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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?

#161

Post by chrisdhoover »

I started in the trades 45 years ago. Worked as a deck hand, low voltage installer, cabinet maker, and service tech.

Climbing in a ceiling at 30 years old I asked my self what the hell am I doing? I have a hard upper bound in salary. I’m sore, I had stitches on several occasions, I’m a bit battered from physical labor. The after work drinking was a short term analgesic but a long term killer.

I realized a life time of labor is back breaking and will leave me a broken old man long before I should be.

I decided at that moment to move on to engineering.

My days of labor provided me with a great foundation for problem solving and understanding how projects are executed in the field. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, it was incredibly rewarding.

My office life has been equally rewarding. I worked as hard wearing a dumb tie everyday as I did wearing Carhartt.

The balance I struck was earning in the white collar world while keeping busy at home on blue collar pursuits. For example I took my contractor special condo from plain to fully executed trim. All of the doors and windows are cased, there is crown and picture rail. Some areas have wainscoting, the knock down wall finish is now level 5. There is 4 color paint.

I have since begun maintaining an old sports car.

For me it would have been hard to start on an office and then transition to a shop. The reverse worked best for me.

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

#162

Post by jvanderbot »

jjcon wrote: post #154
cpsns wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my body and health for my income. Sitting for longer periods in any amount is incredibly bad for one's health long term, every study on the subject has confirmed this. You are sacrificing your health, just in a different way.

Eh didn’t it turn out that most of that was drummed out in the 2012 era by a few doctors selling books and partnering with exercise and standing desk companies? I feel like most of the more recent stuff I have read has said, yes get your exercise in but sitting itself isn’t actually bad, certainly not the whole ‘1 hour of sitting reduces your life by 1 day’ sort of stuff we heard a decade+ ago. https://www.cnn.com/20…

My confusion is that "sitting" is confounded with "never exercising". If you exercise 5m/hr for 16hrs (and sleep 8), you have accumulated a huge amount of sitting time, but also a really big amount of exercise time. Nobody does that, but what if we did?

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

#163

Post by JKCalhoun »

artemonster wrote: post #71
civilized wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I like how in our progressive society it is absolutely frowned upon to invoke any association between observable societal statistics and, say, race/gender, but its okay to bash BMW/audi drivers. So, user civilized, why is it okay for you to generalize? And why exactly you were sorry? (I am aware that this is a tangent discussion to the original post, but it may be an interesting one)

You can choose whether to buy a BMW or not?

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

#164

Post by TigeriusKirk »

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…

I worked construction jobs summers during college (family in the business).

On the plus side, it really is satisfying to be able to see the results of your work at the end of the day, nearly every day. Progress is visible and real.

On the downside, construction in the summer is rough work. You can be on rooftops working with materials or tools that make it even hotter. There's lots of exhausting carrying heavy things from here to there. There's incredibly long hours (10 hour days is within the norm, 6 day 12 hour schedules aren't rare, and 16 hour days not unheard of). In any decent construction job that's a ton of overtime pay, which really adds up, but it's also exhausting. A 6/12 schedule is basically work/sleep/work. Great way to save money for the coming school year, terrible way to make a living long term.

I miss being able to see my work. And to be able to drive by 20 years later and point and say "Yep, I built that." Don't underestimate the pride that brings.

But I don't regret my career choice at all. Construction is viscerally satisfying in a lot of ways, but it's not how I want to spend my days.

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

#165

Post by ElKrist »

bartread wrote: post #69
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…

I agree. I work in tech and, outside of work, I'm refurbishing my house. I'm enjoying the refurbishment but would I do a trade as a full time job? Hell no. Crawling around in my loft sistering joists is satisfying work but also, if it were to become the kind of thing I did over a long period of time, would 100% wreck my knees. And that's just one downside. There are plenty more: e.g., all the ancillary guff you have…

I share your view about making estimates and quotes.

I get contractors to my house to help me renovate. It's just standard practice to get multiple tradesmen (>=3) to make a quote for the same job. I do that whenever the job is above $5000. I assume they must have a lot of other clients who do the same for lower thresholds too. I don't know the margins in each trade but I guess at least half of the quote is costs?

For the transport, the time on-site, the time to make a quote (depends a lot on the job).. I believe they each spend at least half a day on this. Then you add various time-consuming items like phone calls, people canceling appointments, people changing their minds about what they want, time to chase unpaid invoices, dealing with other tradesmen on some projects... All of this for a 1/3 chance of getting the job ?

Clearly some tradesmen are doing very well, but let's not pretend it's easy. As a contractor in software, I realized quickly I could and would only bill on a time-based approach. I've gone through the hassle of making a quote for a project with a lot of uncertainties and spanning over multiple months. At the end the client played with my weakness of being still quite young. He was older and much more experienced in legal & contract matters so he kept adding items pretending my contract was not fulfilled otherwise.. I ended up OK but would never go back to that anymore

Now I only have to negotiate once or twice a year (with my latest and ongoing client it's been multiple years so even better) when tradesmen have to do that multiple times a week

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

#166

Post by nkozyra »

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…

There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.

Yes, there are almost always jobs with less strenuous requirements on time, fewer requirements and late nights. But the average tech worker has a pretty good gig. And if they don't they can go down the street in 2022 and get one.

Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways - you're working with a set of tools and generally always building or working on the same projects. Yes, it's tactile, it gets you something palpable in the end. Yes, like software development you get that dopamine hit when you've built something nice. But there are late nights, big jobs that go too long, crappy coworkers and clients, because ... it's a professional job.

Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?

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

#167

Post by TheCoelacanth »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #123
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…

Your contractor, on the other hand, may well have got a few rounds of golf in during the day time. A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does what he pleases. I believe he started the company with a buddy, the…

Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job, regardless of what industry you're in. It's not the typical path for any job, though.

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

#168

Post by scythe »

brightball wrote: post #156
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…

Yep. I got burned out at one point and got my real estate license. I was going to go into commercial real estate and build a residential website in my spare time. Good grief what a scheme that entire field is. If I wanted access to residential MLS data I was going to have to be a residential realtor. To be a residential realtor you have to work for a broker who will charge you monthly for the pleasure. You have to pu…

The National Association of Realtors donated $44M to political candidates last year, the second-largest contributor overall.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders

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

#169

Post by brnaftr361 »

artemonster wrote: post #71
civilized wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I like how in our progressive society it is absolutely frowned upon to invoke any association between observable societal statistics and, say, race/gender, but its okay to bash BMW/audi drivers. So, user civilized, why is it okay for you to generalize? And why exactly you were sorry? (I am aware that this is a tangent discussion to the original post, but it may be an interesting one)

I do think that's a pretty interesting point. It's a weird move to sweep under the rug. I guess you could argue that having a BMW is a choice, and it has associated stereotypes, which we can infer is sort of like joining a club.

race/gender are probabilistic and unalterable, one doesn't necessarily elect to inherit the stereotypes associated with race/gender. You're essentially being delegated expectations that may or may not be in alignment with personal values.

There are definitely double-standards in play though, a sort of socio-cognitive warfare, I suppose.

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

#170

Post by Denzel »

mcbishop wrote: post #125

After 15 years doing software development, I started training to be an electrician a month ago (in the Bay Area). The two people I work under are chill / patient. Sometimes when dragging myself and wire though tight rat-shit crawl spaces... I yearn for my nice little home office. But, overall, I enjoy the work. It feels good to do work in the physical world. A lot of electricians are nearing retirement. Meanwhile, el…

Are you still doing software while training to become an electrician?

I'd like to become a licensed electrician. After completing a few successful projects around the house, and studying the 2020 NEC inside out, I looked into becoming licensed. The required 4 year apprenticeship, before I'm able to take the exam, turned me off. How would I ever be able to satisfy that requirement while keeping my day job. It's like a forced pay cut to become licensed.

What's your arrangement look like?

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