This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters.
Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got near the end. Luckily the bosses were pretty cool and provided them with decent food for lunch and plenty of drinks (but I still offered them food and drinks too).
I on the other hand was working at my desk in my air conditioned house in comfortable clothes. A few times a day I'd put on my flip-flops and wander around outside to check on their work, ask a few questions, and then head back in when it got too hot.
And a couple of times the plumbing sprung a leak just as they were getting ready to leave, despite their best efforts to get all the risky work done early, and they they had to stay super late. Once the plumber was here till midnight after arriving at 8am.
I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then you have the rest of the day off. But no more. I'd much rather work at my comfy desk inside and deal with the occasional call at 9pm on a Saturday than deal with what they all went through.
There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.
Yes, there are almost always jobs with less strenuous requirements on time, fewer requirements and late nights. But the average tech worker has a pretty good gig. And if they don't they can go down the street in 2022 and get one.
Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways - you're working with a set of tools and generally always building or working on the same projects. Yes, it's tactile, it gets you something palpable in the end. Yes, like software development you get that dopamine hit when you've built something nice. But there are late nights, big jobs that go too long, crappy coworkers and clients, because ... it's a professional job.
Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?
It’s only condescending, because you’re assuming a social hierarchy where software development is more prestigious or desirable than one of the trades and that physical labor is harder than non-physical labor. The implication then is that a software developer wishing to become a plumber is ungrateful for their “better” job and naive for wanting a “harder” and “worse” job mistakingly believing it to be easier.
Would you feel the same way about a plumber wishing for the job software developer? Would you call out a plumber for being condescending in wishing for the “easy” job of a software developer?
The more accurate interpretation is that all people have frustration with their job and start to imagine an alternative that would eliminate the frustrations.
> It’s only condescending, because you’re assuming a social hierarchy where software development is more prestigious or desirable than one of the trades and that physical labor is harder than non-physical labor.
I'm very confused by this because I'm arguing the exact opposite: that people in tech romanticize these "simple" trades of the people.
> Would you call out a plumber for being condescending in wishing for the “easy” job of a software developer?
Absolutely. If they treated it like something you can just step down into without putting in the work, which is precisely how it's positioned when devs daydream about it.
> I'm very confused by this because I'm arguing the exact opposite: that people in tech romanticize these "simple" trades of the people.
I live in a climate where normal (I.e. not extreme) temp fluctuates between -25C and +30C. You can add 5-10C to either end for the above/below average days. There is absolutely nothing romantic or glamorous about working outside in those temps. This “romanticism” you speak of, while very real, often comes from a place of ignorance and inexperience. I’ve done enough physical labour in my time in reasonable weather than I see no reason for me ever want to make a career out of it. Similar goes for interior work, I’ve done the “good” and “mediocre” jobs as DIY enough to know I would not want to do it for a living.
Your overly focused on the perception that any job is simple. What’s really going on is people see the stress and difficulty of their current job and underestimate other jobs. It’s not condescending, it’s just self focused and naive.
I am pointing this out because by understanding why people actually complain it will deepen empathy for the complaining person and also avoid creating a pseudo classist framing of the situation which is actually not only inaccurate but harmful for understanding the people involved.
> I am pointing this out because by understanding why people actually complain it will deepen empathy for the complaining person and also avoid creating a pseudo classist framing of the situation which is actually not only inaccurate but harmful for understanding the people involved.
You misinterpreted my original point and when I attempted to clarify you're now telling me what I'm "too focused on," as if I don't understand that all people have stress.
So I'm finding this reply a bit ironic. Maybe it's supposed to be and I'm just not picking up on the bit.
You ascribed some malice to my original post that wasn't there and are now doubling down. Why?
To be honest yes I would consider it a little condescending. No doubt they would be similarly creating a utopian vision of what our jobs entail and come at it from the angle of “boy wish I could just sit around all day doing nothing”
> There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.
Agreed. SO recently left a career in academia to get a job in tech as an entry level software developer. Says this is the easiest job they've ever had in their life, and wondered why they didn't start sooner.
Developers have no idea how difficult even other white collar jobs are, let alone blue collar work that involves physical labor and the outdoors.
Will have to third this. I have friends and acquaintances I talk to regularly from all walks of life - from construction workers to tradesmen/mechanics, all the way to bankers and the like.
Out of all of them, I have the "best" job in terms of what's expected of me on a day-in-day-out basis. The biggest problem I feel us tech-workers have is that we compare our "bad" with their "good".
On a good day, a construction worker may get there, do their work for the amount of hours stipulated, and leave the work at work. That's our perspective. What we do not often see is the time they spend worrying about the weather conditions (if you're painting outside, can't do it in the rain), or whether this or that material will be on time/to spec, or that you sprained something yesterday and you really need to haul heavy stuff around today, and it cannot be delayed because people are relying on it being done, and this might mean your injury will worsen and you might not be able to work for a while.
We can get bad days. And our bad days can get pretty shitty. I won't begrudge anyone who'd love to leave the tech sector; I've often thought about it myself. But from hearing my friends in other professions talk about their bad days? Mine don't occur so often, and when they do, are often not as bad.
It's very difficult to deny our privilege when we talk to someone who works all day in the searing heat, and our day consisted of turning on our laptop at 11, running some Terraform scripts, making it to our favourite restaurant for sushi, enjoying an extended lunch while monitoring some deployments on our work tablet, and having a meeting while walking on a nearby park to negotiate internal deadlines. I've often been embarrassed to describe my day to some of my friends.
> I've often been embarrassed to describe my day to some of my friends.
Nearly every bad day at work I had ended with beers + sometimes a huge (and expensive) party. This is lifestyle comparable to high-level directors in other fields. No wonder it's totally unrelatable experience to them - they usually find the boss of their company relatable too.
For a couple of years I worked at a rental shop at night and on weekends after my full-time IT job. It was the best thing ever because I got the feeling of actually getting something done, even if it was repetitive work. Not using my brain and not worrying about anything was nice.
I also temporarily quit my IT job because I felt burned, got a job cleaning floors and washing clothes. Again I loved the work.
If it weren't for the pay I wouldn't work in this field. I'm hoping to quit for good in a few years, switching careers doesn't make much sense at this point.
It may be easy for some but lots of people try a coding boot camp and realize it’s hard and they hate every moment of it.
My father was a corporate finance executive for 25 years. He hated the political drama, attention to detail, mundane routine, long hours and being indoors all day. He quit and started roofing. And loved being outside.
> There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.
I worked with the county doing road construction and logging for seven years, then was a teacher for a couple years after that. Now I work at a cushy FAANG job.
I still miss both of my previous jobs often. Construction wasn't super meaningful, but there was a focus on making quality artifacts that isn't really the same in software. (Software is too complex, too large, and has too many constraints.) Working with physical implements is nice. I miss knowing the weather more intimately, and being physically exhausted at the end of the day.
Teaching was very meaningful, but emotionally exhausting. If the pay hadn't been terrible and if I had found a supportive administration, I'd probably be happier teaching. I miss working with children, being a part of a community.
Having worked these sort of jobs and having enjoyed them, I don't think it's condescending at all. I think there may be a bit of ignorance there. If you didn't grow up doing physical labor (I grew up on a farm) then you likely will have a hard time adapting to physical exertion/pain. And you have to recognize that you'll likely encounter physical injuries, especially later in your career. (In my shortish stint, I managed to injure my shoulder, and it still affects me). But if SWEs still like the idea, then they should give it a shot for a year. Software will still be there.
The tools might work. But then you discover the plumber from 20 years ago did something crazy. Or the wiring makes a left turn in the space between 1st and 2nd floor for some reason. Thee dimmer switch that was $15 and should have taken 10 min to install actually does not have enough clearance behind it because a drain pipe is there, and so you need a special smaller size electrical box or you need to cut holes in the wall. Etc, etc.
Seriously. I bought a house to renovate and the painting turned into a drywall refactoring thanks to the chemical peel used by the previous owners…I fixed up one bathroom that actually needs a tear out just to make a deadline for move in…bath tear out was pushed out to the next major update planned…
Looking at all the documented (not that many) large GDPR fines, I haven't noticed any that are the result of a company (much less a developer) accidentally 'fucking up' - they are all the result of an intentional policy or an unethical management decision intentionally screwing people.
If you simply fuck up during your development, the most you'll get in practice is a letter from the regulator requiring you to change the fucked up thing; Fines arrive when management refuses to change the fucked up thing and tries to invent a loophole instead.
I had a manager who once abandoned software engineering to become a jeweler. There’s definitely a patronizing romanticizing of the trades in threads like this, but the yearning to switch to physical work doesn’t have to be fulfilled only by plumber/carpenter/electrician roles mentioned here. There are plenty of other jobs that require more physical work, from aestheticians to dentistry.
No doubt. I think that sitting in room all days drags on some people the way climbing up a pole with equipment all day might drag on another.
And sometimes you just want something radically different. But don't pretend it's simple enough that we - the brilliant computer and maths people - could easily just start doing it. I think that's where the patronizing comes in. Any professional job requires training and experience.
Sure, but the point still stands is that people seem to be yearning for an alternative to computer-only work, and there are perhaps more feasible alternatives out there to the Office Space ending ideal.
As far as training goes- software engineering doesn’t seem particularly rigorous in providing it compared to other disciplines.
I think it's a manifestation of the inherent feeling that many of us developers are doing something mostly useless compared to others. We know that the world could be different and we could be working jobs that are physically and/or mentally difficult but also fair and useful. Ursula K. Le Guin puts it thus, from her novel "This Dispossessed":
"A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as a whole."
"Half of my software budget is wasted, I just don't know which half."
I suppose there's a sense in the trades that you know somebody wants something before you do it, because they've asked for it. And you can usually see where it fits into the bigger picture because the interconnected pieces are visually and physically connected.
I get a similar satisfaction from being a part time musician. When I show up to play music, it's because somebody has hired me to play music, and within the band there's a specific part that's filled by my work. I also know the quality of my own work instantly as I do it. I love music as an art, but on the bandstand, I'm a tradesman first and an artist second.
Working in a tech field, it can be hard to know if what you're making is ever going to matter to anybody, and it's possible to do negative work in the sense of costing more than what it returns. That can be frustrating.
A similar idea was expressed by Marx, who referred to it as estranged labour. Forgive the lengthy quote:
> the object which labor produces – labor's product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labor. Labor’s realization is its objectification. Under these economic conditions this realization of labor appears as loss of realization for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage to it; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation.
> [...]
> the worker is related to the product of labor as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself – his inner world – becomes, the less belongs to him as his own.
Very ironic that the USSR ended up forcing most people into state-chosen jobs. I think it's nice to think of some ideal future where everyone works on what they want to work on but society needs people to do the dirty work that nobody wants to do. Janitor, garbageman, sewer maintenance, warehouse worker, etc. A lot of Marx's ideas are just ideas, not anything that could ever be realized in the real world.
In said hypothetical world, the crappy jobs would come with the highest prestige, because nobody would want to do them, so the payoff would need to be something other than reducing the risk of starvation.
I can't understand that one. Software fascinates me since I was a child by how universally useful it is. Even for the more manual stuff, computer is still a hyper-useful tool.
I think it's much, much more common in the world of software to build things that either no one uses, or fades out pretty quickly.
There's a world of difference between taking a week to ship a new button to Chrome at Google (low impact, but at least high visibility) and creating a project from scratch over the course of months for it to be killed off by or not work out for the stakeholders (no impact AND no/low visibility). This happens with most projects.
On the other hand, building or fixing something physical you know that at least you're solving a real problem for someone, and it will probably last them a while.
Software is constantly churning and evolving precisely because such evolutions are not limited by tools, materials, or constraints of the physical world. Way better for creativity, but rarely leaves us devs feeling proud of the work we've done
Carpentry is useful, but if you are spending months making a small part you think no one uses or cares about for a lot of money, you might feel useless.
The Dispossessed was a fantastic book but you're taking away the wrong thing if you're using Anarresti propaganda to sum up the work. The full title of the book is "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" and Anarres has many problems.
Frankly, I hold a few roles and have for years. Some of those involve flat out making stuff, wielding tools, taking a shower at the end of the day type stuff. Others are business, development, some engineering electronics, software.
For me, the variety is good, and it reflects how I came up in rural America, where basically you learned how to fix your own car, help on the farm, do what it takes because few had the money to spend to solve problems. And no judgement on those who have that. I have that today. It's just that I didn't then, and the skills came along with the scene.
I'm writing this because there are plenty of times where I look for something I'm not currently doing, or involved with. The reasons vary too:
Less stress
More structure
Right now: less liability / risk though I expect a reward for that happening
More people
Less people
No people.
Any of us, whether we are in construction, software, electronics, plumbing, mechanics, all reach a point where we can nail it. If we are lucky, we are exposed to a few different disciplines and can reach that point a few times in our lives.
If anything, I would call said "pining" boredom, or seeking perspective of some kind, just a change up, if nothing else.
Personally, I feel that is OK, and encourage it in my peers, help them where I can.
Stretch a little. Feels good sometimes. Sometimes it's regrettable too.
Ah yes, the common misconception that trades are simplistic!
Most trades (!including plumbing!) have VASTLY more stringent requirements than tech, are often more mentally stimulating, and yes, quite rewarding.
Disclaimer: I've worked in software for ~9 years and worked in trades before that. ASE master certified auto technician, father is a master electrician, uncles are contractors. I'll probably become a plumber.
I don't see why it's condescending. If you have worked in tech your entire life, in an office in front of a computer then it's completely okay IMO to wonder what it would be like working a trade.
For instance, my entire family works in mining, some riggers, some electricians and others environmental surveying. I am the only one that works in front of a computer all day. When they get home from work, that's it they switch off, no emails, no calls, no reports to write late at night due to a delayed project. Their work shifts to another group of employees to continue or finish. They come home tired and sleep way better than I do.
I think about it all the time and what it would be like to work with my hands in a trade, sure we all work late sometimes and that's not industry specific. But its the feeling of working in a field with your hands as opposed to your words.
It's also easy for tradesman to look at what we do and think its easy too. But at the end of the day there's no perfect job and some appeal better to others.
Sometimes I consider going back to the trades (I have enough experience I could easily do so), but no way would I want to be a flagger. The boredom would kill me by noon the first day.
A couple issues I see. The extremely abstract nature of software can make progress sometimes seem very ephemeral, and make those dopamine hits hard to find. Ever spend a week or two on a bug going in circles with no progress? It's maddening, can seriously impact stress levels and sleep, and be very bad for your health. I think this is why some opine for a job where you step back at the end of the day and marvel at the work you did in the physical world. I personally know I get a great satisfaction when I complete a project around my house, and it's a very different feeling from when a unit test finally passes.
Then there's also the problem of not using your body. Up until extremely recently in evolutionary history, we used our bodies and brains together. It turns out office work can be just as bad for your body as swinging a hammer or welding pipes due to inactivity. It's really a dehumanizing way to live. Certainly you can try to balance the scales by hitting the gym after work, but it can be a struggle when you're fried from the day.
Through attrition and universities pumping out CS degrees as fast as they can since the early 90's, at any given point almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to use democracy to get anything 'good' done. Either this hasn't changed much over that interval or the people who are fond of pointing this out aren't tracking statistics. Whether it's actually true or only somewhat true, I think we deal with the consequences all the time.
What I can say is have more hobbies, and perhaps we (those who care) should be working to differentiate a genre (vertical, size, location, something) as being better, so it feels like less of a game of chance every time people are looking for 'better'.
>> .. at any given point almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to use democracy to get anything 'good' done.
This is really a problem, there's inherent value in egalitarianism or democracy, but perhaps due to a lack of deeply technical managers it often plays as you say hard to get anything good done due to bike-shedding and not being led by experience.
As someone who does/did tech jobs and manual jobs, i think it all depends. I know some people in tech who get paid insane amounts of money to sit at a desk and pretend to do something, and some of these people would not last an hour in a manual job. But i also know some developers/artists in tech industry who work 60h weeks to be paid under 2K€/mo and are on the verge of burnout, and these people would probably be very happy to find any better job, whether in tech industry or not.
I think your experience of tech workers is not representative of the tech industry in general: for every high-paid IT person, there's 2 or 3 (maybe 50?) who're getting paid peanuts and have very indecent working conditions, and i personally find it somewhat condescending to suggest it's just an isolated incident and it's so easy to just walk down the street to find better work conditions.
In fact, that very sentence was pronounced by our slaver-in-chief Emmanuel Macron and was widely derided as condescending. It's hard for people to find a job, especially if you don't have high connections. It's even harder to find a decent job: to find a quasi-slavery posting you can just walk down to any luxurious restaurant/hotel but to find lawful/respectful working conditions, i still don't know of a magic formula.
One of my really good friends dropped out of his chemical engineering degree in the last semester to be a landscape gardener, and seems to enjoy it much more. It's been nearly a decade so far. He hasn't gone back.
The tech meme of dropping out to pick up a trade is pretty funny at times, especially when it's coming from people who couldn't change a doorknob, but I don't think jobs are one-size-fits-all, and I do think some people would be happier with a job that requires doing hard work outside.
I’m a constant “I’m gonna quit this shit and go farm alfalfa” comic. Not unique, but I grew up in the trades working with family.
The biggest thing that jumps out to me about programming vs my father’s work is the agency. He goes into a home, diagnoses, and fixes an issue. No MBA / PM / Scrum Bags to needlessly insert themselves into a process and cause issues. Contrasted with most jobs where I get delivered a small chunk of an issue (as a Senior / Lead) which robs me of my agency as a professional and often time just leads to more delays and defects driven by a lack of a coherent vision passed down. Rather abstract, but infuriating when I damn well know I could have delivered higher-quality and ahead of schedule. Providing “Commander’s Intent” is a very real necessity.
I don’t know that tangible vs. intangible is a factor, for me at least, making web / mobile oriented systems. Hell, even a really good shell script to codify a workflow for coworkers is insanely satisfying.
Other than that, human interaction. Having a human be genuinely satisfied that you helped them with their issue they couldn’t have solved... that’s rewarding at a level rarely ever get.
The big offer is comfort (both in workplace and in salary) is the primary offer - perhaps to many friction is the spice of life.
You can get more of the agency you describe as an independent contractor working on smaller projects, or in early stage startups. There's nobody breathing over your shoulder, just a "give me an estimate, let me know when you think you can get it done" sorta deal. I do enjoy that work better, but it's not as consistent.
The scrum-driven, jira-driven "small chunk" style of development is kinda depressing to me. It wasn't always like this, and there's so many new folks in tech many don't remember it used to be different.
People inevitably develop unreasonable fantasies of what life could be in a field / relationship / situation far from their own. I feel you're being a bit unnecessarily cynical about how bad this kind of daydreaming is.
Yes, if you were an actual plumber who spent half a day tugging diapers out of a 2 inch pipe, and some dumbass hipster you run into later tells you how glamorous your job is, that might be a bit annoying. But people in all sorts of fields experience that annoyance to some degree.
Anecdotally, I have two friends I went to college with who daydreamed about quitting their desk jobs and working a trade. One of them, I worked with on construction crews during school breaks, and he'd talk about how much he preferred that to college. He ended up in an office job anyway.
The other guy didn't have that trade experience, he just felt he'd like it better. He did some white collar work after graduation, hated it. Later he went on to work in a couple trades until finding one that fit; he went through a very extensive licensing process, and now makes good money and spends very little time behind a desk. And he's very happy with that -- so it does work out for some people.
> Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?
No, it's such a cliche that's why Office Space chose to use it.
The movie Lost in America explores this theme much more generally.
The funniest thing about the end of Office Space is that by "dropping out" of software during the Y2k era and entering the construction field, the protagonist is just swapping one bubble for another, software for housing.
The alternate ending changes the tenor of the entire film with just one line of dialogue. Peter is probably dissatisfied on a deeper level than any job could fix. Maybe he would find meaning as an entrepreneur or travelling or dropping out...
I think it is more than just condescension. In job's like plumbing or carpentry, it is much easier to ascertain when your work is done and if it is good. The workmen on a house remodel have a fixed(ish) scope and at the end of the day the homeowner is either happy with the work or not. The outcomes are tangible and quickly ascertained. On the other hand, when you start work on a software project, it will take months or possibly years to know if the strategy or architecture you chose pays off. The roadmap concept also means software is never done and there is always more code that needs to be written.
In the software world, you don't get the satisfaction of knowing that you have done something well in the same visceral way physical trades provide.
Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?
A big aspect of Marxism is that labor has been alienated from their production in the age of industrialization, so I’d say it’s been a thing for a while.
I feel like I’d sometimes like to try a job like a carpenter or builder, but simply to try building something in real life, rather than our often intangible products.
What's stopping you? You don't even have to give up working in tech.
I started learning joinery a year ago. I'm still terrible at it by professional standards, but I've made some bespoke furniture pieces for our house that would have cost 2-3x what I spent in tools and materials, and I enjoyed the process.
It's definitely something you can do in your spare time, and even if you don't decide to go pro, you've still learned a valuable life skill.
Yet, in the deep country side if France, I regularly see former engineer, or business school guys selling fruits at the market, opening restaurants or café, repairing old bikes in a workshop, etc.
I don't think it's condescending, I just think it's an actual thing.
A friend of nice from school stopped coding to open a brewery and I'm regularly considering starting a street food thing. Even started to get some of the gears sand the certifications...
> I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then you have the rest of the day off
In addition to your other good points, I used to work construction, and it was never like this. Requirements were not spelled out, and we constantly had to deal with unexpected issues, or ridiculous homeowners with dumb ideas. Timelines and deadlines were harsh, and you were often blocked by somebody else's work, but were still expected to finish by a given date.
I worked construction jobs summers during college (family in the business).
On the plus side, it really is satisfying to be able to see the results of your work at the end of the day, nearly every day. Progress is visible and real.
On the downside, construction in the summer is rough work. You can be on rooftops working with materials or tools that make it even hotter. There's lots of exhausting carrying heavy things from here to there. There's incredibly long hours (10 hour days is within the norm, 6 day 12 hour schedules aren't rare, and 16 hour days not unheard of). In any decent construction job that's a ton of overtime pay, which really adds up, but it's also exhausting. A 6/12 schedule is basically work/sleep/work. Great way to save money for the coming school year, terrible way to make a living long term.
I miss being able to see my work. And to be able to drive by 20 years later and point and say "Yep, I built that." Don't underestimate the pride that brings.
But I don't regret my career choice at all. Construction is viscerally satisfying in a lot of ways, but it's not how I want to spend my days.
Your contractor, on the other hand, may well have got a few rounds of golf in during the day time.
A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does what he pleases.
I believe he started the company with a buddy, the two of them doing the painting. Things grow though, you hire guys, your role changes (and your income too).
Depends, but I wouldn’t bet on it. My dad owned a small contracting company, and while he took the odd afternoon off to take me to a movie or cool off when it got too hot, that was more than made up for by Saturday morning client meetings, after work lumber runs, and tons of behind the scenes planning. And even if you do make it to the point where contracting becomes “cushy” job, you’ve very likely destroyed your body while working to get there. I’ve occasionally dreamt of restarting his business and growing it, but then I spend an afternoon with him fixing a plumbing issue or doing drywall and I remember how good I’ve got it.
> Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job, regardless of what industry you're in.
Unpopular opinion: being an owner is hard. You think it's easy until $80k doesn't come in on time and you have to make payroll by mortgaging your house, or you have to wake up at 2 am because a developer got arrested by INS (even though they were a US citizen), or you have to deal with a $150K medical bill that your insurance wouldn't cover... etc... Or an employee tries to make a copy of your code and launch a competing business...
I wish I remembered where I read this: "The definition of business is problems. The people who are the most successful are the ones who have the most fun solving them."
Ownership != Control. Most outright owners are in control, but it doesn't necessarily follow. I mean, if you're not in control, you still have to rely on those that are not to mess it up, and there may come a time when you have to do the dirty work to make sure they don't.
I know, but I think for most people in this thread, there is an upward path for that.
I often wonder why the other painters working for him don't go off and start their own painting companies. Perhaps a few will. But I suspect many of them would not enjoy or be comfortable with spread sheets, business taxes, work insurance and some of the other things that go along with owning the company.
I suspect my neighbor, like many of us, fond those things to be fairly un-intimidating and so he owns.
> I often wonder why the other painters working for him don't go off and start their own painting companies
I've got a very good friend who worked as a painter, did the 8-3 5 days a week gig for probably 8 years or so. He had no interest in running a business, managing clients, dealing with costing, estimates, etc. He just wanted to show up, paint and leave at 3.
> and some of the other things that go along with owning the company.
One of the big differences is what happens if there's no work, or if someone stiffs you or if the work required is substantially more than the estimate? In all three of those cases a business owner is in trouble, but the painter doesn't care.
I'm exactly in this position, yet when I said in another thread that I was quite content with my salary that's mid-tier for Seattle (but fantastically wealthy in a lot of the rest of the country), at a company that's all but certain to be around for at least the rest of my working lifetime, doing work to enable that company to do work that I consider useful (we're a medical practice group), and had no plans to change, I got incredulous replies.
One of the things I legitimately struggle to understand about other people is the willingness to exchange an irreplaceable thing, time, for a very replaceable thing, money, and suffer while doing it when other choices exist. The "when" in that bit is very important. A lot of people do not have that choice, and I understand why they continue; there's no other option. But for people who do what we do and how we do it, why chase the brass ring for so long? You don't have to suffer at Amazon, no amount of stock options are worth it. You will never get back that night you spent working on that one last thing instead of going home to your partner or kids or friends. The marginal impact of another $5,000 when you already make $125,000 in a year is very small.
And, as a bonus, not only are you helping yourself, you're helping the rest of our industry. Since we are largely allergic to unions in this industry, the only leverage we have is if enough people finally realize that it is possible to have a good work as part of a good life.
No, money is fungible, and its marginal utility only decreases when you have enough to retire. Another 5k is another 5k, meaning another 2 months that you don't have to labor. Dollars linearly correspond to future free time.
You really will get back that night you spent working: it likely afforded you many more nights retired, free.
A day when you are younger isn't necessarily equivalent to a day when you are older. There are all kinds of potentially fun physical activities I might have done when I was younger if I had had more time that 40 years later I would not try because injuries have bigger impact and take longer to heal now.
> its marginal utility only decreases when you have enough to retire.
If the only thing you value is retirement and complete freedom indefinitely. Personally I'd much rather have an extra day on my weekend now, and have to work an extra year at the same pace I'm working at now (and enjoy it too) rather than minmax to the point of sacrificing everything for the next 15 years to finally be able to do what I want to do - which is what I have right now.
> A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does what he pleases.
It's no different in Tech. What is hard about being a developer is that you are building. The analogy between your friend who owns and manages a painting company, isn't really that far off. As long as your are primarily responsible for getting the work done... well, the expectation will be closed tickets, shipped features.
Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow have it better than software folks. It's like they have never actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is.
"Constant need to stay up to date" is actually one of the things I really like about this field, because it's one of the things that prevents the work from getting redundant, at least in the long run.
> Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow have it better than software folks. It's like they have never actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is.
I have done a decent bit of network and systems administration in the past. I don't like it. It's hard on me sitting at a computer all day. Sometimes I got to go somewhere else and play with some equipment for a bit, but it was mostly a sit at a desk and stare at a screen kind of job. I really need the physical activity. Nowadays I repair rental houses for a number of property owners around here and I'll never go back, even if does pay a little less. I don't really find the work any more or less enjoyable overall, but I work less hours which means I have more time of my own, I sleep so much better at night, and my mental health has improved significantly. Also I get to work by myself which is real nice.
Edit: Many trade jobs are not like mine. I work my own hours, at my own pace, doing mostly light work. Every now and then I might get a helper. I was a roofer when I was much younger, and that's not something my body could handle anymore.
I’d say they already are artisans. Guy talks about needing to constantly study up to stay current. I imagine an artist just through creating is constantly getting more comfortable with their tools. Hokusai has a famous quote to this effect - basically saying he would have to live to 100+ to really practice enough to be proud of his work.
By artisan I meant specifically the concept of a craftsperson who creates small projects on demand at their own leisure, something both like the traditional concept of a village smith or potter, or the modern day craft fair equivalent or Etsy vendor.
In software, someone with their own software consultancy or an indie app developer could be equivalent.
It's just the masculine-coded, "left-brained" equivalent of "I wish I could quit my office job and do arts/crafts for a living", a sentiment I've heard a lot from friends outside the tech industry.
Yeah lol... The apartment building next to mine was having some reconstruction and the guys working on the exterior saw into my office windows (5th story). I started talking to them, had a cigarette together when I saw them lighting up, shared my WiFi password with them, etc, just being friendly. After a few days the guys asked "so, do you ever work man, or are you one of those computer pussies?". I agreed I'm a computer pussy as I'd never want to do any of what I saw them doing, in all weathers, very very early in the morning as well as very late in the evening.
I've done manual labor. Mowed lawns for a guy who had his own company, he drove us around in the truck, we'd hit the grass with his mowers.
Worked fast food, retail. Been a dishwasher, bus boy....
I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives you a daily sense of accomplishment. The lawn work for sure. Arriving at a tatty yard, leaving it looking like a golf course.... That sort of day-to-day sense of achievement is much more rare in software development.
To be sure I ultimately chased the higher-paying software field. But when I would see the "grounds keepers" at the Apple campus, I was often a little envious....
It's a hard thing to describe, but among people doing that kind of job, an insult like that can be a signal that you're "on the inside" of the group. It's pretty contextual and you have to listen to their tone of voice.
If you've seen Good Will Hunting, imagine Affleck and Damon's characters meeting again years down the road. Affleck might call Damon a "computer pussy" but both of them know Affleck is proud of Damon and would trade places with him if he had the skills.
Not to say "computer pussy" isn't potentially extremely condescending; just that such usage of profanity among laborers is often colloquially used to express sincere kinship and camaraderie.
Exactly - and I think it's the same among programmers, and more generally in male friend groups. It's a translation btw, but I think it's a fitting one.
Adding my own anecdote. Many years ago, I knew a scientist who complained constantly about the pressures of his job. He was a hobbyist carpenter and dreamed about doing that for a living. When he bought a house and hired a contractor to remodel it, he took a few months leave to join the construction crew. After he came back, he never complained about his job again.
OTOH I have a friend who switched from programming to air conditioner repair and is much much happier. they say the number one reason is when they stop for the day the job is over. They don't have their brain running over how they're going to solve/continue/finish the current task at their job
I have to say also that the "4 day workweek" idea tends to be embraced by such same people who have little idea what true laborious labor really is and can pontificate about it from their air conditioned offices.
And who I think would be unpleasantly surprised to find out certain inconveniences if everyone's available working hours were cut back by 1 day per week.
I don't think that's necessarily true, in fact I think what happens more often is the idea of a 4 day work week is dismissed by people such as yourself as it doesn't equally apply to everyone. A 5 day work week as is common now doesn't work for hospitality staff, for example. Does that mean that we should all work 4pm-3am Saturday shifts because that's when nightclub staff work? Of course not. do we argue that because patients in hospitals require 24/7 care that we all take up 4on-4off 12 hour shifts?
The argument for the 4 day workweek is that _many_ jobs would be performed just as efficiently as if they were 5 days per week, so they might as well be. If there was a compelling argument that hospital patients required 16 hours of care per day rather than 24, you can bet people would be suggesting dropping doctor and nurse shifts to 4x8 or 5x8 rather than 4x12 or whatever insanity they're doing right now.
I currently work with people¹ who quit construction & plumbing to retrain in tech for pretty much the reasons you describe. The two I work with right now are a dev manager and a support tech, another I'm no longer in contact with was a senior dev, none of them to my knowledge hanker to return to their old working lives.
None of them were top-level contractors, those who plan and hand out work to others, instead being people on the ground working on sometimes physically demanding tasks in all conditions and being the public face of the operation so sometimes interacting with difficult members of the public. Maybe if you get one of those management/middle-management jobs in construction the dynamic would be different, but then again you'll have a lot of the same problems that make me avoid management/middle-management jobs in our industry.
An old plumber friend wished he’d specialized. His idea was 1) live in a college town with tons and tons of student or vacation rentals (we already did) and 2) just do water heaters. 24 hour service and mark up for unscheduled installations.
Easy, clean, indoor work (generally) that you can get really good and you can pretty much name your price because everybody freaks when they don’t have hot water or it is leaking.
It's easy to pine for the good outcomes. The reality for most people is abusive bosses, wage theft, various exciting diseases from exposure and overwork without the health insurance or savings to deal with it.
Aren’t there jobs working in the trades that aren’t in construction? If you’re working on large-scale projects, you end up running into the “becoming a cog” problem anyway.
Yeah but even if it seems more comfortable to sit at a desk, it's much worse for your health, and also will make you feel worse already at the end of the day, so as a desk worker you're basically required to spend another hour after work every day exercising to make up for that. While the people doing the landscaping already got their exercise and fresh air.
Huh? Tell me that when you're painting the underside of a desk for 5 coats on a concrete shop floor and you don't have the clearance to sit up. Try installing a toilet when you have just enough crawl space next to the water inlet line to fit 3 handspans. Try sitting in the bed of a truck in the summer heat making sure that your ratchets are tied properly. As someone who grew up in a blue collar area, RSI is extremely common. Tennis elbow, worn knees, hip problems, back issues. That kind of hard labor is easy until your mid 20s and then turns more into a liability than exercise. You can always run on a treadmill to lose weight, but no amount of running will repair your knee.
Did you stop to think before typing this comment or do you just fade in and out?
There's no requirement to sit at a desk, you can use a standing desk or in my case I actually use a treadmill at varying heights inclines and speeds while typing in a computer using an economic keyboard.
I did some landscaping work during summers while in university and it can be absolute hell on your joints - now stack that 40 hours a week for years.
A professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his home leaked. He called a plumber. The plumber came the next day and sealed a few screws, and everything was working as before.
The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him the bill a minute later, he was shocked.
"This is one-third of my monthly salary!" he yelled.
Well, all the same he paid it and then the plumber said to him, "I understand your position as a professor. Why don't you come to our company and apply for a plumber position? You will earn three times as much as a professor. But remember, when you apply, tell them that you completed only seven elementary classes. They don't like educated people."
So it happened. The professor got a job as a plumber and his life significantly improved. He just had to seal a screw or two occasionally, and his salary went up significantly.
One day, the board of the plumbing company decided that every plumber had to go to evening classes to complete the eighth grade. So, our professor had to go there too. It just happened that the first class was math. The evening teacher, to check students' knowledge, asked for a formula for the area of a circle. The person asked was the professor. He jumped to the board, and then he realized that he had forgotten the formula. He started to reason it, and he filled the white board with integrals, differentials, and other advanced formulas to conclude the result he forgot. As a result, he got "minus pi times r square."
He didn't like the minus, so he started all over again. He got the minus again. No matter how many times he tried, he always got a minus. He was frustrated. He gave the class a frightened look and saw all the plumbers whisper: "Switch the limits of the integral!!"
In the Swedish version it’s a surgeon and a plumber, and it ends after the surgeon gets the bill and complains. The plumber then replies “Yea, that’s what I used to make, back when I was a surgeon”.
No job is going to get you away from unreasonable people with unreasonable expectations, and most trades introduce a bunch of other unpleasant things that you'd have to deal with.
It's all tradeoffs. Someone may legitimately prefer the stresses of a trade to the stresses of working in software, and that's great for them. But it's not an objectively easier path: if it were, plumbers would be much less expensive.
I agree. I work in tech and, outside of work, I'm refurbishing my house. I'm enjoying the refurbishment but would I do a trade as a full time job? Hell no.
Crawling around in my loft sistering joists is satisfying work but also, if it were to become the kind of thing I did over a long period of time, would 100% wreck my knees.
And that's just one downside. There are plenty more: e.g., all the ancillary guff you have to do (same as you have with contracting really), and then dealing with the general public and having people phone you at all hours of the day and night looking for estimates and quotes. No thanks.
I share your view about making estimates and quotes.
I get contractors to my house to help me renovate. It's just standard practice to get multiple tradesmen (>=3) to make a quote for the same job. I do that whenever the job is above $5000. I assume they must have a lot of other clients who do the same for lower thresholds too. I don't know the margins in each trade but I guess at least half of the quote is costs?
For the transport, the time on-site, the time to make a quote (depends a lot on the job).. I believe they each spend at least half a day on this. Then you add various time-consuming items like phone calls, people canceling appointments, people changing their minds about what they want, time to chase unpaid invoices, dealing with other tradesmen on some projects... All of this for a 1/3 chance of getting the job ?
Clearly some tradesmen are doing very well, but let's not pretend it's easy. As a contractor in software, I realized quickly I could and would only bill on a time-based approach. I've gone through the hassle of making a quote for a project with a lot of uncertainties and spanning over multiple months. At the end the client played with my weakness of being still quite young. He was older and much more experienced in legal & contract matters so he kept adding items pretending my contract was not fulfilled otherwise.. I ended up OK but would never go back to that anymore
Now I only have to negotiate once or twice a year (with my latest and ongoing client it's been multiple years so even better) when tradesmen have to do that multiple times a week
Ditto on the contract experience you had where you gave a rough project-wide estimate. I had the exact same position. I didn't end up finishing the contract because the client refused to fulfill their end of the first, and only, contract.
If I ever get another contract I'll be doing it your way: time-based via a settled hourly rate.
Thanks for the recommendation. Believe it or not I have a pair of exactly those but unfortunately I hate them because they rub my knees nearly raw when worn for prolonged periods. In the end I've bought an old skool rubber kneeler, which seems to work better, but of course you have to continually move it around, which isn't always convenient (or even possible).
I've done the same time. Spent nights and weekends remodeling my home over 5 years. It was never 'finished', and the quality was never as good as the bits that I did hire out. The entire time I felt like I was living in a construction site.
When I got my 2nd home, I hired pros. The pros tell me they want their kids in my job.
Yep. I got burned out at one point and got my real estate license. I was going to go into commercial real estate and build a residential website in my spare time.
Good grief what a scheme that entire field is. If I wanted access to residential MLS data I was going to have to be a residential realtor. To be a residential realtor you have to work for a broker who will charge you monthly for the pleasure. You have to put the name of the brokerage on any site that uses the data even if you pay for it yourself. You also have to pay for each MLS you want to access.
If you want to start your own brokerage you have to get a brokerage license. To do that you have to have your real estate license for 3 years and take the brokerage class. There’s nothing you actually have to do during that 3 years other than maintain your license.
Seeing the profession from the inside was eye opening and I’ve been extremely happy getting to enjoy being in an unlicensed profession ever since.
I'm not sure if 'fun' is the right descriptor, but certain fields of work with relatively high prestige and supply of applicants but relatively low credential requirements (in comparison to credentialed professions like law or medicine) pay little or almost charge money.
Examples include journalism (very low paying, limited jobs in North America), museum curation (requiring many years of low-paid, unpaid internship; most people can't afford it), and many creative fields (e.g. graphic designers are, in my view, paid very low comparative to the skill and creativity they bring; creative writers often have to pay to submit to a literary journal; and video game developers are notoriously overworked/underpaid, compared to other types of software developers).
I've told people that at my work and had it said back to me later.
"If it was fun, it wouldn't be work." Also, I leave after 40 hours each week because there will never be a day when the work ends early. If we run out of work, it's because the company is sinking.
I think this might have two, maybe more meanings. The first is that if the person asking you to do something won't put it in writing, then it's probably not legal and therefore you can't do it. The second is that if you haven't thought through something well enough to write it down (the problem and the solution) then you haven't thought about it long enough to have found a solution.
Stresses of a trade? Never "plumbed" professionally, so I can't speak from experience. But from other non-software jobs I have had, I know it was easy to "leave work at work".
Software development followed me home, lived in my brain 24/7. It also caused a good deal of stress I was unaware of at the time.
I think the ease of leaving work at work is probably a better proxy for age and commitment to your job. If you know it is a short term job or career, it is easy to leave there.
If you need the job, you start to care. Even with manual labor, there are problems that didn't get solved that need to be worked out before 7 AM tomorrow. I would say it is even harder to leave it at work. If a pipe breaks, and water is pouring out, sleeping on it isnt an option
The levels of stress aren't that much different, but there's something more practical about the stresses of labor jobs that make them a bit more manageable in my experience. Only in software jobs have I had persistent, constant stress that never seems to let up and consumes my weekends. It's a skill to manage it, but it's definitely part of the job.
100% this. I have been renovating my house for the past few months, room by room. It is fun on some days and not so much on other days. It can even be stressful when you can't figure out certain corners, or end up with leaks etc. I have contemplated started renovation as a side business, but having spoken to independent contractors I have figured it isn't all that much lucrative. There are even assholes who won't pay you at all.
I did a maths degree with the Open University. Most of the students are adults and sometimes it seemed half were programmers wanting to become teachers and the other half were teachers wanting to become programmers.
Hey! What's wrong with BMWs? We have two of them. Both diesels. The gas mileage is slightly below amazing. (Though my lawyer says you should always buy them used, never new. He's very good on life advice in general.)
They’re incredible, in slow traffic I have no issue fitting into a space which is only 12” bigger than the BMW is in length terms, and everyone around me is impressed, particularly the driver behind, they often gesture congratulations about these feats
In all seriousness though after a few years driving a Tesla it is a stark contrast, the BMW’s are actually well-manufactured, very quiet in the cabin, tactile controls instead of touchscreens. I’d forgotten what a good car behaved and looked like instead of an early-adopter plastic-fantastic interior and technology stack. Really do think with “Big Auto” starting to figure out bEV and things like F-150 Lightning, BMW iX and more coming to the market, Tesla is not looking like a solid safe equity to be holding in a 5 year time horizon.
Not sure if that was a sarcastic reply but if not You’re missing the point - which was that these fools will often be better paid and more well off than you :)
I know it's anecdotal but I found that I turned into an arsehole when I owned a german car.
The cars are generally quiet and comfortable, they insulate you from the outside world. The dealership will treat you better than the typical garage because they can afford to. Your work colleagues will fawn over it even though they think you are a bit of a knob. You will get more attention from the opposite sex because they think you have more money. I even read that estate agents find selling houses with a german car in the drive easier.
From that it's easy to slip into thinking you are a very important person and that the plebs should just get out of your way.
I like how in our progressive society it is absolutely frowned upon to invoke any association between observable societal statistics and, say, race/gender, but its okay to bash BMW/audi drivers.
So, user civilized, why is it okay for you to generalize? And why exactly you were sorry?
(I am aware that this is a tangent discussion to the original post, but it may be an interesting one)
The comedic term is "punching up" [0]. It's generally more acceptable to make jokes about the (presumably) wealthy owners of BMWs and Audis, versus "punching down" by making fun of people who comparatively face more disadvantages.
If we use the punching metaphor, in either case one is committing an act of "violence", which I think most people would acede is negative at least in the large scheme of things.
Violence has different definitions, according to the Oxford English Dictionary [0].
One is: "1. a. The deliberate exercise of physical force against a person, property, etc.; physically violent behaviour or treatment; (Law) the unlawful exercise of physical force, intimidation by the exhibition of such force." Another definition is: "4. Vehemence or intensity of emotion, behaviour, or language; extreme fervour; passion."
That the first definition is inherently negative is a separate philosophical discussion (as quick counter-examples where violence may not be negative, consider the violence of a fencing or martial arts match). However, it is clear that "punching up" in this case refers to definition four. I believe that most would agree that intensity of emotion or language is not inherently or necessarily a negative behaviour.
[0] Current quoted version is paywalled, but older 1989 edition for reference (may have differences from the quoted version): https://www.oed.com/oed2/00277885
I can afford a BMW, I've chosen not to buy one. In 08, I technically bought one in a Mini. But it was better MPG (very good for the time), fun, and cute. My buddy has a fast BMW, 2x the price. He got real mad when he drove the mini when he realized that the grand tour guys are right, hot hatches are pretty fun. He was blowing through $1500 in tires every year or so as well. I told him he got the bmw cause he's a dbag and a defense lawyer. He agreed that he is a dbag and he needed to show off as a lawyer. Every one of my friends who has a BMW would agree they care about appearences and are a bit of a dbag, I have about 10 from college/highschool/the neighborhood. So I'd be making fun of myself or my friends.
Personally I want multiple fun to drive vehicles. But I'd also rather have a CNC mill sharing space a motorcycle in the garage instead of a car I'm wiping with a diaper for the same price.
It's also quite common and a source of fun in many communities to make fun of the other brand. Many of these jokes are great at summarizing why people buy a thing. Ford vs Chevy. It can also get bit annoying and detract from what would otherwise be a useful conversation. "Fix Or Repair Daily" isn't very helpful. However "yamaha bike owners ask which valve head shims to buy, bmw owners ask which dealer is the most reputable" is a good description of the mindset for those respective brands, and the what the owners are looking for. Case in point, many BMWs only have an oil low sensor. How low? drain it and measure the volume, no dip stick. This carried over to my mini (bmw made), when the low oil light came on it was at .75 of 4 quarts, basically empty and damaging itself, and the dipstick is almost unreadable except in bright sunlight, but it's sure stylish.
Wow. You're all over the place with this comment dude.
> "Every one of my friends who has a BMW would agree they care about appearences and are a bit of a dbag, I have about 10..."
I would seriously reconsider who is the dbag among your 10 BMW friends. The people that care about what car someone drives are the ones venting about their buddies spending money on tires and quarts of oil online. Unless I missed the part where they made fun of your self-described "cute" Mini Cooper. Some people like quick cars, or cars that look nice.
Almost of these comments are from my friend about the his own driving habits with the car. It's his money he can blow through tires if he wants. He's the one calling himself a dbag. I think he's got redeeming qualities and some insecurities, it's why he's still a friend.
Me to one of the others when looking at college photos: "is that an affliction shirt"... Them "yeah I was kinda a dbag post college till I got married". me "wait is that a wristband, were you watching UFC pay per view"... them "actually, yes".
Do you need me to enumerate all of them for you? :)
I do think that's a pretty interesting point. It's a weird move to sweep under the rug. I guess you could argue that having a BMW is a choice, and it has associated stereotypes, which we can infer is sort of like joining a club.
race/gender are probabilistic and unalterable, one doesn't necessarily elect to inherit the stereotypes associated with race/gender. You're essentially being delegated expectations that may or may not be in alignment with personal values.
There are definitely double-standards in play though, a sort of socio-cognitive warfare, I suppose.
I am unsure whether the (im)mutability of a qualifier plays a role. For example, religion is a choice, but making generalized derogatory statements about certain religious groups is not okay either. You can try it with the pattern of "civilized" user: """Everywhere you go, there will be _men hitting their wivers_. Disproportionately they will be ..." and say sorry afterwards.
You will be making a statistically correct statement, but you will be flagged and IRL punched in the face for saying that. But somehow saying that about BMW drivers is still allright?
Religion is a choice in the same way citizenship is a choice. Sometimes it is a choice, often you’re born into it, and you often have to meet qualifications to change it, and some of those may be impossible to meet. And your social environment may impose some significant expectations on you.
now you're trying to argue about a specifics of the example I've given. Its tangent to the main question: whether stereotyping on something that is a choice or inherent is different? If you say that it is, can you please elaborate?
Yes, it is different, but not in a boolean sort of way. It is impolite to make fun of people for something that is not their fault... and generally speaking, the degree to which it wasn't a choice (and the degree to which it impacts someone's life experience) contributes to the degree of impoliteness.
making fun of a group != inferring generalizing statements about a group. I am completely with you about "making fun" part, but this concrete example is different
Ah, allright, I think I got the pattern. Next time someone wants to:
"""Everywhere you go, there will be {insert derogatory but also statistically backed pattern}
Disproportionately they will be {insert your -ist qualifier}"""
You just have to say sorry and it will be okay?
I personally believe in statistics and I believe you cannot use them to make derogatory generalizations. I mean racists REALLY love to pull out crime statistics out of their pockets in justification of their views. And, frankly, its not about my beliefs right now and enforcing of societal rules, its about you making derogatory generalizations and thinking that its okay, because "statistics" and because you've said sorry.
Well, I don't believe what you believe. I think you have an overly general moral rule that you think is necessary for consistency, but it's not really, and it's just your personal belief.
Your belief implies it is improper to use statistics to describe morally salient human behavior in any way, unless the conclusion is that there is no variation. I think that's silly and intellectually impoverishing. Groups have different average behavior and I don't see the point in blinding myself to that.
We all know that averages don't determine an individual, and we all know that some generalizations should be avoided, but that doesn't imply some broad fatwa, completely irrespective of context, against noting broad variations in group behavior.
The prosecutor attitude is very entertaining though. Feel free to keep doing that.
I personally dont require that consistency, I was merely asking WHY there is a difference in treatment of the same method (making generalized statements about group behaviour) when applied to different qualifiers. And yes, just as you've said, maintaining that consistency does imply that you suddenly can't use any statistics at all.
Point taken on "prosecutor attitude", sorry about that. riding "moral high horse" got to my head.
It sounds like you don't believe what you just said you did? I'm genuinely asking what you believe, as opposed to what you assert for the sake of argument.
For me, it's not an easy topic but I would say when negative generalizations escalate to exclusion and dehumanization, that's probably where to draw the line.
I know some people with Audis and I don't think worse of them or anything like that. It's just a funny thing that's hard to ignore after a while on the road.
Thank you for the insight on where you draw the line, that explains a lot. Still, a hard terrain to navigate on when you can say something and when you can't, even if you make correct statements backed up by data. Just to be clear we're on the same page: I've made absolutely same observation about other bmw drivers. and we, humans, do exactly that: observe and generalize.
Regarding my personal beliefs, as I've stated above "I personally believe in statistics and I believe you cannot use* them to make derogatory* generalizations"
1. regarding "use": you cannot use specifically statistics/data to justify any *-ist remark. "I hate bmw drivers because most of them are assholes on the road", an example of that (not what you said!)
2. regarding "derogatory": you can(and should!) use statistics to do (just) generalizations, i.e. in a context of talking about group behaviour. "most of bmw drivers are agressive and dangerous drivers, as shown by this data" is a perfectly fine statement.
My problem is that you can say that sort of statements about certain group of drivers, but if you would have pulled up a similar argument and used (for example) PoC and crime rates, you would have been torn to pieces by everyone. And for me, on the surface, the statement and the structure would be absolutely the same (and it is STILL not escalated to exclusion and dehumanization). So whats the difference? And why different treatment? People above are arguing that buying BMW its a choice and using inherent (immutable) properties (i.e. race/gender) is different for the case of stereotyping, but I cannot see the key difference that makes okay to do one and not okay to do another.
On the difference between making these generalizations along racial lines vs other things - it mostly comes down to the fact that our ancestors ruined the fun. After humanity had used certain type of statements to justify mass dehumanization, slavery, Holocaust, etc., people don't want to see that happen again. Then it's just a question of how big a red circle we want to draw around that kind of talk. Most people found a simple ban on racial generalizations relatively intuitive and practical. I'd prefer a more freewheeling culture but it's above my pay grade at this point.
Side point - in general an important thing to remember here is the big, big difference between P(A|B) and P(B|A). It could be the case that all aggressive drivers I ever encounter are BMW drivers, and yet the rate of aggressive BMW drivers could be very low and of little practical predictive value on any individual BMW driver (e.g. 1% of BMW drivers versus 0% for non-BMW drivers).
People are already bad at distinguishing an implication and its converse, and they're quite a bit worse at the statistical version of the same.
Arguably this is a reason we should keep our generalizations to ourselves, even if they're accurate. A lot of people will take them to mean a lot more than they do.
That is my problem: I don't see that difference. Its still stereotyping. Can you explain how it makes different to stereotype based on choice or some inherent immutable property? Its the majority of asshole careless drivers (inherent immutable property) that _choose_ to buy a BMW that make up a statistic. Still the stereotype selects that group, not by their choice but by and because of their property (being an asshole careless driver).
Occasionally that thought pops up. Then I remember I’m making insane amounts of money, from the comfort of my desk in my house. At 25 I’m making more than my parents ever did, with a fraction of the physical effort.
If I really hated it, I could save up for some time and do something else, because again… I’m pulling insane amounts of money for software work.
Trades like plumbing, electrical work etc are -hard- work. I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my body and health for my income. My biggest concerns are making sure my posture is correct and that I take enough walks. Such a hard life.
I’ve noticed that some programmers tend to romanticize things like farming or plumbing, and generally speaking not understand the hard physical work those people have to go through. It can be quite patronizing.
Edit: sitting a desk is not “sacrificing your body”. Comparing that to the labor that people in trades do is completely detached from reality. Obviously there are things like standing desks and working out. But in life you have to sit or stand regardless.
Comparing construction or plumbing work to sitting is absolutely ludicrous.
I also use a standing desk anyways, but I am not sacrificing my health like my grandfather or father did who had/have back/knee and other health issues in their 50s from physical labor.
Being able to earn a nice living while sitting at a desk is an enormous privilege, and I also get money and healthcare to routinely visit doctors anyway.
"The trades" each come with occupational hazards of their own. These occupational hazards are sometimes much worse than sitting down. Besides, op clearly stated the intent to walk more.
For example, would you accept a 1.4x (+40%) chance of brain cancer? Vs sedentary peoples who have 2x chance of diabetes and +14% cardiovascular disease? (and sedentary means sitting + not exercising after work!).
I'd argue diabetes is easier to avoid through other life changes. I"m confused about whether "sitting" means "never exercising", and articles that talk about "sedentary" lifestyles are not very helpful.
Eh didn’t it turn out that most of that was drummed out in the 2012 era by a few doctors selling books and partnering with exercise and standing desk companies? I feel like most of the more recent stuff I have read has said, yes get your exercise in but sitting itself isn’t actually bad, certainly not the whole ‘1 hour of sitting reduces your life by 1 day’ sort of stuff we heard a decade+ ago.
My confusion is that "sitting" is confounded with "never exercising". If you exercise 5m/hr for 16hrs (and sleep 8), you have accumulated a huge amount of sitting time, but also a really big amount of exercise time. Nobody does that, but what if we did?
I read somewhere that somebody did some study with god knows what methodology (people like to use current-world HG communities, not representative of ancestry) and decided that our ancestors walked about 12mi/day. That's about 3-4h of walking daily. We have like 280k years of that selection criteria. But also we came from apes, so we're sorta shitty at this upright stuff.
An aside: I also just loathe ergonomic design, I'm never comfortable in anything other than a recliner or laying on a couch or bed. I'm wholly convinced that chairs are the way they are because "they've always been that way" with tables and desks following suit. It's unfortunate that better designs haven't caught on, aren't readily available, and tend to be inordinately expensive. What I'd really like to see is a practical true to form holistic ergonomic design instead of this weird traditionally inspired clusterfuck with its productivity centric model.
> It's unfortunate that better designs haven't caught on, aren't readily available, and tend to be inordinately expensive.
Do you have any links to examples of these different designs? After using a bunch of different chairs, I'm seriously considering just repurposing my piano stool, even though I'll lose all the back support.
I just can't find anything sustainably comfortable and supportive.
HAG has the Capisco, which I've eyed. There are also kneeling chairs, they tilt the pelvis forward, they can be had cheaply, but I'd hate to buy one just to throw it out. Of course there are the ball based chairs and such.
I sit seiza-style on my chair currently to enforce good posture by tilting the pelvis, but it's taxing after a while, and it took me a long time to adjust to seiza, I use a standing desk in complement.
But you don't have to to ruin your body. You can get a standing desk and a gym membership (remember, you have money) and stay perfectly healthy. Crawling in tight spaces, on the other hand, will ruin your body and is not necessarily avoidable.
You and the other commenter have got to be joking.
My point was that office-work is far away preferable to daily physical labor. I’ll take sitting over throwing out my back, blowing out my knees and having constant pain. Not to mention the hazards of working with chemicals or industrial equipment or electricity, and so on.
Of course there are options that I use like exercising and standing desks. My point was that this is a significantly better situation health-wise than working in trades. And that I have the privilege of doing that.
> My point was that office-work is far away preferable to daily physical labor.
It's not. I've never been fitter than when I was doing physical work. The problem was the pay and the powerlessness at the workplace (e.g. awful hours with no notice, management compromises on safety, the expectation that you'll keep silent when management cuts corners or cheats the clients/customers, etc.)
The reason I stopped doing physical work is because physical workers are disrespected by the world, and your bosses would rather shut down and leave the industry than to pay you a dollar more. After I decided I would never work with my hands again, jobs paid a lot more. The less you actually do, the more holy you get. One day I'll just sit in the lotus position, floating two inches above my prayer mat, giving cryptic pronouncements about what other people should be doing. By then, I'll have billions.
It is better. All humans have to sit or stand regardless. I exercise at my discretion instead of having to do difficult labor in order to get paid.
You're describing social/interpersonal problems which happen regardless of the type of industry or work. That has nothing to do with the objective fact that working in an office is better than having physical labor take a toll on your body in the long term. I never stated that doing nothing but sitting is healthy.
After 15 years doing software development, I started training to be an electrician a month ago (in the Bay Area). The two people I work under are chill / patient.
Sometimes when dragging myself and wire though tight rat-shit crawl spaces... I yearn for my nice little home office. But, overall, I enjoy the work. It feels good to do work in the physical world.
A lot of electricians are nearing retirement. Meanwhile, electrification is picking up steam. The National Electrical Code 2020 is letting distributed / behind-the-meter software do a lot more heavy lifting (e.g. its letting software manage loads so that (expensive, delaying, and grid-taxing) utility service upgrades can be avoided)[1]. There's already big demand for electricians, let alone when EVs (and level-2 EV chargers), solar + batteries, and other flexible loads become mainstream.
My aspiration is to spend one week a month in the field, leading an electrical project (and taking all or most of the profit). With a low-cost lifestyle, I think I'll be able to spend the other three weeks improving processes / tooling around that electrical work. And working on related FOSS and education resources.
Are you still doing software while training to become an electrician?
I'd like to become a licensed electrician. After completing a few successful projects around the house, and studying the 2020 NEC inside out, I looked into becoming licensed. The required 4 year apprenticeship, before I'm able to take the exam, turned me off. How would I ever be able to satisfy that requirement while keeping my day job. It's like a forced pay cut to become licensed.
I do field work 3-4 days a week. In the other 1-2, I set aside time to do software. Relying on electrical work for income, the pressure is off to monetize the software work. ...This has made it more fun.
Yeah, people learn / master at different rates so it's too bad they require so many hours to qualify for a license. Once you're a journeyperson and have your chops, you could arrange a profit share (or something) under a licensed electrician. ...Where you're pretty much "owning" the project, but they're available to answer questions and review you work. And take liability.
Props to you my friend. This is a great way to leverage your past skills and experience, get into a new field, and help improve things at a national level, while getting personal satisfaction. The binary view of 'white collar' vs. 'blue collar' prevents growth. Just like farm work has been modernized and companies like Leaf and FarmLogs are bringing the efficiency of tech/automation to millennia old practices, coders branching into EV, grid-based projects is fantastic!
Good for you. Once I had a family, I decided I didn't want to rock the boat, kept the comfy(ish) coding job so I could afford to take them to places abroad, pay for their college.
I sensed you could make good money in the Bay Area in any contractor-type field: electrician, plumber, etc. When we needed an electrician it was often hard to find one (and that didn't, for example, only do commercial electrical work).
I'm a software engineer who does his own plumbing and his own electrical. Example projects:
* rewire 1920's three story house with romex instead of knob & tube
* install 6.6kW ground mount PV arrays and connect to grid
* replumb two kitchens and three bathrooms
* install water softener (all copper, dozens of required brazed joints)
I love doing that stuff (carpentry and cabinet building too). But ... a couple of times I've made the mistake of agreeing to help others on projects like the one's I've done for myself. Mistake? Well, absolutely. Doing work like this for other people is completely and utterly different from working on your own projects. Despite loving the work itself, I would never, ever want to do this for other people, even for good income.
I worked in a daycare for a while when I was young; I really liked being a scout leader and figured I might want to do something like this for a living. I didn't like it very much: turns out that a few hours on saturday is not quite the same thing as 8 hours every day.
I think in general "doing this for a hobby and fun" and "doing this for a living" are two entirely different things. Many people love to cook as a hobby, but being a chef in a restaurant is a completely different thing. Years ago I had a friend who loved to drive trucks as a hobby; I never understood the appeal myself, but he just loved the feeling of driving a truck. He left his teaching career to become a truck driver and in a matter of months ended up hating it (and he ended up going back to being a teacher).
Some years ago I had a friend who agreed to do some tile work for some other mutual friends. Midway through, I was at the "client's" house talking with them, and they were complaining (not bitterly, but perplexedly): "We just don't get it, Steve finishes and says he'll be back in the morning but then he doesn't show up for 5-10 days". I shared in their amazement - it seemed so rude, so unnecessary. Why would you do that?
A few years rolled by and I found myself doing construction stuff for friends. "See you in the morning" I would say as I left, and then find myself returning a week later. There's even a situation now where I've left an absurdly simple final task helping one of my neighbors with some minor repairs ... I think I told her 3-4 months ago that I'd be back in 2 days.
I don't really understand why this happens, but it did give me some insight into a whole extra layer that is required from you when doing work for other people: you have to go back, tomorrow, even, over and over until it is done.
Now this certainly applies to any regular (well, contract?) employment too, but there is something different about construction that I think requires a different kind of personal character to enable you to fulfill the implicit obligations.
> Doing work like this for other people is completely and utterly different from working on your own projects.
To be fair this same logic likely is the source of stress for a lot of software engineers. Loving to program and programming for other people for a living initially seems like a brilliant way to make a living. For plenty of people it is, but for some what programming for money looks like and programming for passion look like can be so different as to be depressing.
The hardest part of software engineers in this situation is the money is really good and, all things considers, the job is quite cushy. However having your passion drained by your profession still can be an awful feeling, and that can be magnified by the fact that there's no easy solution.
For me personally I resolved this by realizing and fully embracing that the programming projects I like to do need to be in a completely separate part of my mind that the ones I'm paid to do.
By day I sling mediocre code on arguably useless things because I need to pay the bills, by night I work on a separate set of interesting problems that are related to the day time ones only insofar as they technically involve writing code. If I get a cool insight at work, great, but I've learned to leave my passion at home when I check into work.
To bring it back to the premise of this entire website: this is a reason why entrepreneurship becomes a recourse for some dissatisfied engineers. Startups, small-scale consultancies, side projects are all ways to code the programs they want to code.
I don’t think that’s a good escape. I tried owning my business and I hated it 10x more than being just a engineer. Instead of spending 70% of my hours doing what I like it became more like 30%
I suppose I am both lucky and rare: I get to experience the "I do what I want to when I want to how I want to" for both my programming and construction work. A useful insight, I hadn't connected them in that way before.
Yeah - I wonder about the age / experience level of commentors in this thread. If you had told me in my 20's about burnout (and I'm pretty sure people did tell me), I'd have said I love tech too much and it'll never happen to me. Now in my 30's it's a struggle. I think the last decade was pretty rough too, perhaps if I was a bit older and gotten into tech professionally in the 90's it might have been more of a fun ride, but it's also possible that's just nostalgia.
Sure, you hate your boring, safe, lucrative job in software development until you become a plumber and find yourself on your hands and knees beside a disassembled toilet for the 87th time. Splattered in fetid wastewater, pulling stuck condoms out of the floor while the idiot renter stands above you dragging on his Juul, and you realize, maybe I didn't have it so bad after all.
The "grass is always greener" is probably the most repeated aphorism for a reason.
I feel like a lot of replies like this assume that everybody is an upper-middle class white kid who hasn't had to shovel shit before. I've had a lot of much worse jobs than being a mechanic; jobs where I looked up from what I was doing when the mechanic walked in with unbelievable jealousy.
I'm counting the days until CoPilot suddenly turns a bunch of John Galts into Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, but an additional effect is that a lot of people are going to notice that most programmers are at exactly the same professional level as other tradespeople, the difference is that since we're riding a wave of financial scams and deregulation that require the internet and cellphone apps as part of the grift, we're showered with cash. There will be a oversupply of programmers that plumbers will be laughing at.
So I get it, but also people are way overhyping software development in this thread (which is expected on a tech website). The only thing going for it is an insane salary and lots of us don’t have those.
I’ve worked in biotech/healthcare and have never had anything close to a FAANG salary even in a HCOL area. I burned out and am just now taking a month off to just exist. I have had the same thoughts about going blue-collar as the OP, but taking a month to figure out if it’s just general burn out or if I need a career change.
I’ve been working since I was very young and have had all sorts of jobs: door-to-door sales, lifeguard, retail, waiting tables, property maintenance, cleaning homes from flood/fire damage, and on and on. I loved a lot of those jobs, though I didn’t do any for more than 2.5 years (or even just a summer).
I don’t know if it was the pandemic or what, but never been so miserable at a job in my life and can’t imagine staring at a computer 40+ hours/week right now. I was literally staring into the Taco Bell drive-through window 6 weeks ago thinking I’d rather be working there and learn how to make a quesadilla in 1min than sit at a desk, which was the last straw for me.
Plus with software it’s all about the skills. So if I drop out for awhile and decide to get back in a few years later, I should be fine after a couple months of self-study.
Software development has a lot more going for it than just high salaries. You have a enormous amount of bargaining power and ability to be picky about working conditions.
People always say this to claim that software engineers don’t need to organize, but consider a very banal but ubiquitous example pre-pandemic: if open offices are so universally despised, why was it used everywhere in tech? And why was remote work so rare in the industry despite worker demand for it?
> The only thing going for it is an insane salary and lots of us don’t have those.
This is a really naive statement. Software development is so easy and fun compared to most of the shit work out there. Everytime I see someone whining about burnout, I think about all the busboys and dishwashers I used to work with who probably also get burned out working long hard physical shifts for abusive bosses, in order to make in a week what many devs do in a couple of days.
In the FIRE community, this kind of topic often comes up. Are there any enjoyable full-time or part-time jobs to do in semi-retirement?
Invariably, the conclusion is that low-wage or part-time jobs almost always come with enough baggage to outweigh any perceived benefits as a semi-retirement gig. A job is a job -- anything that produces a consistent income is going to involve dealing with unreasonable people or expectations or situations. [0] The most efficient path is to get into the most lucrative role possible early on and simply do that until you don't need to work at all anymore.
If you like carpentry or machining or driving around or landscaping or gardening, you're going to enjoy these activities a LOT more if you're doing them on your own terms in proper retirement for your own satisfaction. As soon as someone else is paying you to deliver these types of services for their benefit and not yours, you're in the same situation you're in as a software engineer, just with far less income and thus less potential to ever truly retire.
[0] I'm sure some "unicorn" jobs do exist. So I'm speaking in generalities here. There probably do exist some gigs out there that are genuinely great for semi-retirement; they're just going to be surprisingly difficult to find, they may not be stable over a long period of time (decades), and it may not be possible to find one for yourself.
I worked as a volunteer in a food pantry's warehouse for a while when I was "early retired", and it was great. Satisfying real work with real outcomes that were visible ("pallet is restacked", check!), in the service of a mission I believed in.
I actually think it would be fun to "retire" and go to trade school to become an electrician. Not forever, just long enough to learn the trade. I practically have an EE degree, but since I only ever worked with low voltage, mostly digital circuits I still have poor electrical intuition for things like residential AC.
Realistically though, I think my secondary post-retirement career will end up being a teacher of some sort (high school or community college -- I'm mainly interested in teaching, not research, so university is largely out of the question).
The amount of knowledge you need for residential is minimal, there is only one voltage (ok maybe multiple phase) and you should only have to think of load per circuit.
Don't know what kind of intuition you really need for new install.
A lot of the knowledge is just practical stuff like knowing how to correctly use a wire nut, where to buy the best brands of equipment for good prices, and lots of rules of thumb. The other half is code. The code can be surprisingly complex. There are all sorts of things to know like how much you can legally stuff in a junction box.
I have an EE degree but find there is little overlap between that knowledge and electrical work.
Leaving aside problems with heat, it really helps to be small. One of our electricians was about 5' 2" and previously served on submarines in the US Navy. Another job where being of small stature is a benefit.
A plumber can be similar. In a craw space, I've soldered a coupler where I couldn't get the torch to light in the small space I had. Yep, there wasn't enough oxygen to sustain combustion.
You could just not take jobs like that. It sounds like a semi-retirement job means you'd be financial stable enough to not need to take every request you get.
I'm not sure what electrician work you think you'd end up doing that doesn't involve some kind of shitty situation, aside from maybe some types of new construction. On top of that, AFAIK in the US, to become an electrician you need to start out as an apprentice working under a journeyman or master. Which means you get the shit jobs (sometimes literally, like septic wiring).
In fleeting moments of madness, maybe. But aside from that, of course not! We're so unbelievably lucky to be able to do things that we're good at, most of us enjoy (to some extent), and also be paid eye-watering amounts of money.
It's pretty easy to forget how low the median income really is when one's social group is exclusively tech or other professional occupations (lawyers, doctors, etc). Meeting somebody who's doing physical labour 40-60 hours a week only to make 25k USD or whatever puts things into perspective really quick.
It obviously depends on where you live and what you do in your job and how much you work and how hard. I'd argue though that, to say it in OP's words, most of us should get watery eyes every time we see our paychecks given how much time we spend actually working, what the work environment is and what that work entails. We're so incredibly lucky it's hard to fathom.
What makes you say that? Outside of contracting and a few elite firms in London, being a developer in the UK is like being an accountant -- nothing special.
I started in the trades 45 years ago. Worked as a deck hand, low voltage installer, cabinet maker, and service tech.
Climbing in a ceiling at 30 years old I asked my self what the hell am I doing? I have a hard upper bound in salary. I’m sore, I had stitches on several occasions, I’m a bit battered from physical labor. The after work drinking was a short term analgesic but a long term killer.
I realized a life time of labor is back breaking and will leave me a broken old man long before I should be.
I decided at that moment to move on to engineering.
My days of labor provided me with a great foundation for problem solving and understanding how projects are executed in the field. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, it was incredibly rewarding.
My office life has been equally rewarding. I worked as hard wearing a dumb tie everyday as I did wearing Carhartt.
The balance I struck was earning in the white collar world while keeping busy at home on blue collar pursuits. For example I took my contractor special condo from plain to fully executed trim. All of the doors and windows are cased, there is crown and picture rail. Some areas have wainscoting, the knock down wall finish is now level 5. There is 4 color paint.
I have since begun maintaining an old sports car.
For me it would have been hard to start on an office and then transition to a shop. The reverse worked best for me.
I'm turning forty this year. My original dream was to get rich quick and retire at 30. Then I pushed that to 40. Now I think I will need to push it another 3-5 years...
In general I agree with the sentiment: high salary is the only nice thing about working in IT. It's simply too much pressure. Best you can do is to make your fortune quickly (joining FAANG helps, becoming a freelancer is a reasonable alternative in Europe), build a house, set up a college fund for kids, and then retire, or find yourself a job as a carpenter, of scubadiving instructor, or whatever you like, as long as it has nothing to do with computers.
I wonder why avoid computers in early retirement? Is it burnout from the grind or a lack of pleasure in the work itself? I imaging there are a ton of cool and worthy charitable causes that would benefit from the expertise, which they couldn't afford to get otherwise.
What grates with CS I feel the combination of never being challenged and not doing anything that furthers humanity. If I fix toilets then at least I'd be squandering my resources on something meaningful.
What frustrates me is I know I could do so much more, I could do good things. In the same time period of roughly a year it's taken a team of like 8 people at work (myself included) to develop a prototype for a stupid crud-application that exists entirely because Conway's law doesn't permit team B from talking to team C without going through my team, that has basic MVP-functionality of being able to process some simple requests and change a few fields in a database; in the same number of days I've developed a fully function search engine the scale of late 1990s google in my spare hours.
Every time I call a plumber it's a least 600 USD. I have learned to do many things myself such as rebuild the innards of toilets, repair broken drain pipes, install sinks and new drain lines, but some things are too much for me (don't have the time, tools or knowledge).
I just had an old 2 inch steel drain pipe descaled ($600) because it was causing the washing machine to backup and overflow. I had had it power cleaned/jetted before (several times) but that did not work. The rust corrosion had constricted the pipe to about 1.25 inches. Descaling seems to have really opened it up.
I used to hate drywall. It would get wet and need replacing after plumbing problems, but I recently came to realize that as messy and time consuming as drywall is to replace, it's a good thing because it allows you to spot water leaks early and absorbs a lot of water. A more water resistant surface would hide the problem and only allow it to grow much bigger before someone noticed it. If you have enough space, drop ceilings are the best thing since sliced bread.
Also, when you are not using your washing machine, turn the water off at the wall. That will prevent a washer water line bursting (while everyone is at work) and ruining an entire room/floor of the house. And when you buy replacement water hoses for your sinks and washing machine, buy the best you can afford and replace them every 3 to 5 years. You'll save yourself a lot of money and trouble by doing this.
If you ever own a house, you'll learn to fear and respect water (and chipmunks) more than anything else.
For me it's trying as much as possible to get my happiness/satisfaction from something that's under my own control as much as possible. Being in a trade is the exact opposite of that because you're 100% dependent on people telling you what they need done. As others have pointed out, every job sucks to some degree. And unless you're truly operating in isolation you'll always deal with people, most of whom you don't share any common ground with. Try being in a trade as a woman, a person of color, trans, etc and you'd quickly realized what a privileged cushy field we're in. Not saying there isn't discrimination among us but our field in my experience tends to be on the more progressive, tolerant side of things.
None of what we're doing here matters at all in the grand scheme of things. At least the vast majority. We're not contributing to anything useful only a broken economic system, we're not making the world a better, more sustainable, more peaceful place. It's the opposite, the people that contribute more division, get paid the most it seems. Once I realized that I was able to steer my attention to opportunities that at least contain a sliver of something positive, be it supporting movements, clean energy, something that on your death bed you could argue didn't make the world a worse place. Personally, that's all I think I can do because at this point in my life I'm not in a position to make any larger positive change by myself on a societal level.
I'm sorry if this is too ranty, I'm just in a very negative headspace these days with everything that's going on.
I took a job making gears in a job shop. I learned quite a lot of interesting things. However, the pay and commute were both horrible. I caught Covid in March 2020, and have been dealing with Long Covid ever since.
Now I find myself needing to jump back into programming, and my strongly preferred language is Pascal. It's going to be an interesting ride.
If you do this yourself, make sure you have planned for contingencies like long term disability, should you be injured on the job, or get sick. Having a large nest egg of tech worker pay is a very good idea to secure before making the leap.
Hope your covid gets better. How does one "jump" into Pascal?
I used Pascal in 1992 programming in high school on a Mac LCiii, and never really thought about it again. Do modern compilers even exist for this language?
What genuinely curious what you could possibly want you to program in Pascal let alone prefer using it for anything meaningful?
It's not pascal that I was talking about into, it was the job market. I haven't been a full time programmer in decades. I've written quite a few things since then, but not full time.
As for Pascal, I learned it back around 1985, when Turbo Pascal first came out. I followed through version 7, then into Delphi for Windows. It was at Delphi 5 that I took a non-programming job.
I also tried out Borland's C++, but all the non-editable boilerplate, case sensitivity, and non-counted strings really seemed like antipatterns to productivity.
A few years ago, I had used python for some small projects, and so I figured I'd try it out for a GUI project that came up. I figured in the 2 decades since I had used Delphi, things had surely gotten way better.
What a disappointment. There were no open source 2-way GUI builders that offered IDE support for python. I wasted a year trying to support the project building a shim between wxBuilder and python 2.x. It worked, but was so brittle that I ultimately gave up on it.
I was able to rewrite it all in Lazarus in less that two weeks of part time effort.
I still think it's one of the best programming languages available, despite its failure to overtake C/C#/C++ in the market, which I blame mostly on Borland/Inprise/Embarcadero management.
>The grass IS greener on the CS side of things though. There literally is no denying it. We see a hyper focus of the bad on here but if I'm being frank, many people on here went into CS as their first Job and have nothing to compare it to. You're not going to find another broad career field that gives you the same financial freedom for time invested in learning your field. Pick up a hobby if you're missing that salt of the earth feeling too much. Doing that shit to barely live in many instances is not the same feeling as having it as a hobby.
I'm positioning myself to be able to take a 3 month vacation once every 2 years or so. Since I really want to travel outside the US working remote outright is a bit harder, but I could live in the US Virgin islands, or Hawaii right now while keeping my amazing job.
Not having to move, even after getting a major pay bump last year was a giant perk. I also make enough so I can just not work , i'd move into a cheaper place but I don't need to work for a good while.
Compared to real America, where working class people skip medicine. I can explain it this way, I have a very treatable illness. For a very nominal amount of money, less than I spend on a night out, I'm able to stay healthy. If I was poor I wouldn't be able to afford my meds. Even with Medicare, how do I get to the doctor ? That means taking time off work, that means spending 100$ on an Uber round trip.
A lot of engineers also fail to see that they could just do less and leave on time every day and actually use their “unlimited” vacation! You won’t get rewarded for the extra stress and effort so just stop doing it and set expectations accordingly.
It's worth noting that these skilled trades (eg plumbers, electricians, carpenters) have wildly different experiences in different countries.
In the US they aren't actually paid that well, particularly compared to software engineering (in the US).
But go to Australia and you'll get a vastly different experience. For one, just being a plumber is strictly government controlled. You need a license that requires a four year apprenticeship. There are pros and cons to this system but you will generally find that the base level of skill and competence of any Australian tradesmen will be far higher than that of many other countries.
I had a Australian friend who was a plumber in the UK where you can be a plumber by just calling yourself a plumber. The stories of incompetence he'd tell were shocking.
Trades in Australia earn more than software engineers do and will generally have a much better standard of living, straight up. It's one reason why I, as a software engineer, moved from Australia to the US. If you want to be a plumber, you may want to go the other way, assuming you're willing and able to get certified.
The other thing that is wrong about this post, that I haven’t seen anyone mention, is that jobs like be a plumber also require constant upskilling to remain competitive. My plumber learned how to install ductless heat pumps, and now that is a huge part of his business. New types of boilers and other systems also require him to get certified. He listens to plumbing/building podcasts, reads different sources, and regularly has to do more training. On top of that he is on a 2-3 person oncall rotation —- where being oncall means being woken in the middle of the night by an outraged or panicking customer, driving to their house, crawling or climbing into whatever hellhole their pipes reside in, and doing a hard, dirty, and sometimes disgusting job.
There is no getting away from updating your skills, or sometimes doing work outside of the 9-5 if you want to stay competitive in ANY profession. Especially if you want the 200k+ comp so easy to get in software.
Yes, I have planned to become a carpenter or some other profession many times.
But, I have been blessed/lucky to be a one man show for many years and I had to stick with one tech stack and my learning only added not shifted out from under me. So when I made massive changes it was on my own terms.
The cost is mentally going against the trends/grain in the industry. My LAMP stack is now back in style, and I am grateful I never dumped it for something trendy.
Thank you. It was really hard to deal with when all the new code stuff was Node based. But since I stuck with a principle to keep things as simple as possible and this balanced my concerns some.
Results are what mattered and I think we've seen massive shifts in perspective in our industry over the past 20 years. Changing everything from code versioning systems, databases, back and front end languages, all the mix of build systems. There was a lot to avoid changing to for the sake of change.
And sometimes you wonder if you are missing something because you can't see the value in changing. (ie, GIT was obvious from SVN, PHP to Node not so obvious...)
I think the sentiment behind the OP and agreeing comments are twofold:
1. The desire to create tangible, physical products and improvements rather than abstract ones- some of which never see the light of day outside of the sprint.
2. The desire to expend physical labor and use one’s body rather than only one’s mind.
I think the trades would fulfill that but maybe more software engineers who experience this anxiety would be happier if they pursued some sort of skilled craftsman hobby, or even career. Being a construction carpenter is one thing, becoming an artisan who makes bespoke wooden products is probably closer to the lifestyle (and compensation) that’s being idealized here.
I did it. Not being a Plummer. I changed from being a programmer to working in sustainable mobility (railways). Did an MBA in the field, got a job at one of the largest companies in the field, supposedly with a fast track into decision roles. This is my outcome:
* I now work more hours than I did as a programmer
* I have to deal with a lot more bullshit, politics and doing annoying tasks
* In total I lost about 5 years of career, due to education and starting at a lower level in a different field (in North America this may not be so bad, in Europe they have difficulty counting years of experience in other fields)
* I lost 2 years of pay (education), then started work at half what my cs peers make. Since programming pay increased a lot, but mine didn't, I'm now at a third.
* Instead of a (internally) well respected expert feeling near the top of my particular field, I am sort of on the path of getting there
I did it because I didn't want to code for work anymore and actually shape the real world, but it's not exactly been an easy path. It should be considered well before doing it. Ymmv.
I have worked as a steel worker in a construction site. The pay was shit but I got a really nice toned body, good skin, girls looking at me, all day banter in the workplace and parties afterward, I went from being a depressed anxious nerd to a talkative hot dude in about 7 months. Sometimes I wonder if I should go back but I am earning 10 times more than the people around me which allows me to travel (before covid) and have almost anything I want, it's a hard decision.
I am in my early 40s and have been a software engineer my entire career. Lately, I can't bring myself to care about this or that new framework, but I have spent hundreds of hours watching electrician videos on YouTube and have been joking with my wife that I'm going to quit my job and become an apprentice electrician.
So, yeah. This resonates.
But recently I watched a video where a guy had to do his ten millionth ceiling fan install and he had some particular trouble getting to where he needed to be in the customer's attic and he was filthy and hot and probably bored by this stupid task he'd done a million times and in that moment I realized I was idealizing and over-extrapolating from the excitement of learning a new skill.
Learning to wire my own house was fun and interesting. I don't want to do it every day for strangers.
One summer in college I worked with my Dad as a timber faller. I had the luxury of getting paid for writing software before that (being paid to learn). On one hand I enjoyed the work… I was outside, getting great exercise, and I gained a ton of respect for my father. But by the end of the summer, it became pretty repetitive, extremely hot, and I was physically exhausted every day. Nearly 20 years later, when I feel like I am burning out for whatever reason, I reflect on that one summer and ground myself a bit. I have it really good. I’m extremely fortunate to have found interest in this world at a young age, and even more lucky to have hard working parents that supported my interest.
This is why I like frontend development - you get to see the results of your work.
It's satisfying to start with a blank screen or perhaps a times new roman mess, and leave it as something that looks great and works well.
Backend development can sometimes be a tedious death march where all you get at the end of the day/week/sprint is not-an-error or perhaps just wiring up RPCs, or maybe if you are very lucky upgrading to a new point-release of a library with no other visible changes. Don't get me wrong, refactoring and fixing backend bugs can be satisfying, but I often find it is not as genuinely enjoyable as being able to actually see the results of your work.
I left software shortly after college to start an auto detailer business due to not liking the job. 3 years later, I'm back in software and couldn't be happier.
Sometimes you can't appreciate the good aspects until you're missing them.
Navigator or maybe some kind of specialist for a cargo ship? Or maybe harbor pilot (if you could break into that closed industry to make bank)
Forest fire water bomber pilot?
On a side note, I always thought it would be a very cool thing if there were some kind of exchange program for people with good skills wanting to try them out in another field, kind of as a rotation. (I originally thought this for academia -- researchers who would love to see another field getting to visit for maybe 3 months or similar) But I guess, what company would be willing to participate in such a thing and let their people do it, having to pay for the cost...
In general being at sea means long shifts and being away from home for long periods. The ships run 24 hours a day, apart from when they are waiting or loading and unloading. And pay isn't great unless you are at top as Westerner.
I've noticed people in this industry who took the typical high school -> college -> professional job route with no time in their life spent struggling at all or doing manual labor have some kind of weird romantic notion about it. Working manual labor sucks. It destroys your body, forces you to work terrible hours and often in brutal conditions, and pays awful. I spent years of my life being homeless and working menial labor jobs for years before getting into software development. You guys have absolutely no clue how insanely privileged we are. I think about it every single day.
I reckon both these jobs plus general building work, are much better than working on computers. We have bodies and _need_ physicality in our work, not just theory.
Those sort of trades do present problems like coding does - your brain is still engaged (a bit). However, I think you are also adding/improving people's lives.
Fix someone's dirty toilet? That is clearly a good thing. I can't think of one thing in my computing career that has been as positive..
This is a very shallow view of what it means to be working as a plumber...
As someone who spent a couple years doing commercial plumbing:
1) You are lifting very heavy 10-20ft long sticks of cast iron pipe, often 10+ ft in the air. There is technology to aid with this (scissor lifts) but it is brutal work.
2) You spend a lot of time in the air - on ladders or lifts - often overhanging the edges. You are constantly drilling hangers in the ceiling, breathing in dust that will ruin your lungs permanently. And again, you are also fitting cast iron pipes in this environment. You will feel the sway and it's pretty easy to hurt yourself. OSHA is a joke. I've been caught in the middle of a huge storm, since the foreman didn't want to let us off early, and we had to run down 8 stories of scaffolding while heavy material is being thrown around like ragdolls.
3) People on job sites generally don't give a @$%^. Toxic fumes? Check. Concrete/cement dust? Check. Crazy welders that don't care that they can potentially ruin your eyesight? Check.
4) Your company will track you with apps, often not pay you until you arrive on the jobsite, but you still need to be at the shop @ 6AM to help load materials. Unpaid.
5) Depending on where you live, you can expect to listen to nothing but conservative talk radio on that morning ride. I've worked with people from all paths, so this didn't really bother me, but something to consider if you have spent most of your life doing white-collar work. You can expect to be around some hateful ignorance.
6) If you're not doing new construction, you can expect to be in the ceiling, crawling among ducts, trying not to fall through. This is generally with copper pipes, which is another ball game as far as cutting, soldering/brazing, or crimping. Otherwise, you are often trying to do this standing on a 12ft ladder.
Commercial plumbing pays better than residential (fixing a dirty toilet) and is often in more demand. It is also a pretty good way to wreck your body. Most of the older/senior plumbers that I worked with spent their time trying to do as little work as possible, and were drunk after lunch. Addictions are very common.
IME, people who often are shouting "get in the trades!" are the exact people who have never once worked in one (or they own a business in it). It ain't all that.
I hear you. Sorry you think its a shallow view! but I thank you for your thoughts. I have done some plumbing of my own - I can personally verify that I never felt comfortable - always contorted!
Managers/foremen etc are asses the world over. I was really addressing the work. And I thought I picked a pretty unpleasant example in dirty toilets!
I contrast the work you do with work I have done. I was making a moral point.
I have worked in financial and other institutions. I really see no value in what I have contributed. If I achieved something, its that the shareholders of those institutions were happier in being able to squeeze a bit more life-force for themselves from others. I helped the fat cats get a little fatter.
BTW - I think you wreck your body sitting in front of a machine all day. I accept that coding is not as overtly dangerous though!
I think that is just the way of the world, especially in America. Even though I have worked in fields that produce a more "tangible" product, I can't say that I have contributed or helped much of anything. And now I'm in my 30s without an education and I only have experience doing things that I never want to do again.
Bosses are always terrible, but it's a little different when your life is literally at stake. I've had "old school" foremen who want to sit and call you a pu$$y because you don't want to stand (without a harness) on a flimsy piece of wood over a six story shaft, cutting and then brazing 8" copper pipe. It's also harder when you don't have dedicated recruiting networks and the ability to WFH like many do in tech/SWE.
(Just my perspective! I appreciate the discussion.)
I for one fancy doing something totally different - producing some of my own food, in a more natural environment. No deferred joy - more immediacy, living closer to nature, etc. Your user name makes me wonder if you would find that more fulfilling too? :)
Have you considered taking some time off and going WWOOFing? It can be a fun experience.
Personally, I believe that knowing how to navigate this (increasingly) digital world is an essential skill. I'm enjoying trying to build foundational knowledge about computing & networking for these reasons - and I also just feel like there is _so much_ to learn, and that is both exciting and overwhelming at times. I have some negative views towards the way technology has trended in the last decade or two (bordering on tin-foil hat territory :P) but I think that is all the more reason to understand it.
I don't have any interest in pursuing SWE, esp. for financial reasons. But I am enjoying learning about programming. I'd be happy if I could hack on things at home & contribute to some OSS projects. I'm hoping to land a junior position at a NOC in a year or so, but who knows? I've given up on the idea of any career giving my life meaning or purpose, so I'd be happy with an education + skillset that makes me employable, especially with remote opportunities. Not having to destroy my body is a bonus!
Plumbing is gross and wet but you clearly know where the bullshit is from the beginning. In software it is creeping from everywhere, changing patterns every coouple of years as well. I probably wouldn’t want to be a real plumber but I hear the people who would. And I definitely get the urge to find something else but generally trading off for something else is problematic as well and generally comes with its own type of bullshit.
You get those from coding too. Sitting in a chair all day wrecks your neck and back, mouse and keyboard use causes carpal tunnel as well. Standing still instead of sitting causes other issues. You have to move around, not remain fixed. There's a balance somewhere between being a dev and being a plumber.
If your idea of physical abuse is carpal tunnel from using a mouse + keyboard, don't go into the trades. Seriously. Go to Home Depot, buy a stick of 1" copper pipe, a Ridgid (wheel) pipe cutter, and some sandpaper. Now go to your backyard, in the cold, kneel on some bricks/concrete, and spend 30 minutes cutting off little portions of the copper stick, and then clean the ends with sandpaper. For bonus points, consider reaming the insides too.
Now tell me how your wrists and hands are feeling. How about your knees? Imagine that everyday, plus an array of powertools such as impact drivers + drills, rotary hammers, sawzalls, band saws, and crimping tools that can weigh 20+ lbs.
That mouse & keyboard will start to look very, very comfortable.
Truth be told people itt are talking about “trades” when the ideal physical profession for them is probably something like building boutique artisanal furniture or glassware for wealthy clients. A comfortable middle ground between office work and construction.
It's hard to compare aches before acclimation to physical work with chronic conditions that develop over years of long, daily sedentary periods. The keyboard being more comfortable on day one isn't the point, right?
Carpal tunnel isn't about being sedentary, is it? It's about repetitive movements (from people I know who suffer from it, vibrations also exacerbate their conditions, which is why I brought up power tools) - just like the common plumbing activities that I mentioned. This isn't about aches. If your body can't handle sitting at a computer, then you are out of your mind thinking that working a trade will somehow 'be better.' Buy a standing desk, ergonomic keyboard + mouse, and go for some walks.
You keep mentioning carpal tunnel but I don’t think that was his main point.
It’s true that white and blue collar work have ergonomic and health hazard mitigations. I saw from another comment of yours that you mostly had to work on unsafe and inconsiderate commercial crews with no decision-making ability, which understandably colors your view of physical labor. You’re also right to point out a novice would likely fare similarly, especially if approaching a career change romantically.
I'm close to finishing a 50sqm pole barn solo build in my sparetime around my tech job that has taken about 4 months from ground works starting.
The carpentry was easily the best part, and the part that I really enjoyed. The concreting and steel roofing/cladding parts were pretty brutal though. Admittedly a pro could justify spending on better tools than I had but still it has taken a toll on my aging body.
But even the carpentry would be hell trying to do that work under commercial pressure on other peoples projects - never mind that carpenters are generally worse paid than most other trades despite usually taking on the bulk of the project responsibilities.
As sick as I am of tech, I would rather stick to carpentry as a 'hobby'.
Still involves a surprising amount of carpentry. And finding where the hell the wires were run in other people's "wtf were these fools thinking?" grade framing. and other fun stuff.
Honestly, it isn't even the poop. I do my own sink faucets and whatnot, and hate every minute of it. I wouldn't survive framing, but making fancy furniture has some appeal. But then... finishing is also gross and wet. And sticky.
On the other hand: about once every 3 years, I shut my computer down and get the dust out. I even hate that. The only nasty wet messes I don't mind dealing with come from my child or the refrigerator. All else, I'm happy to pay somebody else.
Similar physical demands to plumbing. The proper cables are not light. Installation is still pain and involves hard to reach places. And fun stuff like crawling in crawl spaces sometimes etc.
I suppose telco might be most reasonable. Or if pay isn't important electronics. And even there is problems.
Seems like OP should just go to a place like the government for a fairly slow paced retirement friendly job.
They could definitely use skilled people and while there can be the same crazy expectations and conflicting missions, you can say no a lot more easily.
Slightly off topic but does it really feel difficult to keep up with tech skills? I find it's extremely easy. Front end guys seem to have it harder, but as a data scientist I don't feel I need to learn much at all. In the past couple years it's been... shap... and that's it? I don't feel the need to bother with any of the neural net stuff.
Even on the frontend it’s kind of overblown. If you’re at a stable-ish company you learn react and a few missing pieces from the JS stdlib but most other stuff is already set up or you Google how to set it up and move on.
I don’t think the OP is insane. Sure, the trades are physically demanding and in a lot of cases will pay less than a software developers’ salary. But one thing the responses are missing is that simply because you can’t physically see the damage done doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Bad back and shaky hands from years of hard labour? Sure.
How about years of stress and gaslighting? Is chronic depression and learned helplessness any less bad?
“Don’t worry buddy, you’re getting paid enough to hate yourself and not see the point in living anymore. Just keep at the grind and enjoy your comfy chair and latte.”
If you’re starting to feel that way I would look into starting therapy first before making big life decisions like that. You might find the root cause of your discomfort and treat the cause rather than run away from it. And if it is the right move for you you will go in with eyes wide open.
I think what this comment hints at is the tight coupling of money and working in tech. I think for most of us it all started as fun and curiosity. We were gravitated to computers not because of money, but because of passion. Then suddenly we realized there is immense amount of money to be made with our skills. Naturally we started benefiting from that by getting a job in tech. Then we became addicted to the money and since now we didn't learn any other skill than programming we didn't have a choice but to continue working in tech. What was once a passion now turned into shackles that we can't wait to get rid of. It's sad, ironic and extremely frustrating.
There’s a lot between leaving your high paying comfy job and working full time cutting trees or something.
One of my former co-workers left to become a lumberjack. I don’t blame them, I spend a day or two cutting trees on my property and it’s enjoyable. That said, you won’t make six figures doing that.
Without fail, the people I see making complaints (1) lack a family with kids and / or (2) don’t own a home / property.
We’re very much predisposed to having a family and having something to build (physically). If people feel this way, try a decent sized garden (150+ square feet). Or build some furniture. It’ll be fulfilling and you’ll learn to love your job lol
One of the best jobs I've had was working part time at a pizza place in my early 20's.
I made just enough for rent, food, and fun. The job was easy to be good at, but rewarding because I was helping actual people. Most of the time it was slow so you got to joke around with the other employees.
But sometimes you'd get slammed and have to organize your crew to work efficiently for a few hours, which was stressful, but very fun to figure out and do well at.
I think about that a lot when my current software job becomes really boring or difficult.
EDIT: Oh, and I was certainly less sedentary being on my feet all day. I slept really really well after a long shift.
This is more a reflection on that period of your life than the work itself.
Part time at a pizza shop in your teens/20s? Time of your life! Doing that exact same work in your 30s when you're trying provide for a partner and potentially kids? When you have bills stacking up, rent is shooting through the roof, and your hopes of one day owning a home are slowly circling the drain?
What do you do now, when that is your sole skillset to fall back on? Being on your feet doesn't feel nearly as nice as it did when you were in your early 20s. Those slow times become stressful because you know it means you could be out of a job like that. Sure, people might always want to eat pizza ("there's always work") but that doesn't mean your quality of life is going to increase _at all_ because of that. Your only hope out - opening your own pizza shop - is an incredibly fragile & stressful undertaking. You're much more likely to lose all the money you borrow/invest into it than ending up with a successful restaurant that provides for you financially.
One way to fix this urge is to leave the field and work as a plumber, electrician or in factory. Unless you have enough money to do it as a hobby most people will quickly see that this is not as great as you may think. While in school I used to work in construction and factories in the summer months. I quickly realized that an engineer job is much nicer and paid way better.
But I have to admit that as a mechanical engineer now working in software I really miss touching the result of my work. Nothing better than designing something, building it and then being able to touch and see it.
I’m glad I had a real progression unlike most people who do a CS degree and then get a high paying job. I did manual min wage labor as a teen, then min wage IT work, then barely above that “programming” work in my small city, then finally my first real programming job and now I’m in the mid-echelons of software in a big tech city. Life is good! I still think work philosophically sucks for me (FIRE one day..) but I wouldn’t trade this job for any of the earlier ones - doubly so now that I get paid 20-30x more.
Why a plumber? If as I suspect it’s an example of a simpler trade, I would suggest you read up on the skills, problems and challenges required to be a plumber. It ain’t easy.
I started my career in trades so no I don’t long for that. I do think about leaving it all behind to be a musician tho. I look at my circumstances of stupid salary, never leave the house if I don’t want to, and my level of comfort and compare to all my musician friends who make nothing, always working a side job or on the road, sleeping and eating like shit, and I 100% don’t want to trade. If I never had to think about money again I’d write a lot more music tho
At an old job, we were next to a window that looked out onto a crossing guard who was there most of the day. We used to say, "That's it, I'm becoming a crossing guard," when work got tough. But ya, I agree, I wouldn't pick anything over tech, no matter how rough it gets.
In terms of "constantly staying up to date", that's a large reason I moved to a tech stack with less moving parts and slower-moving major change. It helps a little.
> I moved to a tech stack with less moving parts and slower-moving major change.
Could you please share what tech stack is this? Frankly speaking, I also consider finding something more stable and slow-paced as a continuation of my software career at this point.
Elixir. It's a bit hard to find jobs that actually use LiveView (which would relatively shield you from the world of NPM) but they're out there and pay pretty well. It isn't a silver bullet and not without its problems, but I'm incredibly happy with it.
I have written many such comments on HN myself and seen many such comments from others. The motivation is generally universal. Software is an immature industry with many beginner experts that believe themselves to be experts but cry about how hard life is when standards are set and/or enforced.
Fortunately, I have a part time director level job as a soldier for my backup plan.
I've considered going back to school to learn a real engineering profession. Something where people solve real world problems based on accrued group knowledge instead of faking it til they make it, constantly reinventing themselves and everything else, living the future they want to exist.
But I think I'm too tainted by software to really be any good at any of that.
I took a year out and worked as a forklift driver (and general "haul things around") at a warehouse. It was a much-needed "vacation", and the social company was good. The pay was rough though ....
... but the experience awesome.
The fact I told HR (and coworkers) that this was my vacation really helped keep some silly inspiration going, especially as I could keep up with them with everything I needed to do. (I'd also snap to attention, military style, for the HR lead, the only non-military person in management .... got a lot of laughs that way)
No I never served, wasn't permitted. I did go through years of cadet training though...
Anyway, went back later to say thank you and complain that my vacation was over. It was a cheerful hello.
The work itself was back-breaking hard but ... it felt good.
The only regret about the job itself is I should have done work like that a lot earlier in life (instead of 30s).
If you think plumbers don’t have undefined requirements and random deadlines out of their control then you don’t know enough about the industry. Most plumbers are juggling about 20 different projects plus call-outs and with the chaos in the UK construction industry right now, it’s very hard for any tradesperson to predict where they will be working and what they will be doing next week. You will have annoyed people constantly phoning you all day to find out when you are going to be at their site. However, plumbers are in huge demand at the moment and can probably easily invoice more than £300 per day, it’s just a question of the building sites being ready for them to work a few consecutive days in a row to get those billable hours racked up day after day. There are a lot of inefficiencies in project scheduling, especially with the currently difficulties.
Only because of all the moral hazard in programming, being completely wrapped up in rent-seeking, surveillance, dark patterns, and marketing in general.
The problem is that the trades are hard as hell to learn and get into unless you're connected. It's easier to become a programmer than a plumber/carpenter/electrician.
The work is hard, dirty, and you need to go through a half-decade apprenticeship program before you can even start making the big bucks (which are still nowhere near what a programmer makes.)
And good luck finding someone to take you on as an apprentice.
I remember one of my buddies desperately pounding the pavement to get an on-the-job apprenticeship as either a plumber or electrician. It took him a couple years to find one. 20 years later and he's a successful industrial plumber, but that first decade was a lot of hard work - even before he got his first job.
Also, just about everyone I know who does even a skilled trade for a living has a body full of aches and pains and injuries. That's why the smart guys become foremen or start their own business - but they've all got at least a ten year head start on anyone reading this.
Just keep sitting in your home office cashing giant checks for screwing around on the computer.
I think the software world has to slow down anyway. Now there is software anywhere build in and has just to work. Things could last for 50 years before software. Now everything need updates all the time because things are unfinished.
I'm in industrie automation and everything with software gets worse really update by update
A lot of it depends, I think, on what it'll be like for people to look back on past achievements at age 65+.
If it's a case of "oh, in fact most of my career was (re)building things that weren't really required in order to consolidate power and to reduce the strength of democratic society and institutions", that could be a bad time.
If it's more along the lines of "I genuinely helped to improve the lives of a large number of people by assisting them in doing what they want to do day-to-day, extending opportunity, access and freedom" that could be better.
Plumbing, baking, carpentry, etc seem to be more likely to unambiguously fall into the latter, happy category -- although I think software can, too.
Regardless, for many of us, a way to opt out of the moral quandary is simply to say "oh, well it pays the bills well and is not physically demanding".
When I was 15 my dad got me a job where he worked, a trucking business where the work was dirty, hard and not well compensated. Moving equipment and large Diesel engine parts was incredibly tough. I made more money than I would have working in retail.
At the time my parents were worried that I was getting paid enough doing that kind of work that I might consider not going to college. If anything it solidified my view that college was my only option.
I do occasionally miss working with my hands but I’m thankful for what I have now as a software engineer. I’ve never seen anyone get sprayed in the face with hot coolant or hurt their back sitting at a desk programming. I don’t have to worry about punishing my body for 30 years.
White collar work can be exhausting, unfulfilling and stressful but it has to be put into perspective.
No. I'm not handy, I have two left hands. If I were good with physical labor, I would probably fancy a trade job more. Our son (almost 1,5 y.o.) seems to like the physical stuff more than our daughter (who also lacks behind in physical development compared to curve). We joke he's going to pursue a career like plumber (there's a huge shortage for plumbers around here, so I'd wager it would earn well, too). Though there's a job shortage in general, this one stood out for longer than a few years. I just hope he finishes school, that's all. Cause without the paper, as silly as it might be at times, its gonna be more rough. Though self-employed people have to arrange their own retirement money (which is why gig economy self-employment is BS).
So yes, I bought a fixer upper 2 years ago at the beginning of the pandemic because I had an existential moment where I was fed up with the seemingly futility and abstractness of software development. Turns out physical labor is even more futile after the novelty wears out.
I used to clean the office/locker rooms of a concrete prefab factory while in school for some income. Talk about existential. Literally the same thing every night and a seemingly pointless task since it would be the same mess within minutes when the next shift walked in.
I've decided that I will soon be done with tech after 35 years. I find the tech industry exhausting and disappointing. It is really hasn't gotten any better than it was when I started and in some significant ways it is worse. The whole practice of software needs [citation needed] and [condemned by the board of health] notices slapped on it. Ignorance reigns and there is new ignorance every day lest anyone ever learn anything. Cliquishness, fetishism and cargo culting are rampant and that is not even commenting on the fringes like cryptocurrency. The scabrous larcenous fucks who want to take over the internet with "web3" might likely succeed because the investor class is filled with rapacious sociopaths and grifters who will happily ally themselves for another quick buck.
It is all shit and it is not fun any more.
Having spent several summers working manual labour and others spent working as a school janitor I certainly don't long for those jobs. I will probably spend my time on personal health and volunteering including tutoring. I will presumably continue to write software for my own enjoyment but I am indifferent about even participating in open source as it has become, too often, a cudgel used by one company or faction against another rather than a societal good.
Well, I guess I should rethink my constant urge to leave structural engineering and become a software developer.
“The grass is greener…” fallacy seems to be prevalent in most people. It becomes most intense when encountering obstacles, frustrations, boredom, and stress in the current situation, which makes sense I suppose. And it’s so easy to gloss over all the privileges that come with the current situation. When I was broke and busting my ass in university, I couldn’t wait to start my coop jobs. Then half way through coop, I couldn’t wait to get back to class. Now I have the luxury of living a comfortable life and there are no abrupt changes unless I decide to implement them. Yet the dissatisfaction creeps in…
Well, no since I deal with enough virtual crap all day, and don't really have any desire to deal with the real thing. Plus, plumber does require an apprenticeship in the US.
I, on the other hand, have thought about buying quite a bit of carpentry equipment when I am done with IT. These new CNC machines are amazingly programmable and just the thought of actually building custom furniture excites me.
I did grow up in an era and place where I learned electrical and carpentry ("ok students, in order to have the photography class we need to build a dark room"). So, I do know a bit about basic techniques, but would probably take some classes to refresh my knowledge and learn the "right way".
Do people in the US do "work experience"? In the UK it is something <16 year old kids do where you spend a week working a job and is organised by schools.
From what I understand, the placements are almost random, and pretty much tend to all be something pretty tedious. E.g. a postman, working in a bakery, some random office admin/assistant crap, a cinema usher, collecting trolleys/carts at supermarket/grocery stores etc.
I think those were pretty educational in terms of what shit jobs are like.
I am not sure if they are deliberately shit jobs to try and get you to concentrate on studies etc. But they do at least give you a baseline for how depressing and brain-dead many jobs can be
> Instead of my current career path where I’m having to constantly re-prioritize, put out fires, report to multiple leads with different agendas, scope and build things that have never been done, ect.
> Maybe I’m misguided but in other fields one becomes a master of their craft over time. In CS/data science, I feel like you are forever a junior because your experience decays over time.
I get where this person is coming from, but:
- Improving at the things in the first list is part of mastery, unfortunately.
- A lot of old experience is still valuable. But one needs to be able to transfer/translate the important lessons to new contexts as tools, frameworks and languages change.
Last year when I was working as a contractor for a US company, I mentioned to my team leader that I’m sick of tech and I really want to close my laptop for the last time ever, go outside and start making wood flutes or something.
Instead of telling me that it will be better, he says that sometimes he contemplates buying a bar and just serving people and listening to their stories.
On that day I realized that not tech, but the idiotic company processes and the people I had to put up with were what got me into that state. I was hired as a Python backend developer, but I was also working as a Postgis expert (and I was no expert, I had no idea what I was doing), Go+gRPC integrator, Kube and Docker Swarm ops guy, frontend debugging person and I was in charge of the dev experience internal tools. It was simply too much to keep up with.
That same month I resigned and started working on selling my own product. 3 long months later, I launched the paid version of Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/) and I again discovered why I like being in tech.
There’s a kind of freedom that you can rarely find in other domains. You can be creative, start ideas on a whim, go into rabbit holes of satisfying curiosity, learn to use languages and tools that allow you to do in 3 lines of code what you needed 300 lines for yesterday. It feels like earning super powers sometimes.
And after all that, you can also make enough money to live comfortably in a nice apartment, small house, or just sleep in the woods if that’s your thing.
Since that day, I never considered being an employee, and just continued on doing my thing and creating stuff. This lead to the creation of https://lowtechguys.com/ and writing about my tech journeys on https://alinpanaitiu.com/blog/
I’m still contemplating about building a house in the forest and start making Kaval flutes some day, but I think my tech skills will be a helpful aid for that goal, not something I want to leave by behind.
My constant daydream is machining. So far I learned the basics of FreeCAD, watched a shitton of machining videos on YouTube and researched some lathes and mills.
Unfortunately it is a hobby that requires lots of space to keep the machines and tools.
You ought to see if there is a makerspace/hackerspace in your area. I just joined one - it's got a full woodshop, machine shop, CNC router, welding, laser cutter, 3d printers, even an auto bay - so you could work on your car. They do regular classes on the tools. It's been fun coming up with fun ideas and seeing how quickly I can "MVP" them. Most recent project was making an old-timey saloon sign for a friend's birthday. Found some fun pictures on Google Images, traced them as vector shapes, and etched / cut the design into some scrap wood using the CNC laser. It was a lot of fun. Just wandering around the tools watching people - you can come up with new little project ideas. The other great thing is meeting all the tool experts, they're always willing to help out & show some tips.
To those looking to increase your ability to express yourself - this is a very satisfying interest. Making besutiful & helpful stuff for the people in your life is quite interesting ... People tell you their life dreams - when you work on those projects, there is a lot of learning & fun.
And for anyone who's interested in this stuff, a question- what is considered the "GitHub" of makerspace projects, plans, 3d models, stock designs etc? I'm looking for that open-source feel good sharing vibe... "Is there an HN for that"?
its true. i live in a medium-size american city and you can find a corner in a warehouse if you look hard enough.
i started out trying to build a little mini-shop. that turned out poorly. working with the small tools seems to require alot more expertise and patience than working with the normal-sized toolroom machines.
space aside its pretty much free. old machine tools are great learners and can be had for not much more than scrap price. steel is dirt cheap.
I once went to teach a training course to a team at some BigCo, and there was one guy who'd switched to software development from being a baker. He'd worked up to owning two shops, but the leases expired and he couldn't afford what the landlord wanted to renew them. His brother was a dev so he thought he'd give it a go.
He loved it - no more being in the shop at 4am getting the day's bread ready and still being there at 8pm doing admin. He'd kept some of his gear, though, and was the go-to man for wedding cakes and fancy patisserie for the company.
I'm getting more into home repair since my Dad died I help my mom with the house I don't own a house. Really I think it's interesting and could do it as a job. My Dad was a blue collar worker who did almost everything.
I combined the two and I am making a 3D CAD of the family house. I'm learning a lot about foundations, sill plates, rim boards, insulation, sheathing, plumbing. electrical etc.
FYI Matt Risinger has a great channel on YouTube for general home building science. And I watch fellow Canadian Got2Learn on YouTube for plumbing.
The grass is always greener. I have friends who work in trades and they constantly say how I have it easy for being able to work from home and not exert myself too much physially. On the other hand it'd be nice not to have meetings, deadlines and operational work (at least I don't have to do on call anymore) and constantly try to keep up with the times skillwise (which tbf I find really fun, but still). I'm quite happy though. Remote work has definitely made a massive difference, for me, in that respect.
For me it’s becoming an electrician, and I actually do a great deal of recreational construction work and enjoy it. But the licensing requirements are insane, and that ultimately is what keeps me writing software.
Although I think that for a lot of people who feel this impulse, the problem might not be the type of work — it might be that the software you’re working on doesn’t do any real good for the world, or have any impact that you can see.
You can change that without having to switch fields — just don’t go to work in ad tech.
When you're walking around with your dog, or in some other situation where you're not their employer:
Chat with the plumbers (and other tradespeople). Nothing deep or profound. Don't even bring up these work topics unless they do. The weather, the Super Bowl, your dog, what they're doing right now...
I could enumerate the benefits, but let's leave it as "you'll feel better, and so will they." And you'll get a gut feeling about them as people.
I enjoy solving problems, and software is an interesting place to be. Learning should be fun, not a miserable chore; I typically have one or two software/hardware hobby projects going in fields totally unrelated to my work, just to solve a little problem, and because it feels really good to expand your knowledge.
There are plenty of crappy boring jobs though (I never want to do typical web dev), so try to find something better if you're stuck there.
I've been thinking recently on the concept of "deadlines" in development teams, alongside roadmaps and deadlines. I wish teams asked each day "What's the most impactful thing I can do for the business today", and focused on that.
Constantly acting under time-constraints removes the creativity from building. And, focusing on short-term productive gains comes at the expense of long-term fundamental progress.
I laboured for my Dad when I was 19. He was a master plasterer (dry waller for the Americans). We worked together for months travelling around Queensland (an Australian state the size of Texas). It was hot and draining work. Over the course of my 25 years of IT work, on the difficult days I've often looked back on those days and thought, "still better than sanding ceilings in 40 degree Celsius heat.
There surely are people who would be professionally more satisfied as a plumber than an IT worker. I definitely encourage those people to try it out.
Then there are people purely fantasizing about professions like plumbing because of that 20% of their job they're unhappy with. They probably would do more for their mental health by donating 50% of their 5x plumber's salary to a non-profit of their choice.
I do occasional plumbing repairs like replacing faucets and toilet fixtures at my home using YouTube video. I hate the experience. The water is cold. My knees hurt when squatting and crouching for long stretches of time. I do end up using plumbers putty and plumbers tape and I am terrified at the thought of accidentally flooding my home.
I have a lot of urges but becoming a plumber is not one of them.
I feel a relatively frequent urge to run away from my stressful job and spend some time working on passion projects. After a while I remember the industry has made me a relatively privileged citizen, that I never expected to be making so much money at my age, etc. Tech has a way of trapping you in if your work ethic is remotely decent and you are not wealthy.
Sometimes I feel the urge of becoming a teacher, teaching math or maybe even programming.
But then I'm reminded of how prviliged I am and how much better the working conditions are as a work from home developer is compared to a teacher... And the feeling goes away.
Maybe the best is if I could FIRE and then just hold evening classes for those who are interested, but I'm not there yet.
I was a teacher at a local tech institute for mechanical engineering. The social contact with the students and the variety of things I got to teach was really fun and rewarding. Unfortunately, the pay was bad and I couldn't see myself staying there for long and in such a high cost of living area.
Not a plumper, but I noticed a guy driving around washing self-service gas stations. Might not be that great during the winter.
More realistic: I often look at “IT guy” wanted job postings, or “programmer wanted” from companies that shouldn’t need a programmer. One I regret not applying for was a programmer for an auto-parts company.
It's funny they chose a plumber as a venue to venture to. IMO it's the closest to software engineering in terms of need to use hacky workarounds for the projects that were broken beyond repair by neglect or previous contractors (especially so in countries with less strict or non-existent building codes).
Anecdotally it certainly feels like many engineers are experiencing dissatisfaction, often because of lack of mastery within their section (cue the “web development moves too fast and cycles through too many frameworks and fads” articles).
I think there are degrees of scope, complexity and variability. A software engineer is more likely to have the world constantly changing under them at a pace that is difficult to keep up with.
It's unclear whether that post is based on multiple similar job experiences, or just the single job they're currently in. But the last time I felt like that person (constantly considering what else to do instead) it was actually just the one job (and specifically that manager), not the career.
Same. I definitely don't want to stay in this field for decades, bc companies see you as radioactive as an ilder worker instead of a venerable expert of years of experience. I don't think that'll ever change, anytging code slinging related is susceptible to be biased to older workers.
I shifted away from EE toward programming stuff because physical objects are kind of a pain in the butt. You plug in the wrong wire and the magic smoke permanently escapes. No way to put it back in. I'm sure plumbers have a similar problem, except it involves poop water everywhere. No thanks.
OT but still tangentially relevant - In the cold wave a couple of weeks ago in Texas, our pipes froze and the tap on the outside of the house burst. We were not sure about the extent of the damage so we called a plumber. He charged a cool $350 to simply replace the tap. Took all of 15 minutes.
> He charged a cool $350 to simply replace the tap
No, he charged you $350 for his knowledge that replacing the tap was the right solution in this case. If all you had to do was replace the tap, you could have done that yourself and saved a bunch of money. But you didn't know that was all that needed to be done; he did. You paid for his knowledge, not simply the act of replacing the tap.
I’ve seen this argument a lot. It’s was just changing a tap. I don’t have to pay $350 to just someone look at it and tell me your don’t have any damage.
The biggest factor for me personally was that I could not remember what I did a few days ago. I would come to into the office and start working on the current problem, and the day just went by. It was like 8 hours just disappeared into the ether. Day after day. Nothing memorable about them.
Of course, grass is greener effect. I will say this urge has been growing now it appears we are past the peak of the web2.0 business cycle and the next proposed ones (web3.0 / metaverse / self driving cars) seem less inspiring to me for a multitude of reasons.
In contrast with everyone in this thread, I absolutely love being up to date with the current and the bleeding edge techstack, because I love programming.
I chose to be a SE because I knew I'd have fun doing so, and I advise the younger generations to have a similar approach.
I’d go back for the PhD in land use economics I turned down and get to work on smart ideas for dealing with relocating soon-to-be-submerged populated areas.
It’s effectively similar to plumbing or anything else — a trade off to a different scale of problems and pressures.
Funnily enough (part-time) landscaper is neat the top of my list if I would change careers from software.
Being outside, dirt in your hands, physical exercise, and the satisfaction of seeing large changes and accomplishments relatively quickly compared to many trades.
Yes, and software has more room at the higher end too. Our industry has built in golden handcuffs! I have already taken sabbaticals to do other things for a year three times, but always come back for the money.
I have worked as an electrician. It's not particularly a clean trade and you get spaghetti too, in the form of hundreds of wires of the very same color and air conditioners connected to the lights circuit.
For me it's becoming a barista. Something social, where I'm not sitting all day. Something with an artisanal bend to it, that can be appreciated by more people than a handful of your coworkers.
I have, but in a very small town where everyone knew everyone so it wasn't as bad as I've heard it can get. I fully get it's not realistic and would have massive downsides, but still.
I'll say this for the trades: there is infinite work. The population is getting older, leaning towards old ladies. Who is going to keep their oil-fired steam heat working? Maybe you..
Definitely not. Long-haul trucker, now there's a dream (if it was anywhere nearly as convenient and easy as $AREA truck simulator $NUMBER which it unfortunately is not).
I fantasize about taking 6 months off before starting my next job and being a barista for a while. My guess is I'd appreciate my current situation a lot more :D
No, but I left the field once to be a humanitarian aid logistician, and another two times to be a dad at home. Both were more useful and fulfilling, but paid less.
Friend of mine was an apprentice plumber - was working in a tight space, bumped something and dropped his torch. I'd rather not deal with third degree burns.
If it helps, I had such a "1/4 life crisis" at around 29.
Tldr, trades can be fun, but are also physically demanding, get boring, don't pay as well as it might appear, and have a pretty low ceiling on growth unless you want to manage a fleet of tradesmen or something.
Sometimes I do still wish I was a carpenter. But realistically, software has so many of the same aspects as trades, but is changing so quickly there is always something to learn, it pays better, and doesn't depend on having peak physical health.
The biggest difference in terms of satisfaction I think might be that plumbers et al are more likely to be entrepreneurs, while well paid software engineers mostly work in big companies. Consider entrepreneurship within software before bailing to a completely different trade
As a web dev who glues together api’s and json, I’d call myself a plumber. Instead of shit, I shuttle data from the frontend to a database and vise versa.
I respect trade work, but I also don't idealize it.
It sucks in a lot of ways that are very similar to how software engineering sucks.
As a SWE I get respect from my peers and family for having a "smart job", make 4x what most plumbers make, work from my home office, and do not have a boss breathing down my neck. I do not destroy my body by constantly kneeling over and getting into awkward positions.
I see this not so much as, “let me quit my swe job to become a plumber” but more so a fundamental alienation from labor (on behalf of OP). I think we can all agree that using intelligence to create abstract flows in code is engaging and rewarding. It’s the everything else that makes us feel alienated: the politics/pressure of the company, the “mba types”, the mission of the company itself to solve a problem that isn’t even all that real or impactful ie optimizing video advertising — and the perverse ways management tries to sell it as world changing work — m that makes us look to the other side and wonder if say using our hands to make physical structures might being a closer relationship to our work. A rejection of cognitive dissonance or something.
Marx touches on this concept of alienation of labor [0]. Not pushing Marxism at all here, just using one of his lesser known theories to tease out this topic.
My brother considered doing that in his 20s. A lot of demand where he lives. I was surprised to learn it was still a real job, but of course it is. Someone has to ride the fences and herd the cattle.
yes, unfortunately I have golden handcuffs and ever since the great resignation happened, it has gotten worse. I said 4 years, and they said ok, and my payout is very never work again.
This is exactly the conversation the wealthy want us to have. A buddy of mine left a job recently. He worked in IT security for a plastics company that you would all recognize. In his last month, he had a meeting with one of the VP's, who said (direct quote from the meeting):
"Biden really ruined the yachting industry."
OK. What does that person do? Does he work in IT? No. Does he work in production? No.
He collects seven figures a year for presenting a particular persona for a successful company.
Think on that before you start comparing middle/lower class occupations. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm just trying to provide another magnitude of contrast to the issue.
Its an interesting question, I've done a variety of jobs and watched a variety of trades, some are physically harder than others, some are mentally more demanding.
Within a job title, you also get your range of hard and easy jobs.
For example, plastering, when having to plaster a ceiling, the effort would be good for boxing, ie arms above the head dragging the board and plaster over for a whole day does wonders for the shoulders & arms! Walls & surrounds are easier, but you have the usual dust and mixing mess which if an indoor job means some tidying up to do, obviously men dont always like cleaning up and their Henry vacuum cleaners are not a Dyson. Some also do ornamental styles of plastering, but I think this was more popular 100+yrs ago as there were less different jobs around unlike today where new sectors exist like this one.
Building regs dictate what you can and cant do as well.
General building, like new houses or extensions, lots more mess indoors and out, more planning involved.
Bricklaying, cant be below 3DegC because the mortar wont set, and you can only lay so many rows of bricks in a day otherwise the mortar gets squashed out. Building regs dictate what you can and cant do as well, but many home owners and trades people dont know the regs!
Plumbing, fiddly job, you could be digging up gardens, drives, ripping up floorboards working in tight spaces. Biggest risk is plumbing and central heating leaks damaging carpets, plasterwork, blowing electrics.
Building regs & plumbing certification dictate what you can and cant do as well.
Electrical, again a fiddly job like plumbing, most of the products that can be fitted in a house setting already have the regulations built into the product, so its a bit of a no brainer, biggest mistakes come from choosing wrong product like dimming lightswitch which doesnt work with dimmable LED lights, or choose the wrong cable for laying underground.
Building regs and electrical certification dictate what you can and cant do as well.
In terms of mental thought processes, local and national govt regulations control what you can and cant do. For example here in the UK, there are next to no regulations for laying driveways and patios so that those not academically qualified, ie cant read/write but maths never seems to be a problem, can still work, even for themselves.
General building, the building regs can be a pain, I ended up spending a week going through the UK combustion appliance regs, spoke to some of the authors and found, to use a software term a number of "unhandled errors" which had to be referred back to the planning authorities for clarification but they wouldnt commit, so I ended up making my own decisions!
Generally the more lethal something becomes the more rules and regulations.
Gas & electricity seem to be the most heavily regulated, then plumbing then building. These are in a non commercial setting.
Commercial jobs, like infrastructure, much much more regulations & qualifications required but these are bigger projects like building schools & hospitals, roads, etc etc, and there is a hell of a lot more planning & paperwork with multiple external entities.
Work ethics varies, I've seen some turn up early, like 7am and do 7 hours, others will do dawn till dusk weather permitting.
Quite a variability in price quotes for a job, it can be hard to get stuff written down with trades, dont forget many cant read and write well, but the ideas to do a job can vary from just using expanding foam, to taking a few bricks out and filling holes in walls with bricks & mortar properly, even using the write matching colour mortar.
The quality of workmanship is all over the place even when they may be part of a govt recognised trade body, but I think this is also a way trades get at people to eek out the job or just mess someone over. Its very clique.
Dont get me wrong they can have a strong work ethic just not know how to do something properly and vice versa and somewhere in between.
Fall out with them and they can mess up stuff which you wont know about for years, like leaving flux on copper pipes which slowly develops a pinhole where water drips out and then slowly ruins studwork and plaster work.
Where jobs interfere with other domains like plumbing interfering with electrical jobs, generally they will take a flyer and do the other domain job even when not qualified. Property owners will be put on the spot in these situations and if the owners doesnt know the regs, they can end up with expensive problems if things are not done properly which is madness considering the price of property in the UK and wider world today.
Overall if you want a job where you can do it with out much thought, do a trade job, if you want something more mentally challenging stick in IT, with coding being the most challenging.
Edit.There is also alot more superstition and stereo typing in the lower skilled trades, but this isnt unlike what you see with nurses and doctors.
This might be unpalatable for some, but I think anyone who does want to go into a trade could wipe with floor just by providing detailed written quotes, because that bit of paper is worth much to many people, although some insist on only word of mouth trades people. Like I said its very clique.
Seems like something who has never been a plumber would say. If they love plumbing so much, I bet there's a ton of pipes in their house they could replace, but would rather live in a fantasy world instead where they imagine their job is worse than being a plumber to aid their self victimization.
Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got near the end. Luckily the bosses were pretty cool and provided them with decent food for lunch and plenty of drinks (but I still offered them food and drinks too).
I on the other hand was working at my desk in my air conditioned house in comfortable clothes. A few times a day I'd put on my flip-flops and wander around outside to check on their work, ask a few questions, and then head back in when it got too hot.
And a couple of times the plumbing sprung a leak just as they were getting ready to leave, despite their best efforts to get all the risky work done early, and they they had to stay super late. Once the plumber was here till midnight after arriving at 8am.
I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then you have the rest of the day off. But no more. I'd much rather work at my comfy desk inside and deal with the occasional call at 9pm on a Saturday than deal with what they all went through.