re: Something to consider when advising young people to go into trade work?

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If you’re 60 and still crawling under a house, you failed at your trade.

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If you're 60 and still sitting at a computer, you've failed at being an engineer.



In one of those jobs its acceptable, and common, to have the same job your entire career.

In the trades you move up being a supervisor, foreman, superintendent or owner and the young kids are the laborers climbing under houses.

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How about crawling under a house at 60 years old?

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My son is 26 and a plumber. Works for an outfit that primarily does new construction. The owner probably has about 10 more years before he decides to hang it up and ride off into the sunset. My son is already taking some general business courses at local community college and making sure to get to know and network with all the local builders. Once his boss hangs it up, he will either buy him out or start up his own biz. Promos you he won’t be crawling under any houses when he is 60.

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My son is 26 and a plumber. Works for an outfit that primarily does new construction. The owner probably has about 10 more years before he decides to hang it up and ride off into the sunset. My son is already taking some general business courses at local community college and making sure to get to know and network with all the local builders. Once his boss hangs it up, he will either buy him out or start up his own biz. Promos you he won’t be crawling under any houses when he is 60.

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Where’s he going to get the money to do either one of these?

You’re an idiot, how old are you again? Have you ever had a blue collar job? 60 year old men aren’t crawling around under houses, hell 40 year old men aren’t.

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You’re an idiot, how old are you again? Have you ever had a blue collar job? 60 year old men aren’t crawling around under houses, hell 40 year old men aren’t.

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I just had an electrician in my attic last month that had to be in his late 50s. Or because he was a tradesman maybe he was like 40 and just looked like hell, I don’t know

Some people like all jobs have no ambition to move up. They get comfortable and don’t want anymore responsibility.

These people are the failures I speak about.

Those are the failures I speak about once again

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Those are the failures I speak about once again

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It's very common

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The people who want you to send your kids to trade school send their kids to the Ivy League. Nothing wrong with trade schools, but always be skeptical of others telling you what's best for your children.

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There has always been the idea that education was wasted on anyone but the children of the wealthy and powerful. The ring leader is this bullshite, Mike Rowe, is an opera singer for fricks sake. The majority of proponents of the trades have never worked more than a summer or two in a trade as a teen if that.

There’s also a LOT of unemployment in th building trades right now. The building trades are a leading indicator of where the economy is headed… lay offs in the building trades are part and parcel of the job BUT books in all the building trades are loading up. Damned hard to convince a kid to go into a trade when there ain’t a job for the kid…I know those if you without a clue what you’re talking about will come along with anecdotal stories about the plumber making $200k but here in the real world there’s a pile of plumbers currently out of work. We haven’t seen the numbers on the books like this since the late 1980s. It just nationwide and impacting every building trade.