Item — HN Reader

If you read the threads in /r/construction that come up about this or adjacent topics ("trades are a guaranteed job, better than college") they usually say that the job is awful on your body without much pay.

Personally, my friend is a carpenter and lives with his dad to save money. This is in Seattle so tons of construction and work to go around. He says he wishes he studied computer science in college (has an english degree).

2 comments

>> they usually say that the job is awful on your body without much pay.

Worse yet, when your body does fail or is injured, that wage tends to stop. Most tradespersons are working for very small companies, often incorporated as their own one-person company. If you cannot work, it all just stops.

One thing that makes the military different it that while the military can be very hard on your body (infantry) your wage does not stop if you are injured. A civilian carpenter with a broken leg must live on savings for a month. A military carpenter with a broken leg just won a month of desk duty without any drop in pay.

Absolutely. Some of my family owns a construction company and the career path for all employees in that company is basically to work your body while you're young and then move into management/estimating jobs before you do too much damage to your body.

The military equivalent is to work a few years as a grunt until you qualify for some sort of free higher education. Then you come back as an officer and get to boss around all those sergeants who once yelled at you. Depending on your exact path, its all generally pensionable time worked for the same company.

Indeed it’s hard to retire from the US military as an officer because there’s a big filter at Major. You generally need to reach LTC to make 20 years. Enlisting for four (or more) then going officer makes it easy to get 20 years and retire.

That is why the US armed forces has a rep for being so young. Other countries they dont kick people out so easily, but promotions are also much more difficult. Talk to a canadian or a brit. It is not unussual for them to be in 30+ years. And i've met canadian army captains who have been captains for 20 years, giving them more experiance than most american LTCs.

Well, yeah, not a lot of people are going to continue much past 20 years when that qualifies for immediate retirement pay and a private job can suppliment. There's up or out policies at various levels too.

Despite how maligned they've become, there are still some US trade unions who take care of their members in these situations.

But, yeah, on the whole this business about the virtue of trades and Boomer Facebook making baseless claims about how much money there is to be made is ... problematic. I've been there and these folks face all sorts of risks in the near (e.g. falls, electrocution) and long (e.g. Mesothelioma, (increased risk of) Parkinson's, etc.) terms. Working conditions have improved and seemingly everyone wears hiviz nowadays (possibly performatively / to virtue signal) but corners are absolutely still cut and I've heard many jokes and seen many eyes rolled on OSHA's account.

A counter argument to this.

My old man is a tradesman, qualified as an electrician, worked and kept studying as he went and ended up as senior management.

My little brother has severe dyslexia and ADHD, couldn’t even finish school so went into trades, did some time as a diesel mechanic and qualified as a welder. Now builds race cars for a living ( Dakar ) and is a senior mechanic on track for management.

Ambition and luck plays a role but although yes both of their bodies are a little more beat up than mine, they get actively headhunted and even when they don’t have a full time job they can very easily fall back on the skills they have to fill gaps, people always need tradesmen.

Neither of them are struggling in life, other than some bad decisions.

Both of them are also on most countries critical skills list and emigration has always been an option if the local market drops off.

For those reading this, trades are not nearly as bad as is being described here, there are plenty stories of SEs working for horrible companies.