The union employee who probably makes more than you and dad combined? Sure, I don’t want to end up like him or the garbage man that I know for a fact makes more than both of you combined. Great job employment shaming mom.
If anyone is interested - commercial HVAC service pays extremely well depending on where you live. I rarely have to work overtime (although I do like to) and it’s not backbreaking (it’s a lot more mental/problem solving). It’s union work. Not to say it can’t be stressful, but it’s the best job I’ve had and I’ve worked in a bunch of industries. I’m college educated as well, but don’t need any degree for this work. Wish I would’ve joined this industry a long time ago.
Have seen people do this. One lady going up to a caterer in a well known restaurant down here, points at the guy whilst stooping down to her kid “this is where you end up if you dont do well at school!”
The guy is close enough to hear, replies “I’m doing a PHD. This is how I fund my education, Lady.”
I think the most important thing when it comes to a job, over pay, is mental health. If you’re doing a job you hate that pays you higher than doing a job you love, is it really worth spending so much of your limited time on this Earth doing something you hate? Unless what you want to do with your life will literally risk you and your family’s starvation, just do it. It’s not worth the stress. I know, I’m stuck in a horrible job trying desperately to get out.
The flipside now is doing what you love now requires multiple 10’s of thousands of $ of debt to get even a CHANCE of getting into said field, and theres no guarantee that even if you get in you’ll love it as a job instead of just a hobby, so you arent guaranteed better mental health by career switching
That’s the thing I struggle with: There’s lots of tasks that I wouldn’t mind, or might outright enjoy, to accomplish in exchange for monetary return…
…oh, but it’s the same routine that occupies that un-movable, sometimes randomized deathgrip on that huge time-block in your life? Day in and day out? Until you lose your mind and quit?
Even “playing games for a living” would suck under those circumstances!
The sad thing is these jobs do pay so well but are so gruelling that naturally a person wants greater relief from said job…so they spend their lofty earnings like a pirate who just got their share from a merchant vessel raid.
New shiny trucks. Big house. Pricey furniture…
Then the toll catches up when they can’t pull tons of overtime anymore, and all that “wealth” was in depreciating assets when the kids would’ve been better off spending more quality time with construction dad anyway.
As an ex-programmer that is now in the trades I can say my mental health is way better and my back hurts less these days since I’m not sitting in an expensive “ergonomic” chair all day. There are a lot of high paying trades that are far from back breaking work. Personally I got in to finish carpentry building science labs specifically.
There’s also the added benefit that I like playing with computers again, when it was my day job I wanted nothing to do with them after work.
Finish carpentry building science labs…as an architect who has recently taken an interest in building science, that sounds interesting. The jump from programmer is interesting, too. Like, did you have prior experience in carpentry, or did you go in blind?
I grew up with my dad always doing work in and around the house himself and now as an adult doing the same with my house, so I wasn’t completely going in blind. My last programming job was in the office furniture industry and that gave me a leg up having knowledge about casework, tabletops, etc. My brother in law was also a finish carpenter (now a job superintendent, but we work in fairly different areas/companies) and I had helped him with side work over the years.
The irony is now that the situation is totally inverted.
My STEM degree has got me making a barely livable wage while the GEDs who went straight into a trade are making twice what I make.
And the cruel reality is there is not a good way to determine which way this market will go unless you’re one of the 0.01%. And if you were it would make this a mute point.
The meme should go “he’s probably in a union and has job security, health serurity and a living wage”. Fuck that guy. That’s what he gets for being an honest taxpayer.
I’m a Medical Laboratory Scientist (bachelor’s degree, nationally certified, and current on my certificate maintenance continuing education requirements) and it has taken 16 years for me to crack 100k/year. I started at 38k. There are not enough MLS out there to staff all the labs in the US. Labs are scrambling to figure out how to continue providing patient care in the face of crippling staffing shortages and yet pay is still shit.
Absolutely insane. I’ve been workingfor my current company doing customer service for just over 5 years and I am making just shy of $50k/year. 16 years to claw your way to 100k after all the school you surely went through… Boggles my fucking mind. We all deserve better but this is just wrong.
Are you in a city with limited STEM opportunities? That has a lot to do with it. I was having an impossible time getting a programming job in my hometown, because they are a behind the times, po-dunk city. I had to move across the country to an area with a thriving tech industry to finally get my career going. It’s unfortunate, but where you live heavily impacts the job opportunities.
Nah I’m literally in Denver lmao, things are looking better now but every single entry level position must be flooded with applicants or something. So much ghosting
Nah I’m literally in Denver lmao, things are looking better now but every single entry level position must be flooded with applicants or something. So much ghosting
My boss once told me he would never ask me to do something that he wouldn’t do himself. This ‘mom’ is espousing the opposite idea, that certain jobs are beneath her. I’m pretty sure these people have no clue how to do anything other than be some low level manager or bureaucrat and will vanish from existence like the morning mist, come the apocalypse.
phone marketing would be more apt job to scare kids with. It brings nothing of value to society and its awful for the worker and those being bothered. Or just skip pointing fingers at any job and just tell the kid they will end up being exploited if they are left with no options.
Labour adheres to supply/demand. Now that boomers are retiring who primarily made up most of the blue-collar workers, there’s a derth of them and its only going to get worse.
So homeboy with the hardhat is gonna be making 6 figures easily out of 2 year apprenticeship while your fancy university degrees will be competing with all the other Asian students raised with this mentality.
We were all under the assumption automation was going to replace manual labour first, turns out its actually the code monkeys and adminstrators who are biting the bullet.
I have hella respect for any tradie and the hard work they do. I actively encourage my kids to think of trade school as a viable career path. I work in IT and I hate it most days. I wish some days I had gone into HVAC, electrical, or plumbing, but at this point I’m kind of stuck since I have three kids I need to support.
Im curious why you dont think IT is like a trade? I write code all day and petty much feel like a glorified construction worker for computer programs. IT has been blue collar for a while now. Heck my local trade school for teenagers 15 years ago had various IT role classes.
They’re teaching IT stuff in trade schools now? That’s great if so. When I went to school only colleges/universities had IT coursework. God I’m old…amazing how much changes in 16 years.
I went to a trade school for high school about 25 years ago. They had an IT path that taught everything from the Office suite to code, and a separate course for hardware.
TBF “IT” covers everything from Helpdesk to devs so I really think it just comes down to what you’re doing within the field. I wouldn’t mind coding all day, but doing helpdesk for any prolonged period of time is usually not fun
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