by Glen Brizius

Created on: January 03, 2010

Winter is a very picturesque season.  Mud and grime - indeed, whole automobiles - are buried under a white cloud of snow dust.  However, the very services that consumers take for granted during the rest of the year - running water, delivery of their mail on time - can become threatened by the harsh conditions.  This creates work opportunites for those who don't mind occasionally getting cold.

While all jobs require their employees to require skills of one sort or another, I've rarely met a plumber who wouldn't mind someone 'tagging along' who truly wanted to learn how to unplug a pipe.  Americas infrastructure is currently rated at a "D-", according to the American Association of Civil Engineers.  Every year, that means the graduating glass of plumbers, welders, steamfitters, and electricians (among others) is shrinking, even as the country grows.  Now is the perfect time to consider learning those skills which will soon be in high demand.  Look in your local Yellow Pages for "Technical Colleges" or "Trade Skills" to get an idea of what is involved.  You may even want to chat up your plumber while he's fixing your frozen pipe.

There is a whole another set of jobs available - those with the biggest shipping companies.  Although no names will be given, we all know the ones I mean.  Those parcels don't appear presorted and just happen to find their way onto the correct truck for delivery.  Whole truck trailers of parcels are dumped at one end of a conveyor belt, and its up to the trained eye and quick hands of human workers to snatch out parcels which belong to "them", which are on their route, and physically manhandle the often heavy boxes off the belt and into the back of their delivery truck.

As you can imagine, the pickup in shipping during the Holiday season means that a hard, difficult job becomes near-impossible due to the volume of containers being shipped.  It's at these points that the shipping companies often advertise for short-term, seasonal work, and make numerous hires for that time period.  If you're reasonable strong and fit, give it a shot - the exercise will negate any need to make a "trip to the gym", and (at least in my experience) you find yourself making friends with the most unlikely of people.

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