Connect the dots to reveal the hidden object

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Remember those “connect the dots” games we played as kids? You’d have a line drawing of some whiskers, eyeballs and a tail surrounded by a series of numbered dots. When you drew a line from Dot 1 to Dot 2 and so on, it revealed a hidden picture of a cat.

Sometimes, seemingly unrelated events come to your attention. If you’re like me, you might think of them as the whiskers, eyeballs and a tail in a drawing, waiting for you to connect the dots to see what’s hiding behind the numbers.

First, there’s the whiskers:

In the past month or so, I have needed the services of an electrician, a plumber and an HVAC repairman. In each case, when I called to schedule appointments, I was told there would be a long wait. “We’re really backed up,” the plumber’s dispatcher told me, while the man at the electrical supply store was even more emphatic: “I’ll give you some names, but good luck getting anyone to come out for a small job. They’re all working on big projects down in Morgantown.”

They did eventually arrive – except for the electrician – and yesterday I paid the bill for the plumber. He was in my house less than 10 minutes and his labor charge was $60. Now I’m not complaining. I expect to pay a reasonable amount for service, but here’s my point: There seems to be a demand for more plumbers, electricians and HVAC repairmen in towns like Fairmont, and the ones you can get – if you can get them – make pretty good money.

Next, the eyeballs:

It’s well documented that there are a few thousand laid-off coal miners looking for work in this area, which leads me to a distressing story from Reuters about out-of-work miners in Pennsylvania who are rejecting offers for free job retaining, choosing instead to wait for Donald Trump to revive the coal industry and bring back all of their jobs – despite the evidence to the contrary.

The article referenced a federally funded career training center in Waynesburg, Pa., that offered more than one hundred courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing. I’m guessing that plumbing, electrician and HVAC repairman might have been in there, too, but when one man showed up, he chose a coal mining course, telling a reporter he thinks coal is coming back.

Even free food has failed to attract enough participants to fill up the training center classrooms, Reuters said.

“Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget,” the article says. “Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.”

“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” one would-be miner said.

Unfortunately, the man’s faith might be inspired by false promises made during an election campaign and false hope fueled by a recent mine opening in Pennsylvania. In June, a new mine in Somerset County created 70 jobs, which sounds like good news until you consider that the Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011. Suggesting to miners that 70 jobs in one mine will start reviving the coal industry is misleading at best, if not a little bit cruel.

“The coal industry has stabilized, but it’s not going to come back,” said Blair Zimmerman, a 40-year veteran of the mines who is now the commissioner for Greene County, one of Pennsylvania’s oldest coal regions. “We need to look at the future.”

And finally, there’s the tail:

I saw a notice on Facebook that the West Virginia Division of Highways is sponsoring a “hiring event” on December 5 in Morgantown. Prospective applicants are encouraged to fill out applications on line and go to Morgantown “prepared to interview” for jobs as Transportation Worker 1, 2 or 3.

The work includes construction and maintenance of highways, related buildings and structures; erecting and operating a drilling rig; and operating heavy equipment such as power graders, bulldozers, backhoes and semi-trailers. A transportation worker might make major repairs to roads and bridges, overhaul gasoline and diesel powered maintenance equipment and perform other highway-related tasks, according to the DoH web site.

So now we have all of the dots. Connect them and here’s what you find:

* Hundreds or thousands of coal miners have lost their jobs, possibly forever.

* The federal government is offering to retrain them to be something else and it won’t cost a thing. They only have to show up and learn. Even the food is free.

* Other job opportunities exist in a variety of trades such as plumbing and electrical work where demand is greater than the availability of workers.

* In West Virginia, the highway department is looking for help, going so far as advertising “hiring events” at which they are prepared to offer jobs, presumably on the spot.

Now it’s not my place to tell another person how to live his or her life, but I know if it were me, and I lost the job I used to have and the company I worked for and its major customer both told me the jobs weren’t coming back, I’d take their word over a shady politician and start looking for my next opportunity…especially if there was sandwiches and chips to go along with the training course.

Say, have you got anything in a ham and cheese?