this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I want solid data to back up your bull
Getting a college degree is one of the best investments you can make even if you pick the lowest on return on investment degrees. Go check the billion department of labor studies on this.
Manual trades mean back problems at 40. It's strictly better than unskilled labor in terms of salary but it ain't going to last.
I don't need to hangout by fucking farms. I can got to the store thank you, like a normal person. Have fun cosplaying as a hippie on some hobby farm.
Anecdotal, but my brother does tree maintenance. His minimum callout fee for a day's work is $2,000. And he often earns more than double that for one day's work. He does have relatively high costs, but his income is way better than what I earn writing code.
We're both at the stage in our career where it's time to stop being an employee and start running our own company and believe me, his company is more successful than mine. Early days still but my money's on him earning seven figures per year very soon.
He's so much more successful than that if my business fails, there's a good chance I will end up working for him. I'd be on minimum wage for several years while I learn the trade but I think it might be worth it long term and I can eventually pull my connections (the boss being my brother) and get promoted to being a manager with a cushy job driving a company car between job sites.
Sounds about right.
Tree work is dangerous, be careful with yourself. There's a tiny, tiny voice that warns you when you're about to do something dumb. It only sounds for a second, small and faint, and then it disappears. Learn to seize and amplify it, come to a complete stop and listen, and then adjust what you're doing, instead of continuing on "it'll probably be fine."
Oh I know that voice!
It was the one that told me to "stop torquing now!" When I ended up breaking a crossed bolt off in an awkward blind spot on the side of my engine....so now the VTT solenoid is held in by a little epoxy. Because otherwise the engine would have to be removed and a machinist would likely need to just destroy and rethread that thing.
Oh, the shame...
No I'm not a mechanic, I'm just not "pay a mechanic $600 to install a $40 part" rich. :D
But this is exactly why I won't get into something like electricianship or other dangerous stuff. ADHD sometimes just squelches that little voice and I'm left asking myself why I did something so stupid and wishing I could go back 10 seconds.
If the consequences were life or death? Yeah no way I don't need a sudden brain-lapse killing/maiming me or someone else.
I am mostly talking about the future. My feeling is that climate change is going to fuck up the world in a big way, and AI is going to fuck up pure-mental-computational labor as a reliable meal ticket in a big way. Neither of those are coming in the next year or two, but they're also not like 50 years from now either. You may feel differently but that is my prediction.
As of right now, the data is:
Skilled trades, $87k - $151k
Computer programmer Austin TX, $69k - $123k I picked those more or less at random. I'm aware that senior software engineers may make more depending on area or depending on advancing into a lead role. On the other hand, many other college-dependent fields probably make less than software engineers. Tradies may make more by opening their own company. It's hard to compare. But more my point was that going into someone's house and fixing their wires is likely to remain a lot more viable than programming a web site or doing admin for a doctor's office, in the long term, starting from today and planning for what you'll be doing to have a good life in 2064.
I hope you are right and stores are still operating and there is still food enough for everybody and finances are the main concern. I do not think that is going to be accurate 20-30 years from now though. Again that's more where I'm coming from with this, as opposed to talking about what would have been a good plan 20 years ago and landing in late adulthood right now and thinking through your retirement going forward.
That's where glassdoor is misleading. The best tradies are not employees - they do contract work and you might, for example, charge a thousand bucks to fix a shop's broken window. And it might only be one hour of work.