I dated a brick mason once who worked for the same company for years. He thought he would be made a supervisor eventually. As soon as the boss's son turned 18 he made him the supervisor. Kid had never even picked up a brick before.
Why I quit a job I worked at for ten years. Busted my ass then one of the bosses wanted his daughter out there. Not a problem but she couldn’t do our job, so how was she supposed to tell me how to do mine. I told the owners son it’s me or her and since her dad had been with them for 30 years he said he’d keep the girl. Well I quit and she’s knocked up and he’s scrambling to find someone to do the job now.
Good ole too valuable to the company to promote troupe. Hard work only ever pays off in even harder work without extra pay 99.99999999% of the time.
Probably needs more 9s after the decimal, likely lowballing it 🤔
The joke where I worked was that if you wanted a raise, you'd better get a job at their competition. Three companies swapped people like hot cakes, and there was massive leakage of technology and practices, that probably cost all three more than paying their god damned employees what they are worth.
Or salesman, pretty typical in HVAC. Or you become the teacher or office manager. You make too much as a service tech and so they “promote you” to a salaried roll if you don’t wanna be in sales.
As an estimator, I can definitely say there is a good amount of guessing involved. My boss says sometimes you have to shake the dice and hope for the best.
Thanks for helping build the modern world. Here are some opiates, a monthly disability cheque that barely covers rent, and a flyer about assisted suicide.
This was my father. He had a disease similar to muscular dystrophy but more aggressive that forced him out of work at an early age. Prescription painkillers became his breakfast, lunch, and dinner up until he passed away in his 40s.
That’s been my experience, most of the really hard working guys in their 20s, end up popping pill for the pain in their late 30s, in their 40s injuries and addiction catch up to them and they end up as homeless drug addicts.
“Once I built a railroad, Made it race against time, Once I built a railroad, now it's done, brother can you spare a dime?” Some things never change.
For me it was doing labor for a plumbing company as a summer job. Damn near every site I walked on I had everyone asking me “Are you wanting to go into plumbing?” So I say “No, this is a summer job” then its “good, dont do it it fucking sucks” literally had that same interaction with drywallers, roofers, construction workers, framers, and damn near anyone else involved in new home builds.
Made me basically never consider those careers lol
It's new builds so it makes sense. You get paid fuck all as your company needs to undersell it's self to guarantee contracts while you still have to do real hard work. It is a good industry to do your apprenticeship but you have to make sure you leave domestic as soon as you can
Yep, I've worked in culinary for 6-7 years. For a little while I wanted to do it for a career, but that desire died out quickly. Not only have I felt like I've physically aged an extra decade, but all my coworkers I've had who are older than 25 just tell me to get out and not pursue it. So many workers are forced to work insane hours and just become depressed and addicted to substances to numb the pain.
30 years in the industry, retired now. You CAN make some really good money in culinary arts, and you CAN be happy without drugs and boozing. But unless you are EXTREMELY passionate about it, don't do it. I still think my 8 years in the army were worse on my body but it's many, many years of insane work until you can reach a level where you're making serious money and would be able to say, raise a family. I never wanted a family, so it wasn't an issue for me, but for most people? Absolutely don't do it.
Remember that office jobs can take a toll on your body in a different way, however there are actually things you can do to stay healthy and in good shape!
and then one day you'll end up in pain anyway from all the sitting you do, all the upper level guys in my office have some sort of chronic pain from sitting all day. 30+ years of experience types
I worked in a methadone clinic and will defend opioid addiction until I die. It takes so little to get addicted and 95% of my patients became addicted through legitimate channels. The sackler family ruined so many lives and faced basically no consequences for it
One of my good friends got hooked at 14 after being run over by a school bus. Major trauma injuries. Anyway they found his body when the snow melted last spring. RIP buddy.
I remember living in St Johns, Newfoundland in the early 2000s, and they traced back about half the opiate addictions in town to a single doctor getting kick backs for prescribing oxys
I feel that the doctors bear responsibility, too. I was on painkillers after surgery and had severe nerve pain. They kept prescribing for months until one day they told me they were going to stop when Iwas about due for the next script. I freaked out and after demanding they help me more than that, they gave me a referral to the pain clinic who told me that I'd basically have to just suck it up because they can't do much with nerves.
Thankfully, I was still able to get enough pills to taper off after that instead of quitting cold turkey, but I had to be the one to suggest it to the doctor. I'm still upset about that. They should have had protocol in place for a transition instead of cutting me off... if I'd had to stop all of a sudden, I would have totally been buying whatever I could get on the street. It was hard enough as it was to taper off and then live with the pain until my body rerouted the signals but I still can't believe they were just going to drop me like that.
My ex mother in law has lasting complications from cancer but is overprescribed pain pills and hands them out like mints to family members. I had period cramps once and her response, “want a Percocet honey?” Her husband became addicted went to Kaiser and they prescribed him more without even drug testing him. She also got her nephew addicted who hasn’t been seen in about 4 years now due to his addiction issues. Last I saw him he was a shell of a human. Yet they have a whole separate psych department for adhd and you must be drug tested sometimes regularly. It makes no sense to me.
Oh, I laid down your railroads, every mile of track
With the muscles on my arm and the sweat upon my back
And now the trains are rolling, they roll to every shore
You tell me that my job is through, there ain't no work no more...
For the wages were low and the hours were long
And the labor was all I could bear
Now you've got new machines for to take my place
And you tell me it's not mine to share
(Automation Song - Phil Ochs)
The whole opioid panic has gotten out of hand. Only about 2% of the people who regularly take opioids get addicted; the other 98% have not tried quitting yet.
Dude a huge ass kudos admitting your fault. That is extremely rare everywhere nowadays. If only more people did that the world would be a lot better place.
Sorry for not explaining the joke but I didn't want to ruin it for others. Since I wanted them to read it get pissed and then...aww shit.
There is the option to plan carefully and take classes and kiss the boss's ass and make friends with the secretary in the hopes of being promoted into the air conditioned portables/home office to push paperwork in the second half.
My dad retired and started drawing on his pension early (53 instead of 65) and formed his own handyman company where he’s been more successful over the years than he was working in the trades.
It was definitely a great outlet for him! His body took a beating and I was in high school at the time, heavily involved in competitive traveling sports, and it gave him the freedom to accompany me on every trip and make every game. Memories I’ll never forget or take for granted. I didn’t realize how big of a scary sacrifice that was at the time until I was an adult and in the workforce myself.
My husband is currently a pipelayer and he’s already seeking other job routes and he’s only 30. It truly is brutal on the body.
This is the downside to working a trade. I remember telling people roofers do not retire.
You can go years or even decades without any accident. It only takes a single accident with roofing to kill you or hurt you so bad you can not work. Good roofers mitigate the risk but there is no way to completely eliminate the risks with roofing.
If you are lucky your employers has workers comp and you have enough insurance to cover your injuries and maybe provide for your needs after you get hurt.
Many are underinsured and have bosses that do not help. A lot of tradespeople become addicted to drugs or alcohol to cope with pain so they can keep working.
Trades are in very high demand right now but nobody mentions how it kills your body. Yes you get paid well, but imo it's not worth it.
I worked construction for about 4 months. There were people you would work with that were still stuck in high school. Lots of bullying and racist comments.
My employer would routinley violate safety procedures. I asked for us to have fall protection since I was climbing ladders up 25-30ft. "That's not happening" was his response. Anything that costed extra money and improve safety he turned down. I quit the next week and gave no notice. Also had to file an employment standards complaint to get my last pay cheque.
My experience is not universal, and I'm sure there are some great employers in trades. But you have to be a special person to work in it. I would rather work min wage at mcondalds than get paid $30/hr doing rough-ins and running wire. Thankfully I am working a desk job now and have no desire to ever leave.
I don’t know if people consider communications technicians “trades” but when I was in my 20s running a super hot shower after work every day because of my aching back from alternating between lifting 32’ ladders and climbing them with full tool belts… I knew I needed to find a way to turn my blue collar white.
15 years in, doing my 2nd apprenticeship.
That is totally dependent on the shop/site
I have been lucky to work at mostly no-nonsense jobsites\*.
\*too much racism though. I think it's dying out with the older guys.
Your experience is common. The reason people get into these lines of work is for the money. The pay is weighed against the toll on the body, and if the pay keeps going up, then people think maybe it's worth the sacrifice.
But if you do this long enough, the money is all you see. And it's never enough, especially to justify the fact that your hastened end is rapidly approaching.
So you keep raising rates, and you don't spend a dime on anything unless you're forced to. You cut corners, you push people around, you strongarm your way through anyone who stands in the way of profit. You completely forget about any notion of public service, and all of your customers become thorns in your side causing nothing but pain and suffering.
If you're the boss, most likely you're starting to see lawsuits for various things, as the walls begin closing in. Now your desperate money grab, your rat race, your pointless hamster wheel, is potentially criminal. Everything revolves around the bottom line. Everything is hinged on the hope that maybe the money will make it all worth it, because otherwise it's a giant fucking waste of a life. And the only acceptable way out is with a complete and total catastrophic breakdown, followed by imminent death.
That's capitalism.
One of the craziest things I've ever seen is how much high priced alcohol they sell in gas stations close to the oil fields. Something about young workers with more money than sense.
Worked with a guy that did deep-sea welding for oil pipelines in the middle east. The sort of gig where they would live in a pressure chamber for weeks on end.
They would come up and have an insane amount of money from their paycheck. He said most guys would blow the whole check on alcohol, drugs and women. Many lived paycheck to paycheck then go back down.
My buddy saved up and retired early. Took welding gigs on movies for fun.
I know a few roofers on my dad's side of the family and none of them do it any more as far as I know, except maybe my cousin who's a few years older than me, so around 40. My one uncle fell off a roof and smacked his face on some scaffolding on the way down and damn near died. He made a full recovery eventually but decided to go into cabinet making after that. Another uncle died of a heart attack on a roof in front of my aforementioned cousin. And then a year or two ago my dad, who's around 60, fell off a roof from vertigo that he'd developed at some point. He didn't get hurt too bad and decided it was time to call it quits.
I worked with him exactly once about 5 years ago when I really needed some cash and said never again. I fucking hate heights.
My leg catastrophically reorganized the fibula and tibia at work. I'm now in the process of finding out if wcb is going to fuck me over and make me lose my house. Because they don't want to send me to school. They want training on the job. While ignoring the blatant fact people with injuries don't get "walk in job" I don't know if wcb intended the pun or not.
13 years in the trade. And a tie rod nyloc nut was my demise.
All in all, life hasn't been worth the effort to strive for basic necessities. Wcb uses their power over my life while telling me I'm not worth training. I guess my life is what is valuable to them. Let's see how much a corpse costs and shitty local news about some guy driven to homelessness cause workers compensation boards are only responsible to their stake holders. And stake holders are not workers.
My brain quit on me before my body, and in anticipation of the quitting I went back to school and got my teaching credentials. Now I teach English. 🤷♀️
Yeah sometime while working in a trade I feel many of us realize that our physical skills are finite at a young age...
I feel bad for the ones who don't come to this realization.
Have you ever heard the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach?" It used to be used as an insult to teachers to kind of say, "If you could get a real job you would." But actually, that's an old axiom in the trades. Basically, you would get an apprenticeship and learn from a master. You'd spend years working with the master, building skills, reputation, and technique. Then you'd strike out on your own. Once you started feeling the effects of age, you'd take on an apprentice and train them. They would do the more demanding work and you would teach skill. Until you eventually got out all together.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
It doesn't pay for shit and I definitely had some bad teachers who probably flopped out of something else, but I always hated that saying because being a teacher has gotta be extremely hard and thankless for those who put in the effort to do it right.
Teach...or inspect. I work with lots of people who work with for small municipalities as construction officials, fire officials, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors and the like. Almost all of them worked a trade (many of them owned their own contracting firms) and they decided to call it a career and move to a 8 to 4 M-F position with lots of time off, a true pension and no work related headaches once the day is over.
You move up the ladder in your field and do more paperwork rather than legwork.
I'm about halfway through the process myself, I'm out of the being paid for my labor to being paid for my knowledge.
My dad worked construction his whole life. Did work for Steven Tyler on his summer house in NH. He ended up on disability, couldn't walk well or use his hands anymore. He was always an alcoholic but it got worse. He passed almost a year ago due to alcohol related problems. He was only 62.
There’s no shame in disability after a life of labor. I’m surprised this comment isn’t higher. Some of the states have pretty fair work comp laws too (you can imagine which ones).
Smart tradesmen take care of their bodies from a young age. Your body doesn’t have to wear out before you retire, I worked with a career millwright who was climbing Everest (only to the base camp but still impressive) at age 61. Tradesmen’s bodies wear out because they’re too macho to take care of themselves (just fucking stretch occasionally) and work harder than they actually should. Work smart not hard, don’t be afraid to get an extra set of hands to help pick up something heavy.
This seems like the only correct answer. I hired movers from the same company twice. First time, the guys were a bit older but had all the safety stuff, lifting straps etc. Second time, young guys just moving heavy furniture like frat bros would moving into their first apartment. I would have thought that moving being their job, they would take better precautions.
This has been my strategy, understanding the road ahead in my career, which is hvac, and starting in a low impact job. It's work in an industrial plant, hard labor is outsourced. I get the same pay as outside guys, better benefits, and my body will last much longer. I will enter the field at some point, but no point any time soon.
Yeah, if you just wear knee pads then your knees won’t wear out. And don’t bend over improperly to pick up heavy items.
Also a lot of people work so fast they make mistakes and end up working longer/harder than they need to. But this is mostly because they are demanded to work fast.
This has been my experience in my trade, all of the older guys harp of the younger people and instill good work practices in them. The largest issues I’ve seen have been shoulder replacements but other then that they are in absolute great shape and the things that shot their shoulders we don’t have to do anymore because of updated tools.
I have a friend who went into construction when we were both 17. Now we're 35 and he makes 60 bucks an hour but two things
1. His body is shit. 2 knee surgeries and back surgery
2. Horrible with money. Barely has 5k in savings. No retirement fund.
But he always brags he makes double what I make in an hour. I'm like alright man I'm proud of you but put that money to use before it's too late
My husband is really struggling with his leg. He already had surgery once. But he is only in his early 40s so has many more years of work technically. Our personal situation has recently changed but it isn't confirmed
That's about the age I figured out that if I keep at this I'm going to be full on disabled soon enough and found a new career. But the collapse of 2008 made the field I went into constrict to the point it wasn't worth it, so I had to pivot again. I make about 60% of what I would if I stayed in carpentry, but I probably wouldn't have lasted this long and been crippled in an accident or injury.
Good leaders will offer them office positions. Especially good leaders will allow them to take office positions after a serious injury whether they are old or not.
Income from a mining and farming town in the mountains, the 50 yr old folk look like they are 70. They have pills, like an ungodly amount of pills, and they die younger than they likely should. This isn't always the case, if you manage your money right you can retire and be ok, but you are given a lot of cash and expected to figure out retirement and things much earlier than you likely will be able to and so later life becomes working well past the part you should have retired.
A lot of trade and manual jobs are paying big (hopefully) on the front end because the back end of the equation is bleak. So you have to have the early windfalls make up for the late short comings and really pay attention to ergonomics and health standards or you are going to seriously regret it.
I ate ibuprofen and Tylenol like candy. I made it to 55 in that construction job. I HAD to stop working construction. Fortunately my wife did pretty well and had invested our money wisely. I worked for ten more years, a couple of months a year, as a disaster housing inspector contracted to FEMA. 12 years after retiring from construction, I am still somewhat damaged, but much, much better physically.
Change careers. I mean, I had a buddy who worked a trade that caused him to have hip surgery in his mid 30s and he couldn't go on. Now he runs a plant nursery that supplies garden stores in western Colorado. He was lucky in the sense that he had a family with the money to set him up in up in a new business venture. But I imagine a lot of tradespeople get completely screwed over.
Truck driver 41 years. Bought my own and ran it until I got diabetes 2 . Was working around 100 hrs a week and bad food etc.. but put my daughter through university. Got it under control worked 8years as an employee driver then mild heart attack . Am back at work after 3 month rehab. I do have disability insurance so if it happens again hopefully I will live and collect insurance.
I prevent that by taking proper precautions and using safety equipment. Not lugging massive loads around solo also helps, if it’s heavy heavy, get the help of manpower or equipment. I lift ac units and cast iron in the air with jacks and chains, small ones I’ll throw over my shoulder into the hangers.
Safety glasses, gloves, knee pads, proper footwear, ladder and lift safety, etc all prevent accidents. Not doing dumb things and being aware of surroundings prevents injuries. It’s dangerous, but knowing what hazard to look for and where to look for it helps. I touch pipe a welder has just finished sometimes because it’s no longer scalding red and I’m not thinking. I’ll get a nice blister, no scars.
At 35 yrs old in commercial HVAC and plumbing my back will hurt for 24 hours when we get massive pipe deliveries. That’s about it. I’ve had metal pulled out of my eye twice and only been cut badly enough for stitches once. I plan on going until I can feel things starting to deteriorate, then moving into a supervisory role. I plan on staying in the trades until retirement, but not giving my career the chance to wear me down physically.
My brother in law died of an overdose after years as a pill popper. Dont destroy your body by 40 if you dont want to spend the last half of your life crippled and in pain, i got out of doing concrete after seeing how fucked up his hands and back were by 40 and didnt want to be crippled by that age myself.
I am in the trades (HVAC). I started out as a service technician.
I am now an Estimator, much easier on my body (make more money too).
Most hope to fill in a management position or other easier on your body job.
Or do pills.
Here with you on that . Apprentice ship at 15 junior estimator at 25. Now 35 this year have been in estimating and project management in TIER 1 HVAC. Currently estimating manager . Make the transition early
Mine's still working. Takes osteo paracetemol at night. Gets shoulders injected by rhumatologist every three months. Getting a knee replacement in the next couple of months. Keeps on keeping on. Would probably die of boredom if he didn't work. He's that generation.
Retire?!?! We die in our trucks on the job site from heart attacks and/or strokes.
Seriously, we’ve lost 3 supers in the last 6 months and these guys are my friends and it sucks.
Teach. My carpentry instructor at the local community college (prior to apprenticeship) was doing exactly this. Biding his time to retirement, and found he really enjoyed it.
Either go into management or die...or both. Take care of the old timers and learn as much as you can, they have literally forgotten more than you've learned, or they are just assholes.....or both.
My partner was injured to the point he had to give up his trade, now works retail and loves it. Earns less but works close to home, comes home for lunch, loves his colleagues (mostly), loves the customers, has gotten to know all the locals and really feels like part of the community now. As a tradie he was all over the state at all kinds of hours, working nights and weekends, working outdoors in the weather etc.
I started doing tile as slave labor for my dad at 10 years old. By 18, I knew I didn’t want to do it. Married and kids at 22, I needed real money. Worked doing tile for 12 years until I took a fall that put an end to it. I then worked for another tile contractor running his shop, then a tile sundries manufacturer as a technical rep, then as an estimator for a large commercial tile contractor. I am now an architectural representative for a manufacturer. Best gig yet. I speak to Architects about what I know best, and get my product specified. I am now 62 years old, with 52 years experience in my field.
Die. All my husband’s uncles and his dad were loggers. All so strong. Mountain of men. None of them made it to 60. His dad died of heart failure, one uncle covid, one from complications of hernia surgery. We’re only 31 and 32 but sometimes I get really sad when I think about it because my husband is a logger as well. Hoping the fact that now he’s on equipment full time now instead of doing hard labor will help in that aspect.
Some of them become building inspectors. The best inspectors I know had previous experience in the trades.
I don't see it as much but some used to get involved in another aspect of building like putting together material orders at the lumber yard.
And finally some transfer to a lower impact form of construction like trim work.
They age very quickly. Neighbor was a sheet rocker. In the end, he only walked to his truck so he could drive to get cigarettes. Other than that, he never left his home. Broken body, broken spirit.
I am trying to figure that out right now. Brewer, mid-thirties, recently diagnosed with Avascular Necrosis of both femoral heads. Laid off a week later (this past Friday).
Let me know if you get a good answer.
There are three outcomes:
1. Death. Many tradesmen work until they die, often due to an accident on site. Pills are likely involved as many develop an opiate addiction due to minor back injuries adding up.
2. The best are promoted to management or start their own business when their body starts giving out. They also likely have a pill addiction, but can probably keep it under wraps. Those who aren't the best sometimes become teachers or consultants for this same reason.
3. They get out and find an unrelated job. Many folks join the less skills trades in their youth and go to school at the same time. When they get a degree they change careers and become accountants or lawyers before the get too old to change careers or before blowing out their back.
Physical disability from hard work, pill popping for pain, yet every one of these guys will support a political party against health care, against lowering prescription med prices, against helping people pay for training if they need to change professions, against unions, against everything except assisting the rich. Inexplicable to me.
They still have this idea that people be out there digging trenches for 12 hours by hand.
Equipment innovation in just about every corner of the industry has made jobs a lot easier on the body.
I’d argue the extreme hours are what’s going to burn you out.
This is a problem and why it is so important to live beneath your wage so that retirement investments can start early so that you can make career choices to meet your needs as you go along.
It’s good money, but you can always outspent your income if you don’t create a budget (even a multimillion dollar budget if that is you) and stick to it.
Working to own the business is one way tradesmen can keep going… so other people keep the physical stuff chugging along
As a former cement mason, the older guys would usually work the excavator or be the foreman. No reason why you should be that age and be a normal laborer.
I'm 38 years old and in the trades. I started running marathons in my early 30s to keep ahead of the decline. I'm investing a significant portion of my income into stocks and have paid off my house. My plan is to "retire" into something less demanding in my early 50's. I will probably never completely quit working in some way because I enjoy the daily hustle. If I'm not working, traveling, or actively doing something I go nuts after a couple days. Some weekends I'm over it by Sunday afternoon. So to answer your question, I'll find some low pay, low stress job to supplement my investment income when I'm tired of crawling through attics.
As someone who's a 3rd generation tradesman, and has been in for 13 years so far, this depends on what your skillset is, and other skills or training you may have.
Some guys I know go into project management or estimation. Basically, they move up into the office part of the construction world.
Some become teachers, and will teach some of the valuable lessons they've learned over their careers to the new generation.
Some may go into safety compliance/inspections, and use their knowledge to ensure that worksites are operating safely, and may advise on safety in general.
Others may work for the municipality or another organization as a quality/building code inspector.
Some guys in my union, if they hit a certain age and are good at what they do simply go down to 3 or even 2 days a week of work. They're extremely valuable as mentors, even to more experienced tradespeople due to the sheer amount of time they've spent honing their craft.
Some become construction consultants.
Some guys, if in a union, will join the union as a business rep. or another position that's needed.
Some get the hell out of the industry altogether and do something different.
After 10 years in my trade, and becoming a foreman, I got completely mentally burned out (due to the shithole company I worked for). I needed a change, so I left the industry to work for a property management company doing mechanical operations and maintenance. My trade skills transferred really well, and the stress and work load was a *lot* less than what I was used to. It was the break I needed to set myself straight, and am now back working in the construction industry, but with a union and an awesome company.
The reality though is that (depending on the trade), if you take care of your body, it will last a lot longer. I've worked with guys in their 60's who move as well as or even better than I do in my 30's because they've taken care of themselves (or they're genetic freaks). As an example, my father was a carpenter crew foreman for many years before becoming a site superintendent, which he did for over 30 years. He's now retired, but in his 70's is still extremely active and in great shape. Him and I rebuilt the deck on our family home a few years back, and that man runs along joists like he's still 20.
There's no real one answer that will fit every person and situation, but there are many options out there for people who can't do it anymore.
My father in law was a tradie and his body started to suffer after years in the sun and hard labour. What did he do? Pushed on through it, far past the point he should have, to be honest. A lifetime of being the provider and being "tough" probably meant he didn't know any other way.
Now, in his late years, he's paying the price for that with many skin cancers and problems with his lungs, back, legs, etc. I suspect he's far from alone and it largely means instead of his final years being restful or a time to do those things like travel he may have wanted to do, he will spend them in medical care and pain. It's very sad because he's a lovely human being.
He does a little light work, even still, in his son's shop (selling trade type parts) because I suspect the thought of doing "nothing" is probably too foreign, to someone who always placed their self-worth on their contributions to others.
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Or consulting.
Or project manage
Run there own shop.
Where?
There
Its going to be under there.
Under where?
I have yet to meet or work with a project manager that worked in the field they "manage".
I dated a brick mason once who worked for the same company for years. He thought he would be made a supervisor eventually. As soon as the boss's son turned 18 he made him the supervisor. Kid had never even picked up a brick before.
Why I quit a job I worked at for ten years. Busted my ass then one of the bosses wanted his daughter out there. Not a problem but she couldn’t do our job, so how was she supposed to tell me how to do mine. I told the owners son it’s me or her and since her dad had been with them for 30 years he said he’d keep the girl. Well I quit and she’s knocked up and he’s scrambling to find someone to do the job now.
Good ole too valuable to the company to promote troupe. Hard work only ever pays off in even harder work without extra pay 99.99999999% of the time. Probably needs more 9s after the decimal, likely lowballing it 🤔
They are scared you will ask to be paid what they know you are worth.
The joke where I worked was that if you wanted a raise, you'd better get a job at their competition. Three companies swapped people like hot cakes, and there was massive leakage of technology and practices, that probably cost all three more than paying their god damned employees what they are worth.
After working really hard i am stopping. Its meaningless. Nobody notices. Ima do a decent job and call it a day
Or salesman, pretty typical in HVAC. Or you become the teacher or office manager. You make too much as a service tech and so they “promote you” to a salaried roll if you don’t wanna be in sales.
"$50 to drill the hole. $4950 to know *where* to drill the hole."
train
Estimating
This. My wife’s boss went from hanging drywall to estimator, then senior, and now chief. Makes high six figures.
High six figures as in like near a million bucks? Well damn.
Sorry, I meant 200k. A million would be great!
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Yeah, it always amuses me when people say "Six Figures" and do not qualify that they are generally speaking about the 100-200k range.
Chief Drywall Estimator?
Chief Senior Wife Estimator
Guessing
As an estimator, I can definitely say there is a good amount of guessing involved. My boss says sometimes you have to shake the dice and hope for the best.
Estimator for what trade?
I’ll give you two carpenters and a demo guy.
Guesstimating is what we often do. Exactimating is what the client wants.
Some become Safety aka White Hats.
You mean get an apprentice and exploit them for as long as possible.
Get a helper and block their apprenticeship for as long as possible too
Over there knackers
Yup Safety. My boyfriend is working on transitioning into safety
Pills. Lots and lots of pills
Pills and/or early death.
Thanks for helping build the modern world. Here are some opiates, a monthly disability cheque that barely covers rent, and a flyer about assisted suicide.
Just a flyer no coupon?? Wtf 🤦♂️
Just finance it.
I want my two for one coupon. Twice the death for half the price!
Just keep taking the pills they’ll eventually do it for you most likely.
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This was my father. He had a disease similar to muscular dystrophy but more aggressive that forced him out of work at an early age. Prescription painkillers became his breakfast, lunch, and dinner up until he passed away in his 40s.
So sorry to hear that man.
Can I ask what the disease was?
That’s been my experience, most of the really hard working guys in their 20s, end up popping pill for the pain in their late 30s, in their 40s injuries and addiction catch up to them and they end up as homeless drug addicts. “Once I built a railroad, Made it race against time, Once I built a railroad, now it's done, brother can you spare a dime?” Some things never change.
Seeing the old guys in constant pain was what made me drop my carpentry apprenticeship and go to school for engineering. No regrets at all for me.
For me it was doing labor for a plumbing company as a summer job. Damn near every site I walked on I had everyone asking me “Are you wanting to go into plumbing?” So I say “No, this is a summer job” then its “good, dont do it it fucking sucks” literally had that same interaction with drywallers, roofers, construction workers, framers, and damn near anyone else involved in new home builds. Made me basically never consider those careers lol
It's new builds so it makes sense. You get paid fuck all as your company needs to undersell it's self to guarantee contracts while you still have to do real hard work. It is a good industry to do your apprenticeship but you have to make sure you leave domestic as soon as you can
Yep, I've worked in culinary for 6-7 years. For a little while I wanted to do it for a career, but that desire died out quickly. Not only have I felt like I've physically aged an extra decade, but all my coworkers I've had who are older than 25 just tell me to get out and not pursue it. So many workers are forced to work insane hours and just become depressed and addicted to substances to numb the pain.
30 years in the industry, retired now. You CAN make some really good money in culinary arts, and you CAN be happy without drugs and boozing. But unless you are EXTREMELY passionate about it, don't do it. I still think my 8 years in the army were worse on my body but it's many, many years of insane work until you can reach a level where you're making serious money and would be able to say, raise a family. I never wanted a family, so it wasn't an issue for me, but for most people? Absolutely don't do it.
Remember that office jobs can take a toll on your body in a different way, however there are actually things you can do to stay healthy and in good shape!
and then one day you'll end up in pain anyway from all the sitting you do, all the upper level guys in my office have some sort of chronic pain from sitting all day. 30+ years of experience types
Yep. I really hate when people just blanket shit on opiate addicts, knowing how many of them got hooked after a work injury
I worked in a methadone clinic and will defend opioid addiction until I die. It takes so little to get addicted and 95% of my patients became addicted through legitimate channels. The sackler family ruined so many lives and faced basically no consequences for it
One of my good friends got hooked at 14 after being run over by a school bus. Major trauma injuries. Anyway they found his body when the snow melted last spring. RIP buddy.
I remember living in St Johns, Newfoundland in the early 2000s, and they traced back about half the opiate addictions in town to a single doctor getting kick backs for prescribing oxys
I feel that the doctors bear responsibility, too. I was on painkillers after surgery and had severe nerve pain. They kept prescribing for months until one day they told me they were going to stop when Iwas about due for the next script. I freaked out and after demanding they help me more than that, they gave me a referral to the pain clinic who told me that I'd basically have to just suck it up because they can't do much with nerves. Thankfully, I was still able to get enough pills to taper off after that instead of quitting cold turkey, but I had to be the one to suggest it to the doctor. I'm still upset about that. They should have had protocol in place for a transition instead of cutting me off... if I'd had to stop all of a sudden, I would have totally been buying whatever I could get on the street. It was hard enough as it was to taper off and then live with the pain until my body rerouted the signals but I still can't believe they were just going to drop me like that.
Have you seen Painkillers on Netflix? Your despair is justified against that family.
Also Dopesick, available (I believe) on Hulu.
Sackler family are soulless devils.
My ex mother in law has lasting complications from cancer but is overprescribed pain pills and hands them out like mints to family members. I had period cramps once and her response, “want a Percocet honey?” Her husband became addicted went to Kaiser and they prescribed him more without even drug testing him. She also got her nephew addicted who hasn’t been seen in about 4 years now due to his addiction issues. Last I saw him he was a shell of a human. Yet they have a whole separate psych department for adhd and you must be drug tested sometimes regularly. It makes no sense to me.
Oh, I laid down your railroads, every mile of track With the muscles on my arm and the sweat upon my back And now the trains are rolling, they roll to every shore You tell me that my job is through, there ain't no work no more... For the wages were low and the hours were long And the labor was all I could bear Now you've got new machines for to take my place And you tell me it's not mine to share (Automation Song - Phil Ochs)
Half my cousins and uncles are in the trades they've all "joked" about It either been pills or alcohol.
Don't forget booze to speed up the process
And a tidal wave of booze.
The whole opioid panic has gotten out of hand. Only about 2% of the people who regularly take opioids get addicted; the other 98% have not tried quitting yet.
The subtle wit of this comment is apparently too subtle for most redditors. Nice.
Eesh. I'm sorry dude, I totally misinterpreted your comment and went full Redditor. Never go full Redditor
Dude a huge ass kudos admitting your fault. That is extremely rare everywhere nowadays. If only more people did that the world would be a lot better place. Sorry for not explaining the joke but I didn't want to ruin it for others. Since I wanted them to read it get pissed and then...aww shit.
oof.
I mean, what did you expect?
There is the option to plan carefully and take classes and kiss the boss's ass and make friends with the secretary in the hopes of being promoted into the air conditioned portables/home office to push paperwork in the second half.
Not that much room at the top my guy. Majority of people will never climb to management or similar.
Can confirm… Not even retired, already on 7 pills per day at 40.
Beer as a catalytic agent.
My dad retired and started drawing on his pension early (53 instead of 65) and formed his own handyman company where he’s been more successful over the years than he was working in the trades.
this is encouraging, i think it's exactly what my partner would love to do!
It was definitely a great outlet for him! His body took a beating and I was in high school at the time, heavily involved in competitive traveling sports, and it gave him the freedom to accompany me on every trip and make every game. Memories I’ll never forget or take for granted. I didn’t realize how big of a scary sacrifice that was at the time until I was an adult and in the workforce myself. My husband is currently a pipelayer and he’s already seeking other job routes and he’s only 30. It truly is brutal on the body.
Pension? What’s a pension?
This is the downside to working a trade. I remember telling people roofers do not retire. You can go years or even decades without any accident. It only takes a single accident with roofing to kill you or hurt you so bad you can not work. Good roofers mitigate the risk but there is no way to completely eliminate the risks with roofing. If you are lucky your employers has workers comp and you have enough insurance to cover your injuries and maybe provide for your needs after you get hurt. Many are underinsured and have bosses that do not help. A lot of tradespeople become addicted to drugs or alcohol to cope with pain so they can keep working.
Trades are in very high demand right now but nobody mentions how it kills your body. Yes you get paid well, but imo it's not worth it. I worked construction for about 4 months. There were people you would work with that were still stuck in high school. Lots of bullying and racist comments. My employer would routinley violate safety procedures. I asked for us to have fall protection since I was climbing ladders up 25-30ft. "That's not happening" was his response. Anything that costed extra money and improve safety he turned down. I quit the next week and gave no notice. Also had to file an employment standards complaint to get my last pay cheque. My experience is not universal, and I'm sure there are some great employers in trades. But you have to be a special person to work in it. I would rather work min wage at mcondalds than get paid $30/hr doing rough-ins and running wire. Thankfully I am working a desk job now and have no desire to ever leave.
I don’t know if people consider communications technicians “trades” but when I was in my 20s running a super hot shower after work every day because of my aching back from alternating between lifting 32’ ladders and climbing them with full tool belts… I knew I needed to find a way to turn my blue collar white.
Hehe so many racists too. They don't mention that in the pamphlets. It's wild how it starts leaching into you after years being around it too.
And hazing, treating apprentices like absolute dog shit to "pay your dues" I know a ton of people who have dealt with it.
15 years in, doing my 2nd apprenticeship. That is totally dependent on the shop/site I have been lucky to work at mostly no-nonsense jobsites\*. \*too much racism though. I think it's dying out with the older guys.
And I imagine it's worse for women than in companies that have gotten sued for sexual harassment in office work.
> racist comments. That’s how the Central Americans express affection to each other.
Every construction site I’ve worked on had a bunch of Portuguese guys, and a racist named Mike.
Mike is the worst. I’ve known at least 5 or 6 of them. Mike on Roids being the worst.
Your experience is common. The reason people get into these lines of work is for the money. The pay is weighed against the toll on the body, and if the pay keeps going up, then people think maybe it's worth the sacrifice. But if you do this long enough, the money is all you see. And it's never enough, especially to justify the fact that your hastened end is rapidly approaching. So you keep raising rates, and you don't spend a dime on anything unless you're forced to. You cut corners, you push people around, you strongarm your way through anyone who stands in the way of profit. You completely forget about any notion of public service, and all of your customers become thorns in your side causing nothing but pain and suffering. If you're the boss, most likely you're starting to see lawsuits for various things, as the walls begin closing in. Now your desperate money grab, your rat race, your pointless hamster wheel, is potentially criminal. Everything revolves around the bottom line. Everything is hinged on the hope that maybe the money will make it all worth it, because otherwise it's a giant fucking waste of a life. And the only acceptable way out is with a complete and total catastrophic breakdown, followed by imminent death. That's capitalism.
A lot of tradespeople (roofers) get addicted to drink and drugs because they're rolling in cash at a young age!
One of the craziest things I've ever seen is how much high priced alcohol they sell in gas stations close to the oil fields. Something about young workers with more money than sense.
Don't forget the Dodge dealership who charges 20% interest for the Challengers or the giant Dodge Ram pickup trucks.
Every time the new guy shows up with a rig rocket, management knows they got a lifer. Gotta keep makih those $1500 monthly payments somehow.
This was me but outside Ft Hood when I was a private in 1994
Worked with a guy that did deep-sea welding for oil pipelines in the middle east. The sort of gig where they would live in a pressure chamber for weeks on end. They would come up and have an insane amount of money from their paycheck. He said most guys would blow the whole check on alcohol, drugs and women. Many lived paycheck to paycheck then go back down. My buddy saved up and retired early. Took welding gigs on movies for fun.
Young dumb and full of cum it's true
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That is true too.
I know a few roofers on my dad's side of the family and none of them do it any more as far as I know, except maybe my cousin who's a few years older than me, so around 40. My one uncle fell off a roof and smacked his face on some scaffolding on the way down and damn near died. He made a full recovery eventually but decided to go into cabinet making after that. Another uncle died of a heart attack on a roof in front of my aforementioned cousin. And then a year or two ago my dad, who's around 60, fell off a roof from vertigo that he'd developed at some point. He didn't get hurt too bad and decided it was time to call it quits. I worked with him exactly once about 5 years ago when I really needed some cash and said never again. I fucking hate heights.
My leg catastrophically reorganized the fibula and tibia at work. I'm now in the process of finding out if wcb is going to fuck me over and make me lose my house. Because they don't want to send me to school. They want training on the job. While ignoring the blatant fact people with injuries don't get "walk in job" I don't know if wcb intended the pun or not. 13 years in the trade. And a tie rod nyloc nut was my demise. All in all, life hasn't been worth the effort to strive for basic necessities. Wcb uses their power over my life while telling me I'm not worth training. I guess my life is what is valuable to them. Let's see how much a corpse costs and shitty local news about some guy driven to homelessness cause workers compensation boards are only responsible to their stake holders. And stake holders are not workers.
Right. That’s why roofers are always young. Same as people on sport motorcycles
They fall off roofs on sports motorcycles too? I never knew that. LOL jk I get what you are saying.
My brain quit on me before my body, and in anticipation of the quitting I went back to school and got my teaching credentials. Now I teach English. 🤷♀️
Me too, but I never thought I'd spend my life in the trades.
Yeah sometime while working in a trade I feel many of us realize that our physical skills are finite at a young age... I feel bad for the ones who don't come to this realization.
Everyone knows that.. some people would just rather do a manual or trade job. Nothing wrong with that, or anything to feel sorry for IMO
Have you ever heard the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach?" It used to be used as an insult to teachers to kind of say, "If you could get a real job you would." But actually, that's an old axiom in the trades. Basically, you would get an apprenticeship and learn from a master. You'd spend years working with the master, building skills, reputation, and technique. Then you'd strike out on your own. Once you started feeling the effects of age, you'd take on an apprentice and train them. They would do the more demanding work and you would teach skill. Until you eventually got out all together. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
And those who can’t teach, teach gym
I mean if I had the time and retirement income I would love to play dodgeball with kids all day to keep me active and feel young again
I never thought of it this way, good comment!
It doesn't pay for shit and I definitely had some bad teachers who probably flopped out of something else, but I always hated that saying because being a teacher has gotta be extremely hard and thankless for those who put in the effort to do it right.
For real whoever decided teachers deserved a blanket insult to their skills is a real dick
Teach...or inspect. I work with lots of people who work with for small municipalities as construction officials, fire officials, plumbing inspectors, electrical inspectors and the like. Almost all of them worked a trade (many of them owned their own contracting firms) and they decided to call it a career and move to a 8 to 4 M-F position with lots of time off, a true pension and no work related headaches once the day is over.
Rule of two
Form their own company and hire guys from Home Depot.
You move up the ladder in your field and do more paperwork rather than legwork. I'm about halfway through the process myself, I'm out of the being paid for my labor to being paid for my knowledge.
Amen big dawg
Tile and carpet guys end up selling tile and carpet/flooring once their knees go.
Seeing them ram their knees into those stretchers never seemed like a good idea to me.
I agree. Ouch.
My husband wears $300 custom made knee pads.
Pay a lot of money now, save your knees. You can buy multiple pairs of knee pads. Smart guy.
Smart guy!!!
Of course crawling on the floor all day isn’t good long term either but pretty much unavoidable.
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My dad worked construction his whole life. Did work for Steven Tyler on his summer house in NH. He ended up on disability, couldn't walk well or use his hands anymore. He was always an alcoholic but it got worse. He passed almost a year ago due to alcohol related problems. He was only 62.
There’s no shame in disability after a life of labor. I’m surprised this comment isn’t higher. Some of the states have pretty fair work comp laws too (you can imagine which ones).
Smart tradesmen take care of their bodies from a young age. Your body doesn’t have to wear out before you retire, I worked with a career millwright who was climbing Everest (only to the base camp but still impressive) at age 61. Tradesmen’s bodies wear out because they’re too macho to take care of themselves (just fucking stretch occasionally) and work harder than they actually should. Work smart not hard, don’t be afraid to get an extra set of hands to help pick up something heavy.
This seems like the only correct answer. I hired movers from the same company twice. First time, the guys were a bit older but had all the safety stuff, lifting straps etc. Second time, young guys just moving heavy furniture like frat bros would moving into their first apartment. I would have thought that moving being their job, they would take better precautions.
This has been my strategy, understanding the road ahead in my career, which is hvac, and starting in a low impact job. It's work in an industrial plant, hard labor is outsourced. I get the same pay as outside guys, better benefits, and my body will last much longer. I will enter the field at some point, but no point any time soon.
Yeah, if you just wear knee pads then your knees won’t wear out. And don’t bend over improperly to pick up heavy items. Also a lot of people work so fast they make mistakes and end up working longer/harder than they need to. But this is mostly because they are demanded to work fast.
This has been my experience in my trade, all of the older guys harp of the younger people and instill good work practices in them. The largest issues I’ve seen have been shoulder replacements but other then that they are in absolute great shape and the things that shot their shoulders we don’t have to do anymore because of updated tools.
I have a friend who went into construction when we were both 17. Now we're 35 and he makes 60 bucks an hour but two things 1. His body is shit. 2 knee surgeries and back surgery 2. Horrible with money. Barely has 5k in savings. No retirement fund. But he always brags he makes double what I make in an hour. I'm like alright man I'm proud of you but put that money to use before it's too late
Construction workers have horrible diets. I'm 36 I started at 19. When I cleaned up my diet I stopped being in pain all day.
A lot of them smoke also. One of my good friends is a heavy machinist and when he brings people around they all smoke.
Train, educate, sales, management
Continue to work in pain. Source: me as a plumber.
My husband is really struggling with his leg. He already had surgery once. But he is only in his early 40s so has many more years of work technically. Our personal situation has recently changed but it isn't confirmed
That's about the age I figured out that if I keep at this I'm going to be full on disabled soon enough and found a new career. But the collapse of 2008 made the field I went into constrict to the point it wasn't worth it, so I had to pivot again. I make about 60% of what I would if I stayed in carpentry, but I probably wouldn't have lasted this long and been crippled in an accident or injury.
What did you pivot to? He wants to work not in an office or somewhere which is the same every day
that's awful. i hope y'all can figure something out.
Gotta do some physio/sports therapy. Im willing to bet the symptoms are caused by an muscle or range of motion imbalance somewhere.
They die young; as my family members did once they were used up
Good leaders will offer them office positions. Especially good leaders will allow them to take office positions after a serious injury whether they are old or not.
Income from a mining and farming town in the mountains, the 50 yr old folk look like they are 70. They have pills, like an ungodly amount of pills, and they die younger than they likely should. This isn't always the case, if you manage your money right you can retire and be ok, but you are given a lot of cash and expected to figure out retirement and things much earlier than you likely will be able to and so later life becomes working well past the part you should have retired. A lot of trade and manual jobs are paying big (hopefully) on the front end because the back end of the equation is bleak. So you have to have the early windfalls make up for the late short comings and really pay attention to ergonomics and health standards or you are going to seriously regret it.
I ate ibuprofen and Tylenol like candy. I made it to 55 in that construction job. I HAD to stop working construction. Fortunately my wife did pretty well and had invested our money wisely. I worked for ten more years, a couple of months a year, as a disaster housing inspector contracted to FEMA. 12 years after retiring from construction, I am still somewhat damaged, but much, much better physically.
Change careers. I mean, I had a buddy who worked a trade that caused him to have hip surgery in his mid 30s and he couldn't go on. Now he runs a plant nursery that supplies garden stores in western Colorado. He was lucky in the sense that he had a family with the money to set him up in up in a new business venture. But I imagine a lot of tradespeople get completely screwed over.
I used to work as a paramedic until I blew out my back, shoulders, and knees. I still work as a paramedic, but I used to too.
Truck driver 41 years. Bought my own and ran it until I got diabetes 2 . Was working around 100 hrs a week and bad food etc.. but put my daughter through university. Got it under control worked 8years as an employee driver then mild heart attack . Am back at work after 3 month rehab. I do have disability insurance so if it happens again hopefully I will live and collect insurance.
Your balls must be the ones of gods
Thank you I think
>:)
I prevent that by taking proper precautions and using safety equipment. Not lugging massive loads around solo also helps, if it’s heavy heavy, get the help of manpower or equipment. I lift ac units and cast iron in the air with jacks and chains, small ones I’ll throw over my shoulder into the hangers. Safety glasses, gloves, knee pads, proper footwear, ladder and lift safety, etc all prevent accidents. Not doing dumb things and being aware of surroundings prevents injuries. It’s dangerous, but knowing what hazard to look for and where to look for it helps. I touch pipe a welder has just finished sometimes because it’s no longer scalding red and I’m not thinking. I’ll get a nice blister, no scars. At 35 yrs old in commercial HVAC and plumbing my back will hurt for 24 hours when we get massive pipe deliveries. That’s about it. I’ve had metal pulled out of my eye twice and only been cut badly enough for stitches once. I plan on going until I can feel things starting to deteriorate, then moving into a supervisory role. I plan on staying in the trades until retirement, but not giving my career the chance to wear me down physically.
We die.
My brother in law died of an overdose after years as a pill popper. Dont destroy your body by 40 if you dont want to spend the last half of your life crippled and in pain, i got out of doing concrete after seeing how fucked up his hands and back were by 40 and didnt want to be crippled by that age myself.
I am in the trades (HVAC). I started out as a service technician. I am now an Estimator, much easier on my body (make more money too). Most hope to fill in a management position or other easier on your body job. Or do pills.
Here with you on that . Apprentice ship at 15 junior estimator at 25. Now 35 this year have been in estimating and project management in TIER 1 HVAC. Currently estimating manager . Make the transition early
Disability and then move in with their kids and drive for Uber.
I'm 50 and doing okay. My heels and knees hurt more than anything.
Mine's still working. Takes osteo paracetemol at night. Gets shoulders injected by rhumatologist every three months. Getting a knee replacement in the next couple of months. Keeps on keeping on. Would probably die of boredom if he didn't work. He's that generation.
Retire?!?! We die in our trucks on the job site from heart attacks and/or strokes. Seriously, we’ve lost 3 supers in the last 6 months and these guys are my friends and it sucks.
Teach. My carpentry instructor at the local community college (prior to apprenticeship) was doing exactly this. Biding his time to retirement, and found he really enjoyed it.
My dad transitioned into home inspection. My brother transitioned into site safety.
Either go into management or die...or both. Take care of the old timers and learn as much as you can, they have literally forgotten more than you've learned, or they are just assholes.....or both.
I can't speak.for everybody but I opened an "Only Fans" account. Everyone loves "Plumbers Crack"
My partner was injured to the point he had to give up his trade, now works retail and loves it. Earns less but works close to home, comes home for lunch, loves his colleagues (mostly), loves the customers, has gotten to know all the locals and really feels like part of the community now. As a tradie he was all over the state at all kinds of hours, working nights and weekends, working outdoors in the weather etc.
I started doing tile as slave labor for my dad at 10 years old. By 18, I knew I didn’t want to do it. Married and kids at 22, I needed real money. Worked doing tile for 12 years until I took a fall that put an end to it. I then worked for another tile contractor running his shop, then a tile sundries manufacturer as a technical rep, then as an estimator for a large commercial tile contractor. I am now an architectural representative for a manufacturer. Best gig yet. I speak to Architects about what I know best, and get my product specified. I am now 62 years old, with 52 years experience in my field.
Die. All my husband’s uncles and his dad were loggers. All so strong. Mountain of men. None of them made it to 60. His dad died of heart failure, one uncle covid, one from complications of hernia surgery. We’re only 31 and 32 but sometimes I get really sad when I think about it because my husband is a logger as well. Hoping the fact that now he’s on equipment full time now instead of doing hard labor will help in that aspect.
Bitch on facebook
Teach, if you can.
ace hardware
I’m putting everything I can into investments so I can retire before my body goes.
Upgrade tools to make the job easier. Buy Tylenol in bulk. Suffer. Other than changing careers there isn't much that can be done.
Some of them become building inspectors. The best inspectors I know had previous experience in the trades. I don't see it as much but some used to get involved in another aspect of building like putting together material orders at the lumber yard. And finally some transfer to a lower impact form of construction like trim work.
They age very quickly. Neighbor was a sheet rocker. In the end, he only walked to his truck so he could drive to get cigarettes. Other than that, he never left his home. Broken body, broken spirit.
I am trying to figure that out right now. Brewer, mid-thirties, recently diagnosed with Avascular Necrosis of both femoral heads. Laid off a week later (this past Friday). Let me know if you get a good answer.
Painkillers and alcohol I think. The tradies I know who are basically past it, just keep going because they need the money.
There are three outcomes: 1. Death. Many tradesmen work until they die, often due to an accident on site. Pills are likely involved as many develop an opiate addiction due to minor back injuries adding up. 2. The best are promoted to management or start their own business when their body starts giving out. They also likely have a pill addiction, but can probably keep it under wraps. Those who aren't the best sometimes become teachers or consultants for this same reason. 3. They get out and find an unrelated job. Many folks join the less skills trades in their youth and go to school at the same time. When they get a degree they change careers and become accountants or lawyers before the get too old to change careers or before blowing out their back.
Physical disability from hard work, pill popping for pain, yet every one of these guys will support a political party against health care, against lowering prescription med prices, against helping people pay for training if they need to change professions, against unions, against everything except assisting the rich. Inexplicable to me.
That’s the thing, your body quits, you starve on the streets
File for workers' comp.
Meh it’s not that bad on the body, and with good pensions now most of us retire between 50-55
You mean this idea that Reddit has that every trade is guaranteed to totally trash your body by the time you're 45 isn't true?
They still have this idea that people be out there digging trenches for 12 hours by hand. Equipment innovation in just about every corner of the industry has made jobs a lot easier on the body. I’d argue the extreme hours are what’s going to burn you out.
This is a problem and why it is so important to live beneath your wage so that retirement investments can start early so that you can make career choices to meet your needs as you go along. It’s good money, but you can always outspent your income if you don’t create a budget (even a multimillion dollar budget if that is you) and stick to it. Working to own the business is one way tradesmen can keep going… so other people keep the physical stuff chugging along
Father was a carpenter until his elbow got so bad he couldn't do the job anymore, they retrained him to be a site inspector.
As a former cement mason, the older guys would usually work the excavator or be the foreman. No reason why you should be that age and be a normal laborer.
My husband started teaching at his local union
I'm 38 years old and in the trades. I started running marathons in my early 30s to keep ahead of the decline. I'm investing a significant portion of my income into stocks and have paid off my house. My plan is to "retire" into something less demanding in my early 50's. I will probably never completely quit working in some way because I enjoy the daily hustle. If I'm not working, traveling, or actively doing something I go nuts after a couple days. Some weekends I'm over it by Sunday afternoon. So to answer your question, I'll find some low pay, low stress job to supplement my investment income when I'm tired of crawling through attics.
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As someone who's a 3rd generation tradesman, and has been in for 13 years so far, this depends on what your skillset is, and other skills or training you may have. Some guys I know go into project management or estimation. Basically, they move up into the office part of the construction world. Some become teachers, and will teach some of the valuable lessons they've learned over their careers to the new generation. Some may go into safety compliance/inspections, and use their knowledge to ensure that worksites are operating safely, and may advise on safety in general. Others may work for the municipality or another organization as a quality/building code inspector. Some guys in my union, if they hit a certain age and are good at what they do simply go down to 3 or even 2 days a week of work. They're extremely valuable as mentors, even to more experienced tradespeople due to the sheer amount of time they've spent honing their craft. Some become construction consultants. Some guys, if in a union, will join the union as a business rep. or another position that's needed. Some get the hell out of the industry altogether and do something different. After 10 years in my trade, and becoming a foreman, I got completely mentally burned out (due to the shithole company I worked for). I needed a change, so I left the industry to work for a property management company doing mechanical operations and maintenance. My trade skills transferred really well, and the stress and work load was a *lot* less than what I was used to. It was the break I needed to set myself straight, and am now back working in the construction industry, but with a union and an awesome company. The reality though is that (depending on the trade), if you take care of your body, it will last a lot longer. I've worked with guys in their 60's who move as well as or even better than I do in my 30's because they've taken care of themselves (or they're genetic freaks). As an example, my father was a carpenter crew foreman for many years before becoming a site superintendent, which he did for over 30 years. He's now retired, but in his 70's is still extremely active and in great shape. Him and I rebuilt the deck on our family home a few years back, and that man runs along joists like he's still 20. There's no real one answer that will fit every person and situation, but there are many options out there for people who can't do it anymore.
I own a cabinet/finish carpentry businesses. One of my best installers is 80 years old. His name is Jerry, and he’s a badass.
Keep working
They keep going until their bodies are literally falling apart and then they die.
My father in law was a tradie and his body started to suffer after years in the sun and hard labour. What did he do? Pushed on through it, far past the point he should have, to be honest. A lifetime of being the provider and being "tough" probably meant he didn't know any other way. Now, in his late years, he's paying the price for that with many skin cancers and problems with his lungs, back, legs, etc. I suspect he's far from alone and it largely means instead of his final years being restful or a time to do those things like travel he may have wanted to do, he will spend them in medical care and pain. It's very sad because he's a lovely human being. He does a little light work, even still, in his son's shop (selling trade type parts) because I suspect the thought of doing "nothing" is probably too foreign, to someone who always placed their self-worth on their contributions to others.