re: PSA for parents: Steer your children into being an electrician

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Simple truth is that the trades leave a lot of men busted up and full of regret at 50, but a lot of desk jockeys yearn for a different life at 50 as well.

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This is insane. Absolutely nobody actually believes sitting in an air-conditioned office chair carries the same risk as continuously bending over and contorting your body into awkward positions in the field as a tradesman.

You can completely alleviate the sedentary conditions of an office with exercise and diet and you should have plenty of energy to do so, in fact, a lot of office people will even workout on their lunch breaks.


A tradesman CANNOT alleviate the wear and tear on his body and probably doesnt have the physical energy to exercise after work, nor does he have the ability to exercise over lunch.

Lastly, a simple survey of tradesman vs office people will quickly show that office people are on average MUCH HEALTHIER than tradesman.

No exposure to airborne toxins, carbon monoxide, chemicals on equipment/tooling, no hot work risks, smoke exposure, etc.


Stop lying about this. Some of you are just deceitful assholes or incredibly ignorant.

Its not a shock that every single person who advocates for the trades is NOT a trades person and would NEVER allow their own kids to do it.

Just ask trades people in Gen X what its like, someone who's been working in the trades for several decades and has experienced the ups and downs.


I am not saying its not a viable pathway, but it is NOT equal to office work.

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This is just a blatant lie, much like rest of your emotional diatribe.

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Not blatant at all. Its 98% true and I have no clue how you infer any emotion from a clearly stated post. Im just speaking facts.

And if you honestly believe back breaking work in the trades is physically indistinguishable from sitting in an office chair then what should we make of your credibility? You dont have any.

Yea nah…

You can make more and not worry about your body falling apart and working into your late 60s - with a respectable college degree

Thats great to hear but you are also not in the safest of spaces. Lets be real.

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I’ll chime in. I’m IUEC but on the build and install escalators side. (Those new escalators in the Superdome? Yeah, you’re welcome.)

It’s a good trade, and big money is there. But I’d be lying if I said the money for my knees was a fair one. On some jobs I make more than the GC, but I miss running the Crescent City Classic.

I’ll be able to retire early and that’s the consolation I’m ok with. And trust and believe, no amount would pull me back in.

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As usual, these threads confirm what I hear from people who work in the trades and what Ive experienced from my own personal experiences with tradesmen.

I dont knock it as a pathway towards A career, but glorifying the way multi-millionaire media pundits and office people do is just simply wrong.

Encouraging desperate young men to pursue a path without being completely transparent about the pros and cons of what that path entails is just wrong. Young men, who are the target for these careers, trust older generations to guide them fairly, and the discourse among older generations ignore of the modern realities of the trades is simply sickening.

Be honest about where the money is and what is being sacrificed for that money and what kind of lifestyle they can expect, and how that might hurt their prospects for a stable life including a stable marriage with children that need you.

Gen Xers and boomers absolutely HATE young men more than ever and have this horrible habit of lying and deceiving them for God knows what reason.

They would NEVER even dare think about sending their daughters into the trades. Its COLLEGE for daddy's princess.

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I guess he just likes to work? Otherwise he must be planning on retiring when he is 75 and living the good life until 78 when he dies.

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Some people just can't take retirement.

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I make more than that working IBEW in Mississippi.

I can travel and make 3 times that.

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thats cool....so you make what 75-80k? thats awesome but tell the down sides

1) to make more, you have to not sleep in your bed everynight, be away from your family.

2) you work in the heat and the cold

3) ibew is more secure than non union but you still layoff a lot. Like a lot alot.

4) the work takes a physical toll on the body big time



also the OT is fricking retarded when it comes to the trades. everyone knows a plumber or an electrician that makes 300-500k a year. come to find out, its the business owner. The OT has no clue how long it takes to get the license to even be able to open a shop. Those owners do make bank but those guys would have been successful no matter what they went into. That is not your average tradesman.

go ask any tradesman and they will tell their kids to go get an office job. ask the office job OTer and they will say the trades are great but have never once been in the trades. they have no clue.

go ask a welder or electrician or a plumber or a pipe fitter on a hot day in august if they would like to trade places with the engineer or accountant and they will all say yes.


Romanticize the trades all yall want, those of us that have done both know and there is a reason you dont see very many still in the trades by 50 and the ones there at 60 are broken down physically.


but if you like working 60+ hours a week, missing holidays, missing birthdays, missing ball games with the kids.....the trades are for you. in exchange you will make decent money with all the OT and you get an addiction to caffeine, zyn and to work around sub 80 iq people all day. Its a sweet gig!!

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I am a lineman for the parish

And I drive the poorly maintained road

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I know I need a small vacation

But it don't look like rain

The OT tells trade stories like “casino winners” tell casino stories. Only the upside.

I saw welders in all their thick PPE/garb in heat peak of July & August and thought far less about money and more about longevity.

If few/no options, trades make a lot of sense for many people. But the downsides are low. It keeps the wages high. Surgeon General warning needed.

Four pages of talk about steering children into trades. Lotta of talk.

This year I have put together a DeWalt toolbag, with all of the Harbor Freight tools, useful around the house, and am giving that to a young lad that is graduating from the 8th grade and is going into High school now. His mother is divorced, cleans houses. With no father being present. My expectation is that mom will ask him to fix things with his new tools and he will learn the differences metric/sae, Phillips/flat head, nails/screws, hammer/maul, channel locks/vise grip, over the next several years. He will break a few tools, skin his knuckles and learn stuff. A couple hundred dollar tool bag. School bag?

I have done this previously for grand kids and have run out of grand kids. I believe a charitable donation like this is far greater value than the pitches made on tv for 19 dollar a month charities.

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The OT tells trade stories like “casino winners” tell casino stories. Only the upside.

I saw welders in all their thick PPE/garb in heat peak of July & August and thought far less about money and more about longevity.

If few/no options, trades make a lot of sense for many people. But the downsides are low. It keeps the wages high. Surgeon General warning needed.

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yep....the OT hears of a welder making 150k a year.....what they dont tell you is it takes 100 hours of ot to get there or more because they only making 30 an hour


if my sons didnt want to go to college, I would encourage them to at least go for the 2 year instrumentation or operator degree. offers stability and a good life style, way way way better than living in an RV chasing turnarounds across the country while working 80 hours a week

The OT loves when someone comes on here and says their son chose the trades.....not gonna lie, I love it too, less competition for me and my sons.