Where and how do you work? The economics and culture of employment.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Where and how do you work? The economics and culture of employment.

SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

ExplodingSims posted:

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.

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 know there are plenty that hate to hear the refrain 'go get a job in the trades,' but there really are a lot of open positions, and soon to be open positions, as the existing workforce is rapidly reaching retirement age.

Median wages for Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Fire Protection trades nationwide hover around $50K, and it really is a field where the more you know about your field the higher a salary you can command.

Not sure if FL as trade licensing, but all the above is even more true if you do work in a license required state as the job pool is super confined. Once you get your license, if you know your poo poo, you can make top dollar.

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SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

roomforthetuna posted:

Possible career tip - learn to do solar roof installs, and move to California. Solar rooves are poised to become mandatory on all new construction, which is obviously going to be a dramatic increase in demand, with no effort having been made to provoke a corresponding increase in supply.

This is somewhat similar to my state where they keep attempting to make fire protection required in all new residential construction.

Like I mean, I really support the idea since modern lightweight wood frame construction burns like hell itself, but I'm pretty sure our state's FP industry would get crushed under the weight of a million townhomes.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2018 03:09

SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

ExplodingSims posted:

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.

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.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2018 03:32

SpaceCadetBob: Dec 27, 2012

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?

Cause friends who are teachers usually make between 45-50k and still need second jobs to make ends meet. Maybe that's all from University debt, but it still seems like 50k is not enough for them to live well.

This is a pretty complicated question, but I'll try my best to go bit by bit.

Most tradesman start as a 0 experience non-skilled apprentice. Salary ranges for this can vary pretty widely, but at least $15 an hour is what I'd want if I was starting out being the whole living wage number thingy. From there the big upside is that a huge amount of "schooling" comes from the apprenticeship work, and perhaps night school or correspondence school for book learning. So education costs are more in the mid 4 digit range instead of mid 5 digits. For my apprentices they have to work 4 years as an apprentice, and complete a correspondence course before they can sit for their state license exam. The correspondence course is like $1400.00 ($350 per year), but we reimburse the costs upon completion of each year.

Once you've gotten your license(or equivalent experience in non license states) then salary again can vary a bit from state to state, but should be around the $50k mark. From there salary is pretty heavily based on years of experience, and frankly skill level. If you really know your poo poo and can run jobs/order parts/layout systems you can start asking for $70k really fast.

Whether or not this is a wage to live well probably falls outside of the scope of this thread, but considering the median income for the country is $30k its better than nothing.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2018 18:13

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