Career stuff

STM317 said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

My point:  Trades.  1% hassle, 100% the income.  

 

Just to make a point. In my case the trades would be 1% But there are few tradesmen who make what I make at the age of 40.  I'm sure there are some. But I got an office job and work 8 hours a day. I'm no carpenter freezing his ass off in 5 degree Minnesota December. 

How much loan debt have you had again to get those higher wages? Trades tend to make more, earlier. And have less total debt. IF those higher earnings in your 20s and 30s are invested wisely, you end up with a very healthy nest egg that's mostly interest rather than trying to balance loan debt with constantly chasing a higher number on your W2.

I'd bet from a net worth perspective, many people could end up in the same place @ age 45 or 50 with a good paying trades job as they would with a Masters and tens or hundreds of thousands in student debt. High salaries are great, but only if they actually contribute to growing your net worth.

I dunno..  I've seen little tradesmen who save well for retirement...  If they do, awesome for them..  But in my experience they are all addicted to the OT and have "ALL THE TOYS" financed of course....

z31maniac said:

Ian F said:

In reply to barefootskater :

Good luck.  My recommendations based on the trades I work with every day:

Show up on time. "On time" actually means at least 15 min early.

Show up when you say you will.

Don't question too much, but also don't be afraid to ask "Why?"

Show up on time.

"If you're early, you're on time. 
If you're on time, you're late. 
If you're late, you're berkeleying fired."

I'm a crappy employee then, which is probably why I will likely retire without ever supervising anyone or being in any type of management role. Good thing I'm not in the trades! 

I always get high remarks in regards to customer interaction, I respond to emails and requests quickly, and my boss often uses me to write company-wide emails because I'm pretty good with words. 

I'm proactive in trying to solve problems, I "work outside my cube" which mean I usually know how and why other people do their jobs, and I generally want to take on new tasks and learn new things.

I stay late and I try to not to miss work. 

I'm occasionally late. 

Doomed to life a mediocrity. 

pheller said:

z31maniac said:

Ian F said:

In reply to barefootskater :

Good luck.  My recommendations based on the trades I work with every day:

Show up on time. "On time" actually means at least 15 min early.

Show up when you say you will.

Don't question too much, but also don't be afraid to ask "Why?"

Show up on time.

"If you're early, you're on time. 
If you're on time, you're late. 
If you're late, you're berkeleying fired."

I'm a crappy employee then, which is probably why I will likely retire without ever supervising anyone or being in any type of management role. Good thing I'm not in the trades! 

I always get high remarks in regards to customer interaction, I respond to emails and requests quickly, and my boss often uses me to write company-wide emails because I'm pretty good with words. 

I'm proactive in trying to solve problems, I "work outside my cube" which mean I usually know how and why other people do their jobs, and I generally want to take on new tasks and learn new things.

I stay late and I try to not to miss work. 

I'm occasionally late. 

Doomed to life a mediocrity. 

It was just a joke.

I typically show up between 6:30-7, sometimes it's 6, sometimes its 9. And sometimes I leave at lunch, sometimes I'm on my computer until 1am working on something. 

We have people that don't roll in until almost 10 and then stay until 7. I'm just glad we have that flexibility. 

In reply to z31maniac :

Same here.  One advantage of the modern office environment is flexible hours.  Our "core" hours are 9am to 3 pm, but even that has some flexibility. We have some guys who get in before 6 and leave before 3 - mainly a guy who lives in Delaware and has a horrific commute that gets worse the later he leaves. 

However, trades tend to work on a more fixed schedule. At the site I'm working at right now, the trades start arriving before 6am and most are signing out at 3pm, unless OT has been approved.

Right. I think I would struggle in the trades because timeliness to the job site is still a pretty big deal. 

I once worked a laborer job where there was a competition - if the foreman/GC showed up at 7AM, some of the other guys would show up at  at 6:45AM. Then the foreman would start showing up at 6:30. Then the other guys would start at 6:15. 

So here's me, showing up at a 7:30AM, when they told me to show up, and everyone gives me hell for not catching onto this game of trying to beat the boss to the job site. Of course, everyone else was bailing at 2PM while I stayed until 4Pm. One time the GC shows up at 3:30PM, surprised to see me still there. He gets on my case for working alone. I say "well I'm trying to put in my hours." He replies "show up earlier." Yea, I told him it wasn't working a few weeks later. 

Now, I've also worked more customer-facing jobs in the past as well, and with those, communication was more key. If you called a customer and said "hey I'm running a bit late, I'll be there 15 minutes later than I originally suspected." All was good. Even consitently being late to customers wasn't a very big deal because the customer appreciated the phone call more than the timeliness. We were working with an aging populace, so half the time they customer didn't even remember we were coming. 

That's not to say my current office doesn't have this competition of "who can show up earlier." It seems my department is the only one who abides by the original office hours - 8AM-to-5PM. Most days at 5PM I'm the last person in the office. 

I just turned 51. Man I wish I could go find younger me and talk to him. So I graduated high school with absolutely zero guidance or ambition for my future. I took the SAT and =despite some learning disabilities I scored in the high 1400's. From the time I was a kid I had a love of airplanes. My dad was a career firefighter. 37 years of it. He never graduated high school) I didn't really want any part of it, but gave it a try. College seemed to be a waste of time. First job out of high school for me though was a mechanic in a Dodge dealer. Was ok. Money was ok for a kid.

Sooo.. fast forward to the 28 year old me. I seriously woke up in the middle of the night and decided that I was going to go enroll in the local tech college Aviation Maintenance program. During the two year degree program I took a job fueling aircraft and part time in a local avionics shop. It wasn't long, with some additional training that I found myself working in law enforcement aviation, not only as a mechanic but as a pilot. The most fun I have ever had for some of the crappiest pay. :) Public Service jobs... they suck. But I eventually ended up working for a start up airline out of Las Vegas. I took an early retirement from there after 17 years. During that 17 year, my highest salary was $165K a year not counting bonuses. Not bad for two years of trade school. We had planned on retiring back on 2008-ish after my airline stock went through the roof. (Sadly we lost that trying to save our daughter from a life of crime) 

Here I am in 2019 at 51 and now working for another airline making low six figures, working 14 days a month. Mostly office work, split 50/50 with hands on the aircraft in a tech support role. I am really super happy doing what I do. 

I guess what I am saying is that Trades can pay and pay well. Sure, if I could go back and talk to young me, I'd probably say get that pilots license and fly big airplanes. It's hard to follow what you really love and make a living at it. 

Just my .02!

Decisions. Advice?

Apparently I'm not the only bird flying away. Pretty much offered more to get me to stay. "for a month or two"

Do I hit them while they're down, or give tough love and cut ties?

barefootskater said:

Apparently I'm not the only bird flying away. Pretty much offered more to get me to stay. "for a month or two"

Do I hit them while they're down, or give tough love and cut ties?

You have already established a new plan. Do not deviate from the new plan.

AngryCorvair said:

barefootskater said:

Apparently I'm not the only bird flying away. Pretty much offered more to get me to stay. "for a month or two"

Do I hit them while they're down, or give tough love and cut ties?

You have already established a new plan. Do not deviate from the new plan.

This.  100% this. 

Never take the counter offer.  You are leaving for a reason. 

Boss man did not actually make an offer. He implied an offer. I told him we'd talk in the morning. 
 

I am complacent by nature. I am also sympathetic. And on a personal note I like my coworkers and my boss. that said, extra income is real. I'm looking at about a 25% decrease in pay, short term, with the new gig. 
 

I know what I should do, but the offer is super tempting. The devil makes a sweet deal. Smells like roses but I bet it'd taste like E36 M3. 

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Never take the counter offer.  You are leaving for a reason. 

I worked for a family company and they froze wages for 5 years as they fought and bought the bad brothers out of the business.  They offered me extra days off and a weekend trip to Vegas on the credit card earned points instead of raises or decent bonuses and I stressed that with a young family it was money that helped me love the chaos and work hard.  
 

I gave my notice and the first thing they ask me is if there's anything they can do to get me to stay?  Like a raise or better bonus?

It actually kind of pisses me off. I know that's how it works. Companies pay the wages that work best for them. As they should. Compensation is just another business transaction. But I'd much prefer it be personal. 
 

all that aside, money isn't the root problem here.  I made my choice and I'll stick to it. I'll talk to the boss in the morning because I said I would, but I don't think his boss would ever authorize what it would cost to keep me. 

Datsun310Guy said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

Never take the counter offer.  You are leaving for a reason. 

I worked for a family company and they froze wages for 5 years as they fought and bought the bad brothers out of the business.  They offered me extra days off and a weekend trip to Vegas on the credit card earned points instead of raises or decent bonuses and I stressed that with a young family it was money that helped me love the chaos and work hard.  
 

I gave my notice and the first thing they ask me is if there's anything they can do to get me to stay?  Like a raise or better bonus?

Tell them "this boat runs on gas, not thanks"

barefootskater said:

Boss man did not actually make an offer. He implied an offer. I told him we'd talk in the morning. 
 

I am complacent by nature. I am also sympathetic. And on a personal note I like my coworkers and my boss. that said, extra income is real. I'm looking at about a 25% decrease in pay, short term, with the new gig. 
 

I know what I should do, but the offer is super tempting. The devil makes a sweet deal. Smells like roses but I bet it'd taste like E36 M3. 

Do not stay. You will be in the same situation later when they don't give you a raise because you earn more than normal.

An opportunity presented itself. I told boss man I was committed to my path. I also know they are in a poor position and rather desperate. Especially on saturdays. I won't be plumbing on saturdays. I'll be slinging parts for a couple months, temporarily. He was very eager to have my help and made an offer. It wasn't good enough so I countered. I hit hard and he accepted. It'll be worth a couple months of saturdays and fully fund my challenge trip 2020.
 

Win win, yes?

Sounds like a pretty fair deal for both of you.  Well done.

One week in (two days really) and so far it is very much trial by fire. Much shoveling, emergency leaks at a big busy restaurant on Friday afternoon, concrete patching, just need to remember this is a long haul plan and this time next year I should be back to parts-slinging money at least. 
My back hurts and my hands are dirty and there is a big part of me that feels good about that. It's just muscle sore anyway.