them were small government, less spending Repubs - just like me. While none of them used these words, they all told me to shut my mouth and stop making waves. They were getting a lot of Federal money into the local economy. The county guys were getting state money into the county.
None of the small government, less spending guys were willing to kill (or even discuss) a program that was a detriment to those using it if it cut off funds to their jurisdiction. This has left me a bit skeptical of those who say they want to cut spending.
It seems smaller government is only good when it's for "somebody else" and less government spending is only good when it's for "somebody else". It seems that lately, I'm more and more becoming "somebody else".
My wife was the supervisor of a computer department at a bank. I was the Business Analyst for a software company. The bank outsourced their computer work to a company in Kansas City. Software I was working with was sold to a company in England. We both qualified for unemployment.
Unemployment offered us extended benefits and offered to pay for us to take courses to become certified as Microsoft Certified System Engineers. We naively believed that the people in the Unemployment Office had knowledge of emerging job markets. It turned out they only had knowledge of how to get Federal money.
Here's how those classes worked. We would have had to pay $100 each to take the 7 tests to get the certificates. Pay $100 again if you don't pass the first time. By the time we were halfway through the classes we learned that Microsoft had changed how their advanced systems operated and was promoting their current versions on the fact that tech staff could be reduced by 75%.
But somehow, Microsoft had convinced the Feds that offering Microsoft certificates should have government subsidies. The course materials were purchased from Microsoft. A big chunk of the testing fees was paid to Microsoft.
It gets worse. If either my wife or I had actually gotten the certificates for the rapidly shrinking job pool serviced by those certs, we would have reduced our employment opportunities. Put an MCSE on a resume and a salary search by a potential employer would have shown that people with that cert were making about $40K. It would not have shown that people with that certificate were being laid off. Try getting a $30K job when you have the credentials for a $40K job.
60 people on unemployment started those classes. 6 finished. Of those 6, 1 actually got the certificate. He got a job in the industry. He became the instructor teaching the classes!
I was pissed. I had stayed out of the job market nearly a year to take the classes I was advised to take. Being out of the job market that long decreases chances for employment. Getting trained for non-existent jobs is a bit less than worthless.
I found that the funding for those classes came from the County, the State, and the Feds. I expressed what happened and the fact that the government had spent a lot of money (much of it going to Microsoft) and had actually damaged, rather than enhanced, my opportunites for decent employment.
I sent my complaints to my county rep, my state reps, and my fed reps. All of them were small government, less spending Repubs - just like me. While none of them used these words, they all told me to shut my mouth and stop making waves. They were getting a lot of Federal money into the local economy. The county guys were getting state money into the county.
None of the small government, less spending guys were willing to kill (or even discuss) a program that was a detriment to those using it if it cut off funds to their jurisdiction. This has left me a bit skeptical of those who say they want to cut spending.
It seems smaller government is only good when it's for "somebody else" and less government spending is only good when it's for "somebody else". It seems that lately, I'm more and more becoming "somebody else".
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