Retraining your way into a new line of work
In the business world, life often imitates art. “Life” is a story in the Washington Post that says that interns at Facebook make $8,000 a month. How many of you had unpaid internships in college? I know I did.
“Art” is the 2013 movie “The Internship.” If you haven't seen it, rent it on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play two washed-up salesmen who somehow finagle internships at Google, where they meet a cast of supercharged techno whiz kids — both the other interns and much of the staff. In a scene that seals their failure as salesmen, their boss, played by John Goodman, lays it out for them:
The boss (Goodman): You two were great salesmen. The best! But at the end of the day, you're grinders. Foot soldiers. We all know you'll never be generals. And I'm gonna say something harsh right now.
Billy McMahon (Vaughn): Now you're gonna say something harsh?
The boss: Strap it in, boys, 'cause it ain't pretty out there. And you two are dinosaurs. Face it, where you're going ... you've already been.
Turns out the old dinosaurs have the capacity to learn new ideas and skills and (spoiler alert) get hired by Google.
Like our unlikely heroes, Maine has some hardworking people whose jobs have become extinct, yet they've retrained and found new ways to find work.
Check out Staff Writer Laurie Schreiber's cover story about the interchange between manufacturers and the Maine Community College System. Manufacturers went to the colleges and set out the problem: a shortage of skilled workers. The colleges responded by tailoring training programs to the needs of manufacturers.
Laurie has a prime example of someone who refashioned his career in this way: Ralph Jellison was among the workers put out of work by the closing of the Verso paper mill in Bucksport. He retrained through the community college system and landed a dream job, building high-end water craft for Hinckley Yachts in Trenton. He saw another opportunity and moved to GAC Chemical in Searsport, where he is now a valued member of the workforce.
It's true, it ain't pretty out there. But there are jobs for the people who are willing to learn new skills.
Heard on Main Street
Downtown Winterport has a restaurant called the Bacon Tree. Legend has it that in 1779, Judge Goodwin was among the townspeople who feared reprisals from the British for an earlier incident. Many in town burned their possessions or moved inland. Not Goodwin. According to lore attributed to Tracy Gran Sr. on the restaurant's website, the judge gathered his most valuable possessions — his silver and his bacon — and hid under the canopy of a Norway pine tree on his land. He survived the Revolutionary War and ordered his descendants to take care of the pine tree, which became known as “the bacon tree.”
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