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Hello thread, I'm ExplodingSims and I work as an HVAC/R Technician. (AKA I fix the things what make you cold.) I made my way into the trade after working a series of service industry jobs. Worked for Olive Garden for a few years, got bored will college, started working for a friend's valet company, and then started going to tech school for HVAC stuff. I also got lucky, in that the tech colleges in Orange country (FL) have an agreement with Valencia that you also get college credits for finishing their program. (I got 24 for my program) Which meant that, combined with the credits I had from my earlier attempt, meant I was able to get a degree with only 4 more classes. Granted, its an A.A. in management, but hey. As for the industry itself, its sort of a mixed bag. I actually lucked out and managed to negotiate a fairly good wage for being in the industry for 4 years. (Currently making $26/hr, I started out at $17/hr) One of the good things about being in a trade, is that once you have a year or so experience under your belt, it's not really hard to find another job, and usually that can come with a pretty decent promotion. For the most part, I like the work I do. It's nice being able to work with your hands, and I specialize in controls stuff and mostly working with refrigeration, so I keep myself challenged. The hours can be long though, as in the summer it's not uncommon to be working 60 hours a week or more if your at a decent company. Though, it is hourly so it's all overtime, and in some cases double time. For the most part most companies offer paid holidays and medical/dental and retirement saving plans. Though, at least in my experience, companies will try to be reasonable about this. Now, of the 4 companies I've worked for, 3 have been smaller companies. I mean that in the sense that they were family owned, and not like the huge multi-state contractor companies. For the most part they'd be reasonable about things, IE if you had to run an emergency call at 3AM they'd give 8 hours from the time you got home to rest, if not just giving you the whole day off. They would also give out bonuses, as well as buying all their techs a Christmas gift as well. (Stuff like new gauges, electrical meters, etc) Of course, I work strictly in the commercial/industrial side of things, so the same may not apply to residential. That's a whole different story. Though, the trade is not without its issues. Toxic masculinity runs rampant through a lot of the industry. Lots of people who like to brag about how tough they are for being exploited. Like, for example when people were at Amazon were talking about how they were working 50 hour weeks and such, most people in this trade seemed to laugh it off as them being pussies who needed to learn what a real job is like. Stuff like that, plus the usual attitude to things like getting hurt, heat exhaustion, complaining about your job, etc. Then theres also I guess what you could call anti-intellectualism? You know, the things about how you can go to college for $50,000 and get a useless degree, or you could go to trade school like A REAL MAN and be earning $50,000 right out of the gate. Which, I mean, there certainly is a conversation to be had about such things. There does seem to be a lot of bias towards tradespeople as being dumb-dumbs who couldn't make in high school/college, or too "low class" to succeed otherwise. And that's no say nothing of how schools seem to push COLLEGE IS THE ONLY WAY YOU'LL SUCCEED IN LIFE throughout high school. That being said, I personally think that people should be free to do what makes them happy, or what they're interested in. You shouldn't be going to college just because you want the degree that should earn you the most money, you should be able to go and study what you're passionate about. The wold still need artists, and history majors and what have you.
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Sep 3, 2018 01:09
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 21:43 |
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SpaceCadetBob posted:I'd love to hear your opinion on how these kind of issues play out from a generational perspective. I also work in the trades (fire protection) and see a pretty big shift away from some of the worst of the above with the younger guys. I currently have 2 apprentices avg age of 30 and both are really great about not giving any regard to the toxic crap, and also look at working as a tradesman as a very intellectual pursuit. Considering the knowledge required to properly install and service the modern integrated systems of MEP trades, being a dumb-dumb is the least apt descriptor. I would say that a lot of the worst stuff I talked about earlier definitely comes from the older crowd. I think, in FL, at least, the perception that trades are less valuable is due to racism, as the trades in FL tend to be majority Hispanic. I'm 26 myself, and for the most part, a lot of people my age or younger seem to see the trades as a perfectly acceptable place to work. If nothing else because you can actually earn a decent wage compared to just about anything else. Everyone I've worked with who's breaking into HVAC always is very eager, and certainly views it as a very skilled trade. Though, you still get the types who barge in with a big speech about how "They're a millennial but they believe in hard work and  " Although, those types are almost exclusively white guys, so make of that what you will. I will also say that Union participation seems to be on the rise as well. And I absolutely agree with you, at least looking into the trades is a very good idea right now, as there is a massive shortage of tradespeople looming on the horizon. If you can get into more specialized stuff the money you can make is insane. I've really been wanting to get into doing industrial stuff myself, as you can easily be making $50-60/hr in that area, but historically its been hard to break into because all the guys who get in never leaver.  I currently live and work in Las Vegas, and will hopefully soon be working in Oregon, but I've never really seen any other kind of licensing needed to do trade stuff. For HVAC you need the EPA 608 certification, but that's it. From talking to the guy in Portland though, apparently Oregon requires some kind of brazing cert, but that's the only other thing I've heard of so far.
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Sep 3, 2018 03:17
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SpaceCadetBob posted:I'd say about a third of the states have some sort of state trade license for technician work, and another bunch require it just for the business owner. Briefly looking most of the states that have technician licenses are on the east coast. Oh, are you talking getting a contractor's license? Because, yeah you definitely need that if you want to run your own business. But as an individual you don't need one just to go work for a company. Star Man posted:It's money and cultural pressures. Being a software developer or in IT just pays a mountain of cash and physical labor of any kind is demonized as something for losers. If you polled every active user on the entirety of this forum, most of them are probably in tech-related fields. Yeah, this is the kind of attitude I was talking about earlier. Though, it does seem to kinda be fading away as trades become more appealing, since they're one of the few ways of earning a living wage without paying $Texas for a college degree. Also, since the "Just learn how to code!" bubble seems to be deflating. At the end of the day though, you still need people to run the systems that keep society running. You still need people to keep your pipes flowing, keep the power on, keep your server rooms cold, etc. And the trades are at least somewhat automation resistant. But it is still coming, and that seems like something that people don't want to talk about in the trades. I've brought it up before, but it's not going to be robot replacing people, well, not yet at least. But sensors, transducers, etc, are going to be making it less and less specialized, and make it a lot easier to hire people to just be parts changers instead of actual techs.
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Sep 3, 2018 03:43
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glowing-fish posted:One thing that is somewhat ironic about university versus blue collar work, is that to me, university takes a lot less "preparation". The tools you need to study in a university are tools that are everywhere, and are often free or cheap. Like if you want to read literature or learn about history, even a small town public library probably has enough to get a curious young teen a big head start. You can be intellectual for cheap. With things like science and math and technology, you do kind of need some type of facilities, but you can still learn a lot of the principles behind things like electronics, even if you can't practice. So with those types of things, you can study and learn on your own. Contrast that with something like learning to drive a forklift...you can't just go to the local library and check out a forklift or a welding kit. Those type of things require connections and structured programs to learn about. As a teenager, I learned the principles of electronics from Isaac Asimov books (which cost me a dollar each at a thrift store), but I never got a chance to look at a circuit or get hands-on experience. I became academic not because I was middle class, but because of the opposite. Yeah. I'm sure this is class issue as well, but most of the experience I had with working on things before I entered the trade came from either working with my dad on stuff around the house, or working on cars. Which, obviously isnt an experience people who dont own a house or can afford to fix their own cars would have. Though this is why is why I really think Itd ve a good idea to have these classes covered at schools again. I'm not sure how it works elsewhere, but in Florida, the Vo-tech school there had a thing with the local high schools were you could take a class or two there, which allowed them to take stuff like HVAC, welding, electrician courses, etc,which I thought was pretty neat.
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Sep 5, 2018 16:38
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Ccs posted:For people who are in the trades, is 50k the starting salary and then it rises to like 70k after a few years or is that basically the wage throughout the career? It depends on the trade and location, but the 50K number is just a baseline. If you're union, you get yearly raises, and most decent companies will give a $1-2 raise as well. And that's not factoring in overtime and such. The other thing is, once you get a few years of experience, it's not hard to get another job with another company, and increase your pay as you jump around. Of course, this has it's own issues, as it might not look great on a resume if you have 10 different companies listed. I've personally known a few people making over 100k as well, but their be doing this for a while.
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Sep 5, 2018 17:45
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