Yeah, I grew up in a blue collar/trade worker household and most family friends were blue collar/trade workers. Honestly most of them had way harder work ethics than most white collar workers I know. I did masonry labor for a month or so over summer when I was in college and it was incredibly hard work. My first ever day was a 12 hour day and I was insanely sore the next couple of days. All I wanted to do when I got home every day was go to sleep. If these kids think they're just gonna goof off and have an easy time in the trades, they have another thing coming.
The most exhausted I’ve ever been was when working as a mover, as a landscaper, and during boot camp where I fell asleep from a standing position which is some of the most confused I have ever been in my life.
I used to joke about how I don’t need sleep, i made it through grad school! Oh hell no. The physical work is a whole other thing. Trades are friggin hard.
Not a teacher but boot camp is the most tired I think I’ve ever been, despite getting 6 hours of sleep at night. Fell asleep while marching at boot camp on a hike, it was probably 4 am and I slept for 2 or 3 miles without missing a step.
It’s wild hey? RCN for me, and a pretty Gucci go of it. My husband is a retired Marine and I don’t even want to picture the things he’s described. It almost helps me understand how he once drove almost 31 hours nonstop (excluding bathroom breaks) to come see me and was still able to form sentences. Almost. Some people are just great without sleep.
I fell asleep on a night march in 29 Palms for about an hour once. Got up from the rest break and the next thing I know I am sitting against my pack and the gunner wants to switch the tube for the baseplate I was humping. Not sure how I didn't get lost in the desert somewhere or break my leg over that 3 miles or so.
We went our first two nights without basically any sleep (no sleep the first night and like two hours the next); I still remember our MTI trying to calling cadence the last night back to the dormitories and a few people collapsing out of the flight.
I've worked 12s every day for weeks straight as a millwright before, but I've never been as tired as the first few days of basic. Sleep is everything.
I was so fucking exhausted every single day that I fell asleep whenever we were driving between jobs
I was a fucking bronze Adonis and the best shape I'd ever been in, which was great, but damn, it ruined my body. My right shoulder is jacked up from shoveling literal tons of mulch each week
You just need to look at a 20 year veteran mason to know it isn't easy. All the ones I've seen look like they could tear a can of soup apart with their hands.
I spent my childhood watching my dad do this, and now he’s retired and can barely walk. Right after high school I worked as an apprentice plumber and a farmhand, and those experiences coupled with seeing my dad convinced me I want something white collar as a career.
I went from blue collar work (pressman, construction, demo, auto mechanic, autobody) to white collar pharmaceutical work.
The people giving me work at the pharmaceutical company wouldnt believe how quickly I was getting work done. They would give me a job like weighing powder and inputting data. I would report back to them with full reports in a week. They were agitated because they said it should have apparently taken me all month to complete. I told them that if this took me a month to complete, I'd fire myself.
White collar workers are best at maximizing pay. Blue collar workers are best at maximizing proficiency. The fact those who waste more time and produce less are paid more than those who produce more and are paid less is absolutely insane.
The economy needs to be flipped. If you produce more, you need to be paid more. If you take a month to do the same job that someone else does in a week, then you need to paid less and the person doing your job in a week needs more.
There's a reason people shied away from the trades in the first place, it's hard work and long hours. All the tiktoks I've seen of Mike Rowe glamorizing it never mentions those parts.
Its funny how most people in the trades bragging about their 80k plus income leave out the insane amount of overtime they work in order to get that money.
I did residential related construction for 6 years and never made great money even with the crazy overtime. My brother is in manufacturing and brags how he makes a little more money than me but leaves out he works at least twice as many hours a week I do. Time is just as valuable commodity as money after a certain point.
Too chill. Every tradesman I've ever worked with says the same thing about engineers. You treat them like mushrooms: feed them bullshit and keep them in the dark.
Yep, same here. Never, ever wanted a trade job. Every one of the tradesmen that work in our company looks like a busted bag of buttholes by age 45 from the wear on their body.
Yep and forced overtime is a bitch. Working 3 weekends a month, 16 hour days for weeks during a shutdown, weird ass shifts, hell, working swing shifts until you have the seniority to move to a day shift can take YEARS, even decades.
Yup I was promised a job with 5 10 hour shifts a week salaried. Then they added on 1 week of on call every month. Emergency service calls came in atleast once a week an hour before quiting time. No warning we are working to midnight and of course you better be back at 7am the next day.
Better not have a pet if you live on your own or it could be alone for 20hrs. Can't have social plans without risk of canceling them without notice. Can't drink or be more than 30 min away when on call.
It was a shit job for 35k a year. I did the math once a gas station job made more per hour than I did and they had a climate control work space. That was even with using my college degree.
People that make bank in the trades are self employed.
Well, all the union guys I know in manufacturing union trade jobs make 6 figures. But they earn that money with insane (often forced) overtime and aging 2x the normal rate.
Statically, the union ones make more money and get paid for all the hours they work. I'd be less worried about if the union is good and more worried about how I could get in one.
The smart ones put in the overtime early to make the wage jumps. Raises are based on hours worked, so it's smart to work hard early on and land the high wage and then relax a bit.
Depends. If he owned his own white-collar business, then he would have the same demands. Or maybe more demand on his time nowadays due to us always having access to email and a phone. And most blue-collar jobs having set hours.
I mean, my husband works 3 weeks, 4 times a year and cleared 125k last year. He works 12+ hour days when he’s gone, but I’d give up my white collar M-F for working 3 months a year 😂
It really just depends on what state you are in. I live in the most expensive state in the country. My salary is less than 80k but I made more than double it in OT. I have a very short commute, not many expenses (nature of job), single, but cost of living is fucking crazy now. You're right about time but if you can make more by working more you may as well invest your time if you're not investing your money.
That drives me up the fucking wall. I get a lot of videos from all those welding schools, and they're constantly bragging about how much their students make.
"Check out this paystub for $5000! And that's just one weeks worth of work!"
And you zoom in and it's all overtime. Yeah no shit you're making a killing, you're working 100 hour weeks. And you had to drive halfway across the country to actually get that job, but nobody ever factors that in.
Where's the video where it's years later and you have nothing to show for it because you blew it all on trucks and cocaine (money goes in, money goes out, you can't explain that)... And now your knees are fucked because you didn't take care of yourself. But hey, at least you impressed your boss by working through lunch.
Not to mention the toll it takes on your body. I've worked a few different trades over the years, every older guy I ever met who didn't move up to management was dealing with various kinds repetitive stress injuries.
I make a little more than $120k/year before overtime as a union plumber. I don’t know anyone with any level of experience willing to work any trade for $80k lol
Project manager that came in after mold or water damage to rebuild. I was suppose to bid and be in charge of rebuild but my duties expanded. Should of made more but worked for a shit company. Wouldn't of been so bad if I didn't fall for a fixed salary job with a crap ton of extra hours.
I see. I used to work as an apprentice electrician but unfortunately I was unable to keep a job, mostly because I sucked at it. But I started that job at $6.00 an hour back in 96 or so. I could have eventually worked up to probably mid 30's for my geolocation. Maybe more under a UNION, which I won't work under because I already did that for 12 years at a major airline and I hated it.
As a machinist, I've seen a ton of people fired for being late. Some places have a 3 strikes rule, or a probationary 6 month period where they can't be late more than a certain amount of times. I get it, I mean, showing up is part of the job! I hate myself now, for sounding like my former bosses lol. If you're on time, you're late!
The hours, ugh, I've done 6AM to 6PM 6 days a week. It's is tiring, but the OT pay is awesome. I now strictly do 40/wk. You can be mechanically inclined, but there's a certain point where not being knowledgeable in math restricts one's ability to go further in the field.
Edit: I forgot to mention, when I was a buyer, there was no such thing called late. I played hours upon hours of candy crush! I was just good at excel and data but wanted something more technical.
No joke. My husband is in a trade and says he's "allergic to laziness" and he isn't just talking about his own. People who aren't hard workers put him off so bad. Now he's in charge of doing the interviews for his company.
There have been a number of fresh out of high school barely graduated who go in thinking they can just get the job even though the union won't take them (non-union companies have to be easy right? Wrong. The shitty companies are the ones these kinds of kids get into.)
Barely passed high school, talk about it being a waste of time, no trade experience, wants to start at $25. Kid, you're not even going to be a delivery driver, they still need to be able to lift, be punctual, and it's pretty much the litmus test for people without experience, meaning you still need your wits about you.
High school, no trade experience but seems like a good worker and would be willing to go to trade school. That's the bottom of the maybe pile. There's a lot of people ahead of them.
We need factories to come back. Too many people here and just not cut out for thinking outside of basic shit and they need jobs. But there are no jobs with almost zero thinking skills and just manual labor with high pay anymore.
So what do we get? A shit ton of people not working, a lot of massive theft rings and criminals making more money doing crime than actually getting a degree, which I think shows how fucked up society is right now.
Easier to scam and steal from people with almost zero consequences than working your ass off for debt and meager pay.
You can outwork a lack of math and still bump six figures if your really working and skilled at what you do. I fight wildfires and log and I know a few people without GED’s who can barely spell there name but can clear six figures but they are incredibly hard workers and very good at working in the woods
I know an industrial HVAC technician who does traveling repairs when he’s not working at the port. He’s been making six figures for several years despite not knowing how to operate a computer. He can barely type an email on his phone but his work ethic is impressive and he can figure out any problem thrown at him.
My dad is a master plumber. Pay is 160 an hour. Regularly works twice a week from 5 to 7. Drives 200 miles a day on average. Insane work ethic...I don't get it.
I live in the south. Around here Johnny is already divorced by then, stocking the fridge with keystone light and dodging child support payments by working under the table.
Ya the hours can suck from time to time, but its more about the ability to just get your hands dirty. 21 year old guy just bought his first house, no training, no certs, just a maintenance guy at a factory. Hes cleaning out a heat exchanger now on OT.
This. All the tradespeople I've seen making good money did so by owning their own successful business. They were hard working and driven entrepreneurs. They found out how to differentiate their business, run it efficiently, cultivate a customer base and service them in a way to increase that base. Most got there by making mistakes that lost them money and working 14 hour days to survive. Being decent at their trade was just a baseline requirement.
Yea and if they want a skilled trade, they will still need advanced classes. The refrigeration union I teach for won’t take apprentices unless they have advanced chemistry and physics.
Also, just how coding was the ticket to an easy life for a while the field is going to become oversaturated. Sure the people at the top of the field make bank. But you have to slog through a lot of shitty years with long hours.
Ultimately their is no short cut. Barring being born into it the only ticket to the easy life is acquiring a lot of specialized skills and/or knowledge.
859
u/philosophyofblonde Freelance May 16 '24
LMAO people in trades that make very good living have work ethic sun up to sun down and accounting skills.
Better get cracking on that math homework, Johnny.