Any anons in the trades? Thoughts on your profession? What's good to get into?

Any anons in the trades? Thoughts on your profession? What's good to get into?

I am looking for a job and I would like a career in doing something real. Not interested in pushing paper.

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Have you tried applying for a Paper mill job?

I hear that pushing paper pays really good these days.

I fix air conditioners. I like it.

Please tell me more. I'm interested in it but I am not the most rugged person ever; I'd hate to get into a career that will kill me in less than 5 years. How many hours and how hard do you work, that sort of thing?

I have no idea what paper milling involves, so no I haven't.

>DO
Electrician, plumber, HVAC, diesel mechanic

>DON'T
welder, machinist, carpenter, laborer, brickie

Trust me, I've been in the shit. Many cool/useful trades make for low-paying assbusting careers with zero room for advancement. Stick to the first category for a job and learn the second category as a hobby.

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I'm a woodshop teacher and I make furniture in my spare time. Does that count?

I was thinking of welding so I appreciate the straight talk. If I wanted to go into HVAC what would be the best route? I was thinking of taking classes at the local community college. Should I am for a degree or certifications? Can I get on-the-job training as a person with zero experience?

Overhyped on this board unless you go into business for yourself. I would argue they are better than getting to debt for a non-professional degree.

Electrician is really the only sensible choice. Do your years in the field until you gain enough experience and respect so that when you eventually get tired of all the bullshit you'll meet, you can settle down as a plant manager or some other well looked upon position.

This
I'm an industrial electrician in a factory

What's the pay like and how many hours do you get?

I'm open to anything but idk if my math skills are sufficient for electrical. I can do practical stuff, algebra pisses me off though.

Welding is good. I don't know how it works in the U.S but from what I've seen you can make it pretty far within your line of it. And the money is good. Even for newcomers.

There should be some sort of trade school near you. Look into that and see which industries are paying and their outlook for the future. Plumbing and electrician are good because they arent going away anywhere soon. Anything like a plant manager fluctuates with the price of oil

Just an hour ago I received my rejection letter from the operating engineers union. I have 12 years experience working as a heavy equipment mechanic for the same employer, Journeyman papers as a tool and die maker which I did for a while, an associate degree in mechanical maintenance, a certificate from a well known heavy equipment school, and a Class A CDL. Also was willing to take a 17 dollar per hour pay cut to be an apprentice. I didn't qualify.

I googled trades and in Tucson at least, it seems the only trade school is the CC.

The pay is good. Entry level not that much, at least not here, thats where you get the hours. If you stick to it your salary will increase and now (at least for me) I'm allowed to be a lot more flexible with hours and practically make my own schedules. But if you prove your qualities people will always be more inclined to pay you more. Simple as that.

tucsonelectricaljatp.org/

First thing you can do is apply to the sheetmetal workers union and go through that whole rigamarole. They might not call back but it's worth a shot. There's also a bunch of independent HVAC contractors and it couldn't hurt to just call and email and apply to many as you can. They're everywhere, you see their vans everywhere, too, once you start noticing. Schooling might help your chances but it's still gonna be tough to start without experience. Do enough applying and you'll inevitably find places willing to train. Will probably be crappy at first but that's every trade. You might even end up learning welding there.

99.999% wrong, you are talking out of your ass, I'm living it

solid advice, get on the manager/foreman/superintendent track because you'll get sick of the grunt work, especially if you're on the heavy industrial side

operators have it made, it's not your qualifications, it's who you know

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>operators have it made, it's not your qualifications, it's who you know

Yep. Which is why unions can suck my fucking dick. And I say that as a union member. These apprenticeships are a fucking joke. They shouldn't have wasted my time with testing and interviews when they knew they were only hiring niggers, women, and family.

Just what I've heard from my friends who have worked with it for a while. Not a fact.
What in specific are you referring to. Why does it suck. Always seemed nice to me.

Oilfield. No experience needed to get started and 80k-100k. You could work your way up to 250k

Thanks, I will give this a shot.

Should I just get into the schooling now and apply later? Or should I wait to see what's required before I drop $$ tuition?

I've worked in IT for 15 years, but I'm becoming a welder now. Literally taking classes 8 hours every single day.

Best decision of my life. I get home and feel tired, but in a good way. I feel like I'm actually doing something with my life, which is great.

I feel ya, same bullshit happened to me with the Ironworkers.

Here non-union shops will pay $11-16 an hour for 'entry level' welders. With several years of experience and luck you can sometimes get $18-20. Working conditions vary but the benefits are usually shit, and you will never get a chance to climb the ladder. Not very lucrative when you factor in the cost of living, unless you're working insane overtime. If you are well certified and skilled you can work for one of these scab contractors that do plant maintenance and make mid 30s. Few people actually get a chance at this though. Then there's the unions, which usually have the best pay and benefits and training, but unions only accept a tiny minority of applicants. I happen to be part of that minority now but I've played the fab shop game for years. The welders that actually make decent money are either in rare positions, or they're working 70+ hours a week. Or they are experienced with a million other skills in addition to welding. I'm in the midwestern US, mind you.

First apply to as many places as you can and see if someone will give you a shot. Experience always trumps schooling and applying costs you nothing. You can always drop the dough on trade school but you can't get that money back.

I'm an apprentice refrigeration tech. Make 21/hour. Pretty good gig except for the on-call.

> $11-16 an hour
> entry level

That's just retarded. Around these parts I think entry level welders make something around $25-30, normal work weeks, and it only goes up with the years you put into it.

Yeah, I've worked with guys near retirement who shit more skill than I have and they couldn't have been making more than 30. I've been at places that make shit for Rolls Royce, fancy medical technology, and major names in aerospace and you'll be lucky to get 20 if you're an ace. One company in particular, at one time, made shit for NASA. Some of it is sitting on the moon to this day. But the peanuts they were paying were still too high, so they outsourced a bunch of the manufacturing to Japan, Mexico, etc. Whoops, buncha those cheap parts came back fucked up, whoops there goes that Lockheed contract, whoops there goes another one, whoops we're losing money...

Now that I'm in the union I'll be at $46+ in 3 or 4 years, but that is uncommon for most parts of the country. Particularly bad in the southern states.

NDT - nothing done today, nothing done tomorrow. easiest trade ever.

Dont do it. The government is waging war on us. Its a saturated market woven on favors and generational success. You sit around alot watching other people make 100k a year without fail

That sounds like graduate stuff. I want a job where I work with my hands.

I was thinking about going into woodworking, how is it?

I thought about the same thing but losing fingers is like a rite of passage.

Not actually in a trade myself, but work around a lot of them. I live and work in the Chicago area, which is basically the mecca of union trade work, to the extent that it's actually pretty annoying sometimes. From what I know, laborers are always look for people, so if you've got no other choice, there's that. I think carpenters are always looking for people too.

At least around here to even get into electricians you need to know someone, not sure about plumber. HVAC is pretty easy to get into, but a lot of the ones around here are sheet metal workers.


A lot of it depends on where you live, I'm pretty sure where I'm at is either top 1 or 2 in the country for making money in trades.

Electronics here. Useful skill and plenty of opportunities, requires much math and a logical thought process. Highly recommend

highs and lows, strikes and gutters. The shittiest thing about carpentry is you have to be very precise, especially when it come to finish work. If you want to work in something where there is more tolerance when it comes to measurements go into plumbing or electrical. If your good at math and are naturally strong or go to the gym, become a pipe fitter.

I'm a site manager for Persimmon homes, my old man was a builder as was his father. Not the most well respected trade but the money's certainly better than most.

I build log cabins in the middle of nowhere for a redneck dickhead.
One time I broke my wrist using the half inch drill because of him fucking something up and he went on one of his tirades about "millennials."
One thing that soyboys don't realize about the "trades" is that you WILL fuck your body up. They give you the ideology of being a hard-working red-blooded MAN and leave out all the details about being a permanent resident of snap city. Also most of your co-workers will be legit retards.
Do yourself a favor and go to college.

Can you paint?

Doing the same thing in east Tennessee except my boss is a pretty cool dude. We listen to Fash the Nation every Monday and his political solution to everything is to send the democrats to Haiti. Chinking is probably the shittiest/least fun part of the job.

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I've never done it but I am sure I could

>One thing that soyboys don't realize about the "trades" is that you WILL fuck your body up.
>If your good at math and are naturally strong or go to the gym, become a pipe fitter.

Truth is I am not a big guy at all, 5' 11" and 140lbs so I basically cannot do super heavy labor. I'm willing to work long hours though. Maybe electrician is more my speed.

That shit is full of woodworm.

Electrical work is fun and requires big brains. Go for it brother. If you're int he north, join a union. If you're in the south, call local electrical contractors and tell them you want to apprentice for them.

Electrician is not a bad career.
If you aren't a big guy then stay the fuck out of construction, carpentry, masonry, et cetera. You do not want to be handling the big boy power tools at 140 lbs.

Those were the logs we had to buy from some dude down the road just to fill a space in the wall. The place I'm working on now isn't even the cabin we are going to start building again in April. The place I'm at now was just to keep us busy and we more or less renovated the entire house. Some of the logs we have for the big cabin are three feet tall, 25 feet long, and 8"-10" thick.

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Nah you'll still be alright, I started at 17 and I must have been about 120lbs. You'll build up the weight over time anyway and most of the lads on site shouldn't give you too much shit. Although if you're on pay for lay you're probably not going to make much.

install HVAC, learn a little bit of everything. plumbing,soldering,brazing, high voltage, low voltage electrical, sheet metal and black iron work.
days go by fast. usually busy year round. sometimes it sucks working in the heat sometimes it sucks working in the cold. but full filling.

I tig weld sheet metal for a private company, if you want to go HVAC its better to learn the press break and go into sheet metal union pays a lot better and it spares your lungs

I went to culinary through my local vocational school, and I got a pretty cushy gig. If you're looking for something easy that pays well and gets you pussy, I'd recommend it

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idk man I watch Kitchen Nightmares and that sort of work looks fucking terrible

Kind of envy mechanics.

Trucker here. I've been off for a few months and don't plan on going back to it. Sick of it, did it for many years. Gonna start applying to be a plumber and see if someone will take me on as an apprentice. I've replumbed my entire home and am used to the DWV concepts from my years in the oil patch. Am I making a good switch?

I agree with this.
>electrician
Yes
>welder
Can be a good job. I met a friend down south who had a cake welding job. Worked on some of the baddest cars and got paid good and had plenty of work lined up. You gotta be good at what you do and you'll have work.

Don't do something you enjoy rather to do as a hobby instead, or you'll begin to hate it. He left it for diesel.
>carpenter
Definitely don't. Housing is a bubble. Do restoration instead. Finish work, installing cabinets. That's a good gig if you have the right guys. I was a carpenter and it was rewarding, even if you're just framing. I happened to not find one contractor that wasn't a total asshole though.
>diesel mechanic
Good option. Diesel has come far. Find the right shop and you're good.

I would say truck driving is another good one. If you don't mind being away from home for all but 2 days a week. Six figures can happen. Get in before driverless trucks steal yer jerbs.
I'm in intermodal. Shipping freight, lumber, forklifts, etc. Always have work because shipping doesn't stop as long as the world is turning. The only trouble is if you're not a higher-level logistics manager type position you have a pay ceiling where you don't go any further. Grunts/pickers/laborers get shit but you have to start somewhere.

Cooking is a hobby of mine but I never considered doing it professionally. I've actually heard the opposite of what you are saying, that's it's very stressful and the pay is shit, even with experience.

What's the best trade to waste my GI Bill on that will allow me to continue to be a lazy piece of shit but maybe work a few days a week or just have a really easy job?

What about plumbing? Is that good, is it fume heavy?

>If you don't mind being away from home for all but 2 days a week

2 days off at home and 5 on the road doesn't sound like a bad deal. I've always wanted to drive truck but would not want to be one of these guys who is away for weeks at a time.

Maybe you should just work part-time at McDonalds

I’ve been plumbing for 5 years now. 4 in commercial and 1 in service. Service is where the money is at. It’s fairly easy if you have common sense, you’re not at the same job site everyday unless you are doing a repipe, meet new people, get to know your city due to the excessive amount of driving and you get to help people in a way. If you decide to do plumbing get ready to dig your ass off. Hopefully you get a good journeyman who will teach you things. Fuck college, do a trade so you can earn while you learn.

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I install sprinkler systems. Both fire and residential.

I like it. I get paid well and I don't have to work alongside faggots in pastel polos and loafers.

How often do you have to wedge yourself into a crawlspace filled with unspeakable nastiness and spiderwebs? That shit creeps me out.

I'm going into plumbing, but is it true that there's a lot of fumes?
I heard plumbing's basically a well paid manual labor is that true?

I still have two years of getting paid to go to college to do, I may as well find something slightly above McDonald's tier.

Fairly often. I’m in AZ so there aren’t a lot of crawl spaces but I’ve been in a few. You get used to the roaches/spiders/scorpions. Just go in with your torch and light them up.

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For commercial it’s true. There are fumes from the glue and solder. Just wear a respirator mask if you’re concerned. I’m more concerned about concrete/asbestos pipe dust.

>You get used to the roaches/spiders/scorpions.
Yeah, no, fuck that. I'll work 10 hours a day but I don't want to fuck around with bugs.

Carpenter here. Been doing it since 2000. Everything from foundation work to finish work. Pay has been off and on good. However, my wife kid and I live in he country. I am able to build whatever we need. I’ve recently set up a furniture shop. I’m not focused on career as much as gaining skills that will help me in the inevitable collapse.

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Like I said, service plumbing is where the money is at. Commercial is fun and good to learn but it’s all about selling water softeners and hydro netting’s. Full house repipes of sewer or water is more labor intensive but worth the money.

Depends on your region, what's moving where. You can find good loads and routes. It's stressful if you're an owner-operator though. You can find a good smaller company but e-logs are killing the job for most guys.

go in butchery and charcuterie

>Thoughts

No dignity to it unless you're working for a town/region/city/state you identify with and care about. If not, you're just slave labor with pretense.

This.
So much this

Does the skill transfer?
I thought doing houses and businesses were the same thing but on larger/smaller scale

Jettings*

Really, all the money an benefits in the world don’t amount to shit of you don’t love what you do. Get into something that will help you build real skills outside the job force. Build, farm, fix things, sharpen tools. You will thank me when the an old fuck that can fix anything.

I’m a sider and framer. Making a decent living. Keeps me fit and strong. Get to be racist all day and be a manly man in a mans job. Would recommend if you aren’t afraid of work and are reasonably broght

It transfers fairly well. If you can do the big shit the small shit will come easily. It will not teach you how to diagnose a water heater or fix a faucet or how to properly use a Wisconsin fitting.

Where are you? In Texas construction jobs are everywhere. In DFW general contractors really need more guys doing bricks and tile. Demand is crazy at the moment. Learn either of these and you will never go hungry.

I agree with this 100%. I took a break from plumbing to try a more white collar job. I survived a year and a half and went back to what I know and love. Want to open up my own shop soon and have others make the money for me.

i work in stone masonry
can recommend

Become an electrician. Get paid real well to pull your wire all day.

Sounds like youre in the dc area lol

I do custom sheet metal fabrication. It's pretty fun. I used to do slate, copper and tile roofs. Slate roofs can be taxing but it's rewarding if you work for someone who knows what they are doing.

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Doesnt it seem more intelligent to become a neet? Welfare? Food stamps?

White men are literally working and building for their own replacement. Society already is hostile against you so why help the progression?

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Auto Mechanic. Good gig. Just find the shops that aren't run by a bunch of illegals.

Appliance repairman. Each call are min of $130, 50% of the time it's a fridge with a broken compressor that costs the price of a new fridge, so they don't repair. Rest of the time it's a small part that only the trade has access to, and may take as little as 10mins to replace. You may get expensive appliance worth repairing that may take some time, at $50 an hour, and most of that time is driving to the part supplier and back. No heavy lifting, no danger.

>machinist

I disagree

I'm pretty new to it, so I'm not really making bank, but there are guys in my shop 10 years in making 100k

it's all about how indispensable you make yourself in the shop, learn anything and everything and you'll be worth your weight in gold

Industrial electrician...Huge shortage

Only do commercial trades.. otherwise you get pleb coin. In Aus.. commercial carpenters/plasterers make over 130k pa. the works probably the hardest besides form workers/ concreters .
Electrician is decent too, money is about the same. But everyone hates you.
Also plastering/carpentry companies make the most on jobs. So if You eventually want to make you're own business, then it's the logical choice.

I was a woodworker. No, that's not a fluffer on a porn site.

I made custom cabinets and did finish carpentry. I milled raw lumber down to furniture in some cases.

Most enjoyable job I ever had.

i got a degree in math and was involved with research for a number of years. finally left academia.

got a job as a landscaper (hardscape) because there doesn't seem to be anyone hiring for data analytics or something similar. it really changed my perspective and i didnt realize how much i'd like it. it's great being out in the harsh elements doing arduous physical work. im in the best shape of my life right now because of this job. pay is pretty decent too. been thinking about going to a technical school and doing an apprenticeship.

trades are where its at if you're a more traditional man. there's no women like ever and its awesome. we make sexist and racist jokes all day and nobody bats an eye or threatens to ruin your livelihood. don't have to be aware of every little fucking thing i say or do.

Id say both of these anons are right. If you work at a mill, you'll have pretty steady pay and bennies and room for advancement. If you do more independent work, the pay isn't as steady but if you work hard you can potentially build a company on your own and sell it years down the line for mad cash. Really just depends on your goals and they aren't mutually exclusive.

I do like the idea of working away from women if only because they're such a distraction. Why I got zero work done in highschool, with all those pretty panties running around. I tell you, desegregated education was a mistake.

Nothing better than the smell of sawdust.

So you're saying (((they))) literally forced everyone who doesn't agree with them into trade and service jobs, while they're in academia and government and entertainment?

Framed for a bit, got bored, and also because we have shitty weather. Now I have a bunch of forklift certifications and I'm looking to get into heavy equipment (specifically want to run excavators, will do cranes as well) as funding for my entrepreneuring.

Keep working hard white man.

Good Goy.

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Where's that picture where some rabbi said goys will work while they will eat

I work as a woodsman and it is great, the pay is not great because of where I live but I enjoy the job.

Jews gonna jew. Don't worry, it just means that when the pendulum swings back to the right, that many more men will be able-bodied and resolute.

Except they control your paycheck and resources, and all it takes for all that fitness to disappear is literally a month of inactivity.