my parents used that one: “do you want to dig ditches when you get older ?” it took a lot of work for me to lose that attitude towards manual and mechanized labor.
Me: Yes, excavators are fun. (Note: I am not in construction though.)
Those graves aren’t digging by themselves.
I think the most important thing when it comes to a job, over pay, is mental health. If you’re doing a job you hate that pays you higher than doing a job you love, is it really worth spending so much of your limited time on this Earth doing something you hate? Unless what you want to do with your life will literally risk you and your family’s starvation, just do it. It’s not worth the stress. I know, I’m stuck in a horrible job trying desperately to get out.
That’s the thing I struggle with: There’s lots of tasks that I wouldn’t mind, or might outright enjoy, to accomplish in exchange for monetary return…
…oh, but it’s the same routine that occupies that un-movable, sometimes randomized deathgrip on that huge time-block in your life? Day in and day out? Until you lose your mind and quit?
Even “playing games for a living” would suck under those circumstances!
The flipside now is doing what you love now requires multiple 10’s of thousands of $ of debt to get even a CHANCE of getting into said field, and theres no guarantee that even if you get in you’ll love it as a job instead of just a hobby, so you arent guaranteed better mental health by career switching
All judgement until you hear a dripping in the night and have to pay that person a quarter of your “smart peoples” wages
til I don’t make smare peoples wages.
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A construction worker here receives twice my hourly wage.
As an ex-programmer that is now in the trades I can say my mental health is way better and my back hurts less these days since I’m not sitting in an expensive “ergonomic” chair all day. There are a lot of high paying trades that are far from back breaking work. Personally I got in to finish carpentry building science labs specifically.
There’s also the added benefit that I like playing with computers again, when it was my day job I wanted nothing to do with them after work.
As an ex-programmer that is now in the trades
It’s very possible that movie had an influence on my career decisions lol
I’m trying make the opposite switch haha
Godspeed
Finish carpentry building science labs…as an architect who has recently taken an interest in building science, that sounds interesting. The jump from programmer is interesting, too. Like, did you have prior experience in carpentry, or did you go in blind?
I grew up with my dad always doing work in and around the house himself and now as an adult doing the same with my house, so I wasn’t completely going in blind. My last programming job was in the office furniture industry and that gave me a leg up having knowledge about casework, tabletops, etc. My brother in law was also a finish carpenter (now a job superintendent, but we work in fairly different areas/companies) and I had helped him with side work over the years.
Labour adheres to supply/demand. Now that boomers are retiring who primarily made up most of the blue-collar workers, there’s a derth of them and its only going to get worse.
So homeboy with the hardhat is gonna be making 6 figures easily out of 2 year apprenticeship while your fancy university degrees will be competing with all the other Asian students raised with this mentality.
We were all under the assumption automation was going to replace manual labour first, turns out its actually the code monkeys and adminstrators who are biting the bullet.
A 2-year paid apprenticeship no less.
I mean… At least as a construction worker my retirement plan is three-fold. The trick is to survive long enough and well enough to enjoy retirement.
The three are 401k, annuity, and the unheard of pension.
Granted, I’m also on my fourth pulled back muscle for the year. I really need to stretch more.
Don’t let your job be your only workout. Stretch daily, and then do low weight/high rep strength training in the gym a few times a week, to be stronger than you need to be for your job. You’ll stop pulling muscles so easily. I’m 43 and I don’t have even half the pain that most of the 30 year olds around here complain about.
That’s the thought that crossed my mind. As far as pay, it is being a good stable career option - the very physical trades tend to encounter a lot more injuries and physical consequences. I respect the heck out of the trades and I work with a lot of them on different things for work - but if you look at some of the older/close to retirement folks - physical ailments and shorter life expectancy is a real concern.
Think of the “silent generation” and “baby boomers” you know that are getting up there in years. Everyone I have known that reached their 90s had fairly “cushy” desk jobs. The ones I knew who did skilled labor and trades work lived to their late 70s/early 80s.
I think, at least in the US, that we are going to REALLY feel the decrease in trades like plumbers, electricians, etc. You can teach some trades much quicker when there is a need - but with licensing and such - its going to take time to turn that ship back on course.
Worked in office and construction. Prefer construction.
Same. Left corporate middle management with a healthy salary to work a trade and I am very satisfied with my decision. I sleep like a baby since I go to bed with a clear conscience every night.
To paraphrase office space, “No man, no one says shit like ‘a case of the Mondays’ I believe you’d get your ass kicked saying something like that.”
long term the office is likely better for your health but man actually doing things you can admire afterwards is so effing satisfying.
Long term working pretty much any straight job is bad for your health. Software design will make you crazy. Working construction for any company means getting squeezed to work too hard. Best to avoid the whole exploitative toxic mess.
Best to live in the margins.
I work as an independent general contractor in a rural area. Fix and/or build toilets, floors, walls, lights, fences etc. A little bit of everything. It’s surprisingly stable. Don’t even have to advertise. No boss. Good pay. No bennies.
Good pay
No bennies
Uh… Wanna elaborate? Most jobs will have you with $100 especially today
Bennies = benefits
My wife has tons of medical issues. That would not work for me but honestly you need a certain mindset for that I just don’t have. Most businesses actually grow out of people doing what you are now.
I can do both. I make the drawings that people with real talent work from to build stuff.
I don’t know man, it was getting to where I was having to sit in front of the computer for 10 hours a day. That’s not healthy at all past a certain age.
And you think hauling buckets of asphalt into a roof is healthy at any age? Having being knee deep in literal human shit? Carrying around 2x4 and 50lb plywood sheathing?
well im a walker/bike type that uses a standing desk and I don’t think I go 30mins without walking over and filling my water or using the bathroom. That being said the loss of the retire at 55 thing will kill us all.
The construction dude who dropped out of high-school at 16, never went to college, and makes $90,000 a year at age 25 is doing just fine lol
Until he becomes the construction dude who falls apart like lego every morning at the age of 45
🎼Everything is–hrk!!–awesome…🎵
The sad thing is these jobs do pay so well but are so gruelling that naturally a person wants greater relief from said job…so they spend their lofty earnings like a pirate who just got their share from a merchant vessel raid.
New shiny trucks. Big house. Pricey furniture…
Then the toll catches up when they can’t pull tons of overtime anymore, and all that “wealth” was in depreciating assets when the kids would’ve been better off spending more quality time with construction dad anyway.
I have hella respect for any tradie and the hard work they do. I actively encourage my kids to think of trade school as a viable career path. I work in IT and I hate it most days. I wish some days I had gone into HVAC, electrical, or plumbing, but at this point I’m kind of stuck since I have three kids I need to support.
Im curious why you dont think IT is like a trade? I write code all day and petty much feel like a glorified construction worker for computer programs. IT has been blue collar for a while now. Heck my local trade school for teenagers 15 years ago had various IT role classes.
TBF “IT” covers everything from Helpdesk to devs so I really think it just comes down to what you’re doing within the field. I wouldn’t mind coding all day, but doing helpdesk for any prolonged period of time is usually not fun
They’re teaching IT stuff in trade schools now? That’s great if so. When I went to school only colleges/universities had IT coursework. God I’m old…amazing how much changes in 16 years.
I learned python in a trade school during highschool It was fucking awesome
The actual course was kind of shit but we had a really cool instructor that let us dick around making our own projects
The java part was so bad I litterly gave up and learned Godot instead and he was 100% chill with that
I went to a trade school for high school about 25 years ago. They had an IT path that taught everything from the Office suite to code, and a separate course for hardware.
I fixed microwaves but it was there!
Where in the world are you? Where I was living in the Midwest of the United States they did not have IT trade programs.
Connecticut at the time.
Idk, tradesmen in the UK earn shitloads of money. Pretty good job if you like the lifestyle of it.
They do a pretty important job, I just wish every single one of them didn’t seem to be a die-hard Trumper for some fucking reason.
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Seriously. I work with tradespeople everyday. Society would collapse in a week without them. But also most of them believe in jewish space lasers and want trump to become god king and kick out all the gays and non-whites
Then they complain NO ONE WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE when they cant find anyone who wants to work with them
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Me too, I like to say I fix everything from software to cars. A problem solver is a problem solver, no reason you can’t do just about everything with logic and the internet.
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I guess so, depending on what you’re making. Though fixing things seems comparable all around.
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Construction workers can make bank, mom!
Just have to wreck your back by the age of 35.
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Because you’re the minority. I teach these young men that their body is their most important tool and yet they take shortcuts or say, “PPE is for pussies.”
Well you just proved my point then. If these “guys” you’re talking about didn’t take shortcuts with their health and actually wore PPE etc they would be in great shape. It’s not the job it’s them.
I have a near zero probability of getting a hernia or falling from a lethal height. Plus, I have several family members who were tradesmen with destroyed backs and addicted to pain killers by their 40s. One uncle that was in a coma for 9 months from falling from a ladder and another on disability from wear and tare being a roofer.
working out regularly, eating well, and sleeping well. That’s what keep you fit and in shape. That’s it. working a manual labor job gets you the excersize part, you gotta do it properly but that task is fullfilled by having a manual labor job. You still need to eat and sleep well and not get addicted to painkillers (that can happen to anyone). An office job fulfills non of the tasks required to be fit. Sure less chance of injury since you’re in an temp controlled cubicle. Much higher chance of being unfit though.
Not with strong worker safety laws you don’t
Former safety manager here. Workers are dumb with their toxic masculinity, and safety isn’t baked into the standard of work. Literally, it’s not part of the engineered labor standard.
That construction worker has made more money at his entry level job than you have in the last twenty years mom!
~$24/hr x 2080 = $49,920 x 20 = $998,400. + 36/hr x 520 OT = 18,720 x 20 = 374,400. = $1,372,800 + benefits in 20 years.
Mom = -$200,000 first 4 years in reality -300,000 with interest for college. $9/hr full time job for 2 years outside of your industry. $17/hr first 3 years in your industry. $20/hr next 5 years. $25/hr next 5 years. $23/hr due to salary cuts last 1 year.
-300,000 + 37,440 + 106,080 + 208,000 + 260,000 + 47,840 = $359,360 for mom in 20 years with the good benefits only coming after she gets salaried.
Congrats, this is what the gender pay gap has been about since it was created. Men destroy themselves and off themselves in droves for it.
Yeah mom. Wtf you on. Also…what YOU doin with your college degree mom?
Figuratively and literally!
Tell me your mom is totally insulated from reality and a huge cunt without saying it explicitly.
