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Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

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Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#141

Post by JKCalhoun »

emteycz wrote: post #129
jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

Yeah lol... The apartment building next to mine was having some reconstruction and the guys working on the exterior saw into my office windows (5th story). I started talking to them, had a cigarette together when I saw them lighting up, shared my WiFi password with them, etc, just being friendly. After a few days the guys asked "so, do you ever work man, or are you one of those computer pussies?". I agreed I'm a comp…

I've done manual labor. Mowed lawns for a guy who had his own company, he drove us around in the truck, we'd hit the grass with his mowers.

Worked fast food, retail. Been a dishwasher, bus boy....

I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives you a daily sense of accomplishment. The lawn work for sure. Arriving at a tatty yard, leaving it looking like a golf course.... That sort of day-to-day sense of achievement is much more rare in software development.

To be sure I ultimately chased the higher-paying software field. But when I would see the "grounds keepers" at the Apple campus, I was often a little envious....

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#142

Post by ReactiveJelly »

01100011 wrote: post #131
lolinder wrote: post #23

This comment and its top reply are dead on: https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/sm54ri/a... No job is going to get you away from unreasonable people with unreasonable expectations, and most trades introduce a bunch of other unpleasant things that you'd have to deal with. It's all tradeoffs. Someone may legitimately prefer the stresses of a trade to the stresses of working in software, and that's great…

An old, cynical engineer I once worked with left me with two indelible quotes: - If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. - If you can't write it down you can't do it. You can argue about the accuracy of those ideas, but more or less I've found them to be true.

> If it was fun they'd charge money at the door.

I've told people that at my work and had it said back to me later.

"If it was fun, it wouldn't be work." Also, I leave after 40 hours each week because there will never be a day when the work ends early. If we run out of work, it's because the company is sinking.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#144

Post by Apocryphon »

jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

Aren’t there jobs working in the trades that aren’t in construction? If you’re working on large-scale projects, you end up running into the “becoming a cog” problem anyway.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#145

Post by 01100011 »

Freestyler_3 wrote: post #39
umvi wrote: post #7

I actually think it would be fun to "retire" and go to trade school to become an electrician. Not forever, just long enough to learn the trade. I practically have an EE degree, but since I only ever worked with low voltage, mostly digital circuits I still have poor electrical intuition for things like residential AC. Realistically though, I think my secondary post-retirement career will end up being a teacher of some…

The amount of knowledge you need for residential is minimal, there is only one voltage (ok maybe multiple phase) and you should only have to think of load per circuit. Don't know what kind of intuition you really need for new install.

A lot of the knowledge is just practical stuff like knowing how to correctly use a wire nut, where to buy the best brands of equipment for good prices, and lots of rules of thumb. The other half is code. The code can be surprisingly complex. There are all sorts of things to know like how much you can legally stuff in a junction box.

I have an EE degree but find there is little overlap between that knowledge and electrical work.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#146

Post by Apocryphon »

enraged_camel wrote: post #126
jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow have it better than software folks. It's like they have never actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is. "Constant need to stay up to date" is actually one of the things I really like about this field, because it's one of the things that prevents the work fr…

I don’t think they want to be tradespeople. I think they want to be artisans.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#147

Post by civilized »

artemonster wrote: post #122
civilized wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take care not to violate society's statistical taboos.

Ah, allright, I think I got the pattern. Next time someone wants to: """Everywhere you go, there will be {insert derogatory but also statistically backed pattern} Disproportionately they will be {insert your -ist qualifier}""" You just have to say sorry and it will be okay?

Have you considered what you personally believe is right?

Why go around being an enforcer for social rules you don't even know if you believe in?

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#149

Post by _joel »

The grass is always greener. I have friends who work in trades and they constantly say how I have it easy for being able to work from home and not exert myself too much physially. On the other hand it'd be nice not to have meetings, deadlines and operational work (at least I don't have to do on call anymore) and constantly try to keep up with the times skillwise (which tbf I find really fun, but still). I'm quite happy though. Remote work has definitely made a massive difference, for me, in that respect.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#150

Post by spywaregorilla »

jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

Those guys aren't making the fabled plumber incomes either. You need to own the business for that.
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