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I started my career as a plumber (exterior - digging up water mains), and currently I am a corporate IT security engineer.
While the plumbing part was absolutely harder physically, the work was overall more enjoyable and much less stressful. I was outside a lot of the time, I got to play with heavy equipment, and most of the time there wasn’t much urgency to the tasks. I never stared at the ceiling at 2 am worrying what tomorrow would bring.
In corporate IT security? There are days I don’t leave my desk for 6-8 hours straight. I feel a constant need to be connected, and I’m always planning, strategizing and worrying about the next project.
Everyone talks about the sitting at the desk thing, which is an issue, but corporate life is also much more mentally taxing. And that crap adds up over 10-20 years.
There is something about manual labor that office workers cannot simply understand. Sure it’s hard and often times dangerous. But at the end of the day, you feel tired than drained.
Yeah, I miss that too. I had to get out because my body was beat up.
Or you just move into management. I still do some physical work, because I never want to be the boss who refuses to get his hands dirty, but most of my days are spent coordinating, tracking and problem-solving and also a fair amount of pointless paperwork.
I went the career firefighter route.
Pros: tons of time off, rewarding, never boring, great pay and benefits. Will actually be able to retire at 55.
Cons: pretty much guaranteed to get cancer and it’s not even the expected stuff from fires. The AFFF foam we used for years had PFAS – a carcinogen. Even better, it turns out even brand new, unused turnout gear is absolutely saturated in PFAS too.
Oh and stress, cumulative injuries, etc.
It’s like we made a bad deal with a devil.
Oh you want to be fireproof? Sure. Here’s the catch: cancer.
Look it’ s better than the old asbestos gear
I’m interested in STEM (I very much have an engineers brain) but I’d like to avoid the office lifestyle and constant stress that you mentioned. Do you have any recommendations about what I shoukd look into?
I work in municipal development and our civil engineers get to do a fair amount of site inspections.
As an engineer, you’re gonna be stressed a lot. But you have a wide range of what kind of stress you get and how much time you spend in an office. I’m industrial and I spend some days on my feet building shit, some days sitting in front of a spreadsheet until my soul hurts, and most days doing a bit of this and a bit of that with good balance of sitting and standing.
CNC machining and particularly programming. Be careful, there are lots of boring jobs out there (mostly labeled “operator”, and lower paid), but if you can get a programming position they’re pretty cushy. It’s in a shop, but also on a computer, since you have to set up the machine too (usually, again it depends on the company).
The thing I dislike about working an office job is that you will likely work for a corporation, so you get stuck in endless meetings about trying to meet unrealistic growth targets and that is absolutely draining.
Wow, seems life is easier with the job you wouldn’t expect it from, right?
Until your back and joints don’t work at 35, and you need to work for another 30 years.
This is complete nonsense.
They can also train to shoot brown people.
Military, police, or drug dealer?
is there a mix of all three? that’s what I’d choose
CIA
CIA
border patrol
Yeah, its an undercover cop
Drug dealing MP?
Everything I hear from Vets is that they also inhale lots of toxic fumes.
Excuse you! I stare at SQL all day tyvm!..
And SQL data is stored in tables so it’s basically just Excel
Nooo it’s different!
How often I end up pasting stuff into excel to help me organize data and figure out how I want it to look before writing a query is irrelevant!
SQL is just Excel with Friends.
And pivot tables connecting to a server database are basically SQL for idiots.
Heavy industry onsite engineer: I play both sides so I always come out on top!
*on the bottom
and? which one’s better?
Most of the time the 8 hour desk job pays more unfortunately. Unless you’re in a good steel workers union that is.
Statistically speaking, if you sit for 8h a day, you’re 50% more likely do die of everything. Sitting, staring at a screen is death, just a slow one.
I think toxic fumes might be worse
If your workplace has good safety standards it’s not as much of a problem these days, I’d rather wear a respirator at my job working with fumes and dust than sit at a desk all day and fuck my back and eyes up. Though I’m fucking my back up too probably, but if you don’t overwork yourself and use proper techniques even manual labor doesn’t have to be so bad for your body.
Oh most definitely, especially if you’re sitting in those fumes all day 🙃
Idk plumbers, electricians, contractors, etc make a lot around here. I’m sure they usually have business overhead that factors into their hourly rates (like $100+ an hour here in Seattle). Or if they work independently, they’d still need to pay taxes, insurance, health insurance, licensing, etc., but assuming they make $60/hr after all that, that’s pretty good.
I’m a contractor. I work in hospitals where it rains money. They charge $120 an hour for my services. By the time all the hands get in the pot, I get very close to $100 less per hour.
Both UA and IBEW have a higher pay scale than the Ironworkers local where I live.
For your health? Desk. I mean have you seen how some people look just into their 40s after spending a lifetime on a manual labor job?
For pay? Probably desk for the most part
For your mental health? Neither, gotta cut connections and live off the land
honestly that last part is kinda capitalist propaganda, the real solution is to unionize.
What do you mean by cutting off connections? To escape this hellhole we need connections more than ever, some people can manage to survive on their own off the land but humanity works better together. Our economies and societal structures are enforced by parasites but there are many people that want to build positive things.
I know electricians in their 60’s that are insanely fit. Like run up and down flights of stairs all day no issue fit. They take care of themselves and always have, and never stopped moving. I think manual labour with a proper diet and sleep schedule is one of the best things you can do for your body.
It’s also because a lot of blue-collar guys are heavy smokers and drinkers, which ages people fast. It’s not so much the work as it is the lifestyle. The work can cause injuries as well, but being injured isn’t the same thing as looking older than your years.
whichever has a union, so likely the manual labour.
Desk.
I get to see my kids.
Fresh air, free exercise, good union… Join us.
With inflation, you can do both!
sometimes you can do both at the same time, its more of a spectrum you see
addendum:
aw fuck i didnt see the title at first, sorry about that op… i had, at one place: abbrasive dust in some parts of the plant, corrosive fumes at others, a carcinogenic dust workstation with improper handling by one coworker, two lasers in another room… on some level it was nice to see all that i guess. but in retrospect i should have asked for home office instead of becoming the their girl for any job under the sun to keep shit running smoothly… how was your experience so far?
I smelled soil for hydrocarbons, so meh?
Be an industrial engineer you can do both
Work from home has made the staring at Excel thing much nicer than it was in the past. I’m in an IT role with no on call duties and I can wander around my house while on Zoom calls and no one notices. I can stream videos or podcasts on my home PC while doing my job. I consider myself pretty lucky.
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I’d rather excel and muscle degredation, but the trades is significantly easier to get into with less investment, well, monetary investment anyways, like the meme points out, you’re often trading the gradual health of your body for that money
Chefs can do both!!! chuckles… I’m in danger
