The working Trades.

[Rob Canadian]

For you that work in the trades. Post up your thoughts on your trade.

Myself I work in the automotive trade. Been with this 1 company for 25 years. Tons of schooling and courses in those years. I work flat rate (payed by the job). Always getting asked for advice etc.

Pay is OK. Always being asked for advice and I am the go-to guy if there is a problem. Getting a bit sick of it as I do not get payed to 'help' someone out.

People I see coming into the trade want the world. I am getting a bit bitter.

[shortline10]

I would think the shop manager would be doing the diagnosing and answering those types of questions ?

I’m a power sports mechanic and I get a lot of calls were people want a free diagnosis . I have learned over the years to give customers just enough information so that I can get the job , my favorite phrase is “ I know that machine well so let me know when your ready to have it serviced “ :)

[plastikosmd]

I’m not sure the “trades” are different than anything else? I could choose a self employment path with more compensation and less work/headaches. Rather, I chose a teaching and apprenticeship model with tons of unpaid advise, teaching and fixing screwups. The benefit? I was once guided along the same path. I still remain thankful to those mentors. (If i have seen further it is only because i stood on the shoulders of giants.. (Newton))
I continue to develop and learn as I am pushed to answer the questions. I’m not sure if I can help but if you are burning out, time to correct your course.

[El Camexican]

Well Rob, I started working summers at the age of 12 cleaning bricks, then drove tractors pulling batwing mowers, laid sod, fixed boats, delivered chicken and slung mortar till I escaped school Then I laid bricks and stone for 3 years while bartending on weekends, quit and did door to door sales for a year till that almost starved me to death. Then I took up welding and every aspect from quoting to erection (including some early Sunday morning bill collection for some of my work :naughty:). Did estimating for a few years, got burnt out from that and running inside and outside crews at the same time. Went back to welder/fitting without the office aspect, got bored out of my skull a few months later and took up jig fabrication which led to running a welding shop and the adjacent machine shop. Moved to Mexico and ended up doing the same thing for a couple years, sold used trucks and worked for a steel mill.

Never did I make it past 7 years at any one thing without getting burnout and quitting. Always on good terms with an invitation to return if I changed my mind, but thank God I've never had to return to anywhere because it would have killed me inside.

Been doing what I do now for over 14 years and I've lived on the edge of burnout for the past few years. At 52 I'd be out of my mind to leave as it really is a dream job in almost every aspect, so here I stay and make the best of it.

I don't know exactly why I feel like this, but I think it might have something to do with getting to the top of the company heap and realizing there's no where else to go. At that moment the reality of repetition stares me in the face and I hate it. Since I was a kind I thought that bussing in a restaurant and setting up the same tables night after night only to watch some slob mess it up and not leave a tip would make be slit my wrists. I always wanted whatever I did to stand for years after I pass away.

To a much lesser extent a lot of what I'm involved with today will still be around when I'm gone, but it won't be the same as pointing to building and being able to say "I built that" to my kid. Maybe that's why I like polishing up turd bikes and keeping them?

If I could do anything I wanted and get paid the same, it would be to teach kids that WANT to learn what I know. I run into all kinds of people that are in it for a paycheck and couldn't care less if they do a sh*t job, or not, as long as they can call it done. Just finish reading my daughter the riot act for doing a half azzed job of putting away the groceries. Then there are the guys that wash my truck at the dealership and have no issue leaving greasy hand prints all over the fenders. Seriously, on a new white vehicle that can be seen a mile away??!! I don't care if the job doesn't pay well, you took it, have some pride or your dumb azz will be washing cars till you die of old age. I cut grass for $4.00 and hours and would jump off the tractor to pull thistles out from around the road signs if I couldn't get at them with the mower. I don't see many young people with that attitude anymore. It's all about working to fit the pay scale rather than busting hump to advance and make yourself worth more.

Anyway, enough ranting. If you're young enough to switch jobs and get into something you love that still pays the bills, I say go for it man, sanity is highly underrated.

[Mosh]

I have been wrenching for just about 30 years now. Opened my own 3 bay shop 2.5 years ago and never looked back.
I honestly can not think of many other jobs on this planet that are underappreciated under paid more than a really good auto tech.
Seriously. If we all threw our hands in the air...everyone in transportation repair, tow drivers, techs...We could cripple this country in 30 days..
However Mr cushy ass banker, lawyer, politician, 6 digit, 6 week paid vacation, paid retirement /health care a year, would never make it to his 500k per year job if it was not for that tradesman getting 50k a year,no benefits to fix his POS he wants cheap as possible, under dripping slop snow, digging dead animals out of heater boxes, scraping cat guts off exhaust systems in the middle of the summer.....Don't even get me started...I like doing it, but we should be paid much, much, much more..

This society takes for granted what a working transportation system means to every aspect of human existence these days..No military, no fuel, no groceries...NOTHING moves without a good mechanic behind it, unless they want to break out the horse and buggies..

[ironchop]

Starting working part time as a veterinary technician/gopher when I was 13 or so (1983-ish) for a local large animal Vet who I knew from farming. I had a second job at a nursery doing landscaping. I think minimum wage was a little over $3/hr then.

Got into college to pursue Veterinary Medicine degree in '89. My best friend's parents owned a machine shop that I ended up working for awhile when I was in school and after I "took a break from school".

I really liked machining and I had taken Welding at the trade school during the time I was still in highschool before I went off to college for a minute so I had some fab experience too. I did that gig until mid 1991 when I started apprenticing as a home improvement tradesman learning all the building trades. Had a year of construction in highschool too so that was relevant.

Then went to being a contractor and had a drywall crew and then a roofing crew until the massive influx of "undocumented migrants" showed up and took our jobs by working for half our rate (you know....those jobs that the news media says "migrants only get the jobs that Americans won't do").... So very quickly I was losing customers at my job "that Americans don't want" (ironically) and was quickly replaced by migrants that could be exploited for half price and I had to hang up my contractor hat.

Worked as a screw machine setup tech for a couple years at another machine shop.

Did a stint as a dumpster and compactor builder (weld and fab paid by piece rate).

I was a Repo man for a year and towed cars for the Sheriff's Department. Auto body tech and truck "mechanic" (uncertified and unqualified) for the towing company as well.

Spent a year flying all over the east coast doing the data and communications cabling in the Revco changeover to CVS after the buyout.

Got back into construction as a steel framer, drywall, suspended ceilings, cabinet work etc but only commercial/industrial stuff like hotels, schools, hospitals, stadiums, etc. Not as many migrants in commercial/industrial to take those "jobs that Americans don't want" so I was safe...... Until the economy collapsed or hinted at recession and we would get laid off immediately. That's when I started getting into management/superintendent so I would be the last to get laid off and at least have a company truck. Got laid off anyway twice.

Left that and drove a truck for a year or so. Hated driving for a job.

Went back into commercial industrial construction again as both a journeyman and a supervisor....laid off again.

Got mad at the construction industry as a whole and wrote it off. Walked away from my job "that Americans don't want" doing "the stuff Americans won't do" and moved 300 miles to get away from Indianapolis metropolitan sh*t zone and back out into the country... In a different state. Went back into machining doing custom wheel machining for RC Components right when the OCC TV Show fan craze started getting crazy. Left there to go be a "shift plant manager" (glorified supervisor) at another plant after being laid off six months after taking the job at RC. Worked at the next shop for two years until 2008 market collapse...... Laid off again.... Came back for six months and then laid off a second time when the company went belly up. Collected unemployment for 18 solid months and then was recruited by the plant that bought out our old plant. Two and a half years of plant supervisor, machining, fab, programming, estimator, QC work there before I got into it with the sales manager and quit. Owner got me to come back with more money, less duties, and sales manager not allowed to speak to me. Quit again when a friend/coworker was killed at work and I was asked to lie to OSHA if questioned. Owner got me to come back a third time but I went to programming and quit management to reduce the stress. Got tired the plant manager taking credit for my work so I quit the final time and came to the shop I'm at now..... Been here seven years. Longest job I've ever had by 4.5 yrs....I refuse the management jobs I'm offered so that all I have to worry about is me and I no longer stress at home after work about work. No more trying to find creative ways to get 75 ppl to do the same thing correctly the same way day after day.

I might become our new 3D modeler/ estimator but I'm not really trying too hard to get the position. The more critical my role is, the higher the stress level because I can't just "do good enough" so I get all involved in the matter and turn myself into a raging task master.

I'm burnt out on machining and the pay scale has remained flat and virtually unchanged despite inflation since I started in about 1989. We are also four times more productive now than in 1989 but you wouldn't know by looking at our paychecks.

Wall Street and the Federal Government have DESTROYED American Manufacturing in about the last forty years and nobody seems to care as long as they can keep getting cheap and tarriff-free Asian junk from their local superstore. It's not your income or job at stake so who cares, right?

Most machine shop or manufacturing plants three decades ago had some kind retirement benefits. Really big plants had pensions. No more. Every time Wall Street has to suffer a 0.75% loss in quarterly dividends, manufacturing gets "streamlined" or "lean", people get laid off, and benefits and compensation get slashed for good.

I'm either going back to school to get certified to program robots since those are also "filling jobs Americans don't want".... although I looked into Industrial Maintenance (pay is 30% better) or I even considered nursing. Hell, I know HVAC techs that make more money than me and I can practically make anything from a raw block of anything and had to learn a bunch of trigonometry to get this far just to hear people tell me that I should just get a different job because they'd rather have cheap junk built by a seven year old Taiwanese child so that they have enough money leftover to buy a $9 cup of coffee.

Manufacturing in America is dead or dying and I need to accept this and move on. The last hurrah was probably before I ever got into the trade.

We used to be a great nation building great things and now we are all a nation of spoiled and cheap children collecting material goods made by foreign children in foreign lands. I'm way past tired of making quality and correct products for a populace that doesn't appreciate one bit of it and for a boss that is looking to make the income gap between us even larger than it already is at every turn.

I'm ready to hit Gault's Gulch and see what happens when the skilled folks unsubscribe from this american nightmare en masse.

Am I bitter? You damn right. I worked hard to learn two different trades after aborting college only to see them get absorbed by the Global Cheap Junk for All lobby. I feel like I wasted ALOT of time and alot of work ethic.

Stay in school, kids. Veterinarians make alot more money and nobody wants a robot giving Fluffy a rabies shot. Neither are there "undocumented migrants" flowing here to "take all the Veterinarian jobs that Americans don't want" so there's job security. When's the last time the stock market crashed and veterinarians everywhere were on the unemployment line? Never.

If I knew then, what I know now.....

Water under the bridge, I guess.

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[83ATC185]

Eventually, people will tire of buying a new fridge and/or tv and or washing machine every 2 years. And by then no one will know how to make a good one.

People no longer care about quality goods, and all the good careers have moved from skilled labor to services. And 10 dollar coffee...

I'm one of a handful of people in the world that does what i do and i could probably make more money dogsitting and delivering food.

There should be a sense of pride in your work but bean counters make sure to take that from you. I'll have been here 7 years in February. I'm burnt out. Every day it seems like i care less and less about the job i do. And it goes against who I've always tried to be.

[3 Wheel Drive]

I’ve got skills to pay the bills! :D

[El Camexican]

I’ve got skills to pay the bills! :D

Cool :cool: Unfortunately sanity isn't just about the Benjamin's.

[x-rider]

This thread is going to be a trailprotrailprotrailprotrailpro show. Just like every day in the trades.

[ironchop]

Will they bite .........the hand that feeds them ?..............will they stay down on their knees ????So WTF is your story, mystery man?

I think you were a union plumber or you laid pipe in San Francisco or something like that... Details were vague [emoji16]

I know you once said you lived in Florida or were from there before you went to DankVegas

What's the scoop on you? What did you do for money between highschool and your Red Pill Retirement? Were you always a plumber or were there any Circle K clerking days or what?

All jokes aside Rick, I seriously am intrigued... so spill the beans, yo

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[keister]

Eventually, people will tire of buying a new fridge and/or tv and or washing machine every 2 years. And by then no one will know how to make a good one.



It's called "built-in obsolescence" and it is absolutely by design.

[ironchop]

Well you know how hateful i am......
[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] Yes



.......OH i`m from Brooklyn NY , Largo FLA. , San Diego since 1976

That's quite a lap around the country

Brooklyn to Largo was quite a change of pace, I'll bet. Probably more like a shock

The construction unions in Indy sucked. Especially Carpenters. They'd have journeymen on the board without work awaiting assignments and they would be hiring apprentices instead and advertising on the radio about how much work was waiting.






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[ironchop]

Yeah in largo i was showing white kids how to deal with the blacks ...........Martin Luther King days..........i had to make a living quick had a kid at 19...........i should of gone to school ..........i was always a facked up attitude .......i learned the hard way .......
I worked in Brooklyn for six weeks in 1995 and everyone there was grumpy as f*ck. Never seen a more diverse place anywhere else I've ever been though. YouThey all seemed to hate each other too.

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[Rob Canadian]

Thanks for all the replies and input.

I actually feel better. :) Just had a bad run the last couple of months. I love my job and am good at it.
Some mismanagement got me down. I will rise above it. I just have to look at the big pitcher.

[ironchop]

Dee Italians .............capeeska ? ...........useta watch da bodies float down da river in Can-uw-see ..........now da blacks and da spicks took over ...........dey can have it .......

Mostly I just saw Orthodox Jews and they were everywhere. I'm used to the other ethnic groups from experiences in Indy


....what ?.........everything is huncky-dory where you live ?........i don`t boweve ya .....FA-Q !

You shouldn't believe it.....I live 10 miles from a sanctuary City so what do you think? No tiny rural corner of America safe from this pathological altruism that's infected the Left-leaners

And liberal whites from other states keep flocking here for it's proximity to Nashville because we have way less crime than Nashvegas. Liberal whites won't live anywhere near crime or brown ppl or the consequences of their social experiments

The Bosnian Mafia and MS13 are both present here too



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[Arky-X]

I worked in Brooklyn for six weeks in 1995 and everyone there was grumpy as f*ck. Never seen a more diverse place anywhere else I've ever been though. YouThey all seemed to hate each other too.

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Can you really call it diversity if there is hatred?


No fascinating story here.
Been in the electric industry for over 20 years which involves looking over a multi-state grid. Analyzing data in the electric markets and arguing policy. Like everything else, it gets frustrating. You see the data, you know the data, you know the fix but that takes rules changes which can take years to accomplish.....if ever.

Before that, worked in data acquisition using wireless equipment in food processing plants. Got to travel to some shithole places that had chicken plants but I liked the hands on work and ingenuity it called for on most projects. No two jobs were exactly alike.

Installed phones in cars for a cellular company during college. Pretty easy work and paid well for a gig during school. They let me work 4-8 hr shifts based on my school schedule and it helped pay for a degree.

Started in the family furniture and upholstery business when I was 14 (probably younger with little stuff) doing deliveries, furniture repair, tear off old fabric, build new furniture, trips to surrounding states picking up from manufacturers. Definitely eye-opening when you get a little older about how tough it is to run your own business. Frustrating at times, hard work (you don't have a choice....you stop working and business fails), but rewarding. Some siblings are still running it after 40 years and it provided well for my parents.

I've been fortunate so far but I'm still eyeing another 10-15 years before retirement so anything can happen in a workforce or an economy. That much I do know so live it up while I can.

[Shep1970]

In construction myself:). I like my job “most of the time” I do most of the plumbing(except gas) won’t touch it, done a lot of electrical too- but when a permit is called for I need to sub out elec/plumbing. The plumber I’ve used for many yrs passed (cancer) a few yrs ago, still haven’t found someone to fill his shoes-theres a lot of idiots out there that’ll cut through headers instead of going a different route.....I’ve been using a friend from school for most electrical (permit jobs) he’s got some screws loose too.
A guy could make a good living where I am just doing “honey do lists” I get so frustrated when I finish a job/then get hit with the list the husband is to do for wife- you name it it’s on that list well (except that).
I’m jammed with work (well a little extra time I put aside for friends) until dec. the next couple wks are jam packed/ then I get a call this am a guy I’ve done work for (nice guy) his daughter needs three exterior doors replaced before the 29th. Crud there goes my wk ends.
Then my wife’s cousin she needs a rear sliding door replaced this Saturday...
so long story short- I like my job but it suckss keeping people happy,
Oh ya right now I’m waiting for the lazy plumber to show/said he’d be here at 8- it’s now 9:30......
Won’t use him again- for a few reasons.....

Have a great day.
I’d like to call out sick today but I’d be calling myself- hmmm it’d be a good casino day or head to middleboro area to visit dirtcrasher/ fab’s. Yup almost 10 and no plumber yet......glad I’m getting paid for this
Shep

[Shep1970]

I was working on a leaky (rotting flashing) window 3yrs ago just outside the master bathroom/woman knew I was there no blinds or curtains- she walks in smiles and drops her drawers not 3feet from me inside the house. That was awkward. It was a Friday and had to see her to get paid about a hour later. Again a cute middle age woman-

Shep

Plumbers here now they stopped for breakfast.................

[Arky-X]

she walks in smiles and drops her drawers not 3feet from me inside the house. That was awkward. It was a Friday and had to see her to get paid about a hour later. Again a cute middle age woman-


Sounds like I need to change my line of work :p

[Shawn Powell]

I’m a union carpenter (framing lath drywall acoustical doors/windows etc ) here in Southern California. Pays good (always want more right?) I’ve been doing it for 13 years now. I still enjoy it. I quit a management type job to do this best decision I bet made. Good hours ( compared to a 9-6 in some office ) weekends off (mostly) great benefits and retirement. I mostly do interior remodel of existing buildings in Orange County and LA the last 6 years. Started in hospitals and schools. Working on a USC campus project currently. I’m a foreman so my days are a little easier physically but I still work for the most part. I got about 20 years to go before I can retire. Can’t complain really. Stayed busy through the recession (hustled my ass off and had some years where I had 3 and 4 w2s ) and get some side jobs here and there. Also nice to be able to know how to work on your own house.


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[3 Wheel Drive]

I’m also a Union Carpenter Local 30 almost 20 years now. I specialize in interior finish work, the company’s I work for only do new commercial projects. We’re finishing a 47 story Hyatt Hotel now but we work on Casinos, Hospitals, Schools, Microsoft, Amazon Facebook, basically everything downtown Seattle is all Union work.

View from the 44th floor:

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I just finished all the wood veneer wall panel systems in the restaurant and all Kryon solid surface tops in the entire building.

254621254622254623254624254625


254626254628254629254630

[6bt]

Heavy equipment tech here. Doing it for a living for almost 5 years now. On the side, and hobby, more like 15. Loaders, dozers, excavators, aerial lifts.

Its heavy, dirty work, but I enjoy it and it's satisfying to me. Pay is good, and only getting better. Decent mechanics are few and far, most are older and retiring. Not much for new blood coming in..I get job offers on a regular basis. No robot will replace me lol.

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