lol.Originally Posted by Bassin_7
Yes a 100k trade job is better than working at Mcdonald's. But a $200k corporate job is better than wiring a lift station pump in a septic tank in the dead of winter.
Money drives everything.
What you call lazy, I call smart. You can bet your ass if I can find a way to make a plenty of money without working(or working as hard), I'm not passing it up. You would?
I haven't done that yet though, so here I am typing at my work computer on lunch break.
I learned to repair electronics when I was around 10 years old. My grandpa tinkered with CB radios and taught me how to solder. We were too poor to buy anything new when I was young. I learned to work on cars, boats, houses and everything in between. As I have gotten older I dont mind paying pros to do the work but I can still usually get done what has to be done.
I think it is starting to shift back. I started teaching 18 years ago and at that point all we heard was every kid needs to go to college blah blah blah. If you don't go to college, you'll never amount to anything, etc. The last 4-5 years, there has been a pretty big shift to encouraging a lot of kids to go towards the trades. We actually had a trade fair at my school on Wednesday. They had representatives from the local trade schools as well as actual workers from the trades. There was a fairly large amount of kids that took interest in it. I know as a school, we have been moving away from you must go to college attitude and to more of a get an education whether that is college, trade school, or on the job training. I do teach in more of a blue collar area though where many of the parents are trade workers so that may be part of it as well.
And how many are making $200k?
A decent number sure. However, $200k jobs aren't everywhere. And not everyone who is capable, is going to make $200k in the business world. There are only so many of those jobs.
Quite frankly, comparing a $200k corporate job to a gas station attendant is pretty much asinine.
Huntin' Ducks, Chasin' Pheasant, Catching Fish
nailed it Sir
You make some very good points. My dad was a telemetry engineer and rocket scientist . His mechanical and inventive skills were off the charts. He could take an automatic transmission
apart and put it back together with no formal trading. It all came natural to him.
I inherited some of his mechanical abilities and by being around him. He was not a people person like I am. He never liked the business end of things. That is where I excelled. No , everyone has different aptitudes and our schools do a poor job of helping kids realize what their skills are and developing them. I taught in a school that had a high percentage of poverty for seven years before going into business. Most of the kids would act up because they could not relate to the curriculum under their circumstances. I had a knack for recognizing a kids particular aptitude and getting the student involved in a project where their aptitudes could be best used in a team situation.
The average guidance councilor learns two general categories. This kid is good at book learning and comes from a good family and should go to college or this kid is not and needs to go to trade school. It completely ignores the students natural ability and aptitudes.
Last edited by geodebasser; 12-09-2022 at 01:19 PM.
Most of the people I call friends do. We are blessed for sure.
This is spot on. I am in machine shops, stamping facilities, foundries etc every day. They are ALL struggling to find help. The local tech schools can't get enough people to enroll to even justify the cost a lot of the time. Their biggest hurdles..... high school teachers and guidance counselors. They tell kids not to get a trade job and push them towards going to college. It is shifting but VERY slowly. I do think our local high school does a very good job of this. My son is a freshman this year and when we attended enrollment nights all types of jobs were represented and had people there to discuss with the students. His career day was also filled with tons of diversity. Great to see.
Last edited by RoadrashPaul; 12-09-2022 at 04:13 PM.
We both have a classically trained trade skill with experience.
We both returned to university studies to maximize earnings.
Advanced educations were compensated better for decades.
The only constant is change, we're seeing a shift, it's normal.
High schools, guidance counselors, educators, administrators, whatever you want to call them are all piss poor ambassadors for the trades. Virtually none of them have any real world trade experience but yet feel compelled to make the decision about who should go that route. It’s just repeating the same mistake over and over hoping for a different result.
Until the trades are marketed, treated and most importantly, compensated like a true professional career vs being a “cool job”, it’s not going to get any better and even then it will take quite a bit of time to get there. Part of that is making actual tradesmen part of the process the entire way. The fact that many industry executives often have little to no hands on experience themselves doesn’t help the situation either.
Ranting incoherently
I've been in a suit and tie right out of college in advertising and in carhartt jeans and red wings as a union sheet metal worker the last 19 years. Ill take the dirt and sweat any day over what I dealt with before
Spent 35 years in the trades. Loved not being stuck in a office. Outside every day. Got through my working life and have never owned a suit Never made 200 k a year. But have no debt.
This thread remind's me as a Auto tech giving my ex's lawyer my W2 in the divorce settlement hearing and him getting wide eyed saying "That's more than I make" my lawyer got a laugh out of that.
Only at 8 or 9 ball 😀Can you run a rack ?
This has been a discussion with alot of School Administrators the last couple years. Im a Carpenter Superintendant and have 25 years in the trade. Most of the conselors and teachers promote college and not the trades at all. So we sat down and discussed hourly rates,pensions and annuitys with them and the look of disbelief was priceless. Actually after some of the discussions they started incorperating shop classes back into the system. The ampunt of traing that is available to us is just about endless! If you keep up on your certs and keep taking upgrade classes its a very comfortable living for sure!!
The only reason I became a cop was the Village People, but I was almost a construction worker.
To me, there are 3 paths.
1) If your parents have money or you were one of the few who did really good in school, go to college.
2) learn a trade. Learn how to do something that people will pay you to do for them
3) join the military.
i was a lazy ass kid with no direction or real ambition. I didn’t choose the military because I was super patriotic and felt a duty to my country. It was just something to do. I made a damn good life out of it. I don’t know where I’d be if I went a different route
Anybody can make a great life from a career in the military. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t need any skills. If you can shut up, listen, and do what you’re told to do, your life is set
I started in the trades in 1978. This will be my first year since that I have not made a buck at skilled labor. I rolled with a lot of changes. I saw a lot of stuff leave the country that stole oppurtunities from our working class. I saw the schools cancel basic woodworking, metal working etc.. from mandatory curriculum for high school. My first time cutting a pine board in 7th grade sealed the deal for what I wanted to do. My 10th grade wood shop teacher told me I would never make it in woodworking after I got caught hammering a screw into one of his Christmas presents we assembled for him.
For what I lacked in longevity I made up in variety. How many people do you know who worked in a patternmaking shop. Or painted steeples. Or installed over a thousand sets of custom built on sight finish interior stairs. Or was self employed for 16 years bidding on every hours work. Or spent 4 years welding and fabricating High tech vacuum furnaces. Or painted for hire at least once 43 years straight. Or assembled furniture frames and did leg turnings on a lathe eyeballing a pattern for 2 years. I had a lot of fun in the trades. At times I made real good money. At times I worked 16 hours a day for little pay. I work now at an IGA part time. I deposited my weekly paycheck this afternoon. All things considered at my age its a good wage for someone in my physical shape after 80000 plus hours doing trade work. It used to be a days pay at my peak.
As a guy in the trades, changing a lift pump in the middle of the night in the freezing cold doesn't sound like a huge deal. Especially since it'd be a callout with minimum 4 hours of double time, even though it might only take me a half hour to fix it (yes I'm union lol). But showing up with a suit and tie to the same office every day, kissing ass to management, sitting in fluorescent lighting constantly playing office politics to try to get that next big promotion sounds absolutely soul sucking to me.
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When I injured my back and settled my claim with Workers Comp I had to go to hearings. One of the lawyers would sit with the insurance rep and then talk to me about stair building. His brother owned a woodworking company and he had more interest in what I did because he worked for insurance companies trying to bust down claims. A lot of education to be a legal bitch for insurance companies. His partner showed up at a couple hearings and would berate me when the comisioner wasnt present. He would go on about my comp benefits and I told him I bought good insurance and in spite of the benefits I was losing over 200 dollars a day in income if I hadnt had the back injury.
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