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Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm n

Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.

vkou 9y ago
Programming is extremely memory intensive.
- kevindqc 9y ago
  and the order of things is pretty important
Jtsummers 9y ago
Apprenticeships happen a fair amount with electricians and plumbers here still. And that's work that can't be readily outsourced (though it can be undercut with cheaper labor). The need to have work up to code ("need", some people don't care) does keep the rates higher than, say, carpentry work.
posguy 9y ago
For plumbers, electricians and a few other trades you can become a journeyman apprentice in the US, and after a few years you can earn high 5 digits to low 6 digits with healthcare usually. That being said, its a mature industry and not highly regarded in the US as it is a "blue collar" job. Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs.
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  You also likely can't work into your 60s doing work like this. Some people move into management, assessment, inspection, etc, but not everyone can do that. There's more going on here than stigmatization (which I rarely see in real life), these jobs have a different set of concerns that we aren't good at dealing with socially.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Barring accidents, injury, or bad luck (e.g. a car crash or something), you can absolutely save enough to retire as a plumber before your body starts to break down. Especially if you assume SS will still be around for a new plumber's retirement, which may or may not be the case. Even without, it's doable. I know two plumbers socially and both are in their late 40's. One owns a plumbing business so mainly does office/marketing tasks but one is just a standard plumber and does plenty well for himself and his family.
    - posguy 9y ago
      This ^^, you can do well as a plumber and retire after 2 or 3 decades of working if you play your cards right, leaving you with a fairly functional body and freedom from working 1 to 2 decades ahead of most people in the US.
    - stinkytaco 9y ago
      Which brings up another issue: manual jobs involve non-trivial amounts of physical risk. Not only does getting injured negativly affect your life you will always do better working than on disability. And I agree that it's possible for some people to own a business or or do office work, but not everyone who is a plumber today will be able to do that. There are fewer owners than workers. I don't think we should discourage trades, but we can't sugar coat them either. I used to work as a mechanic and never met one that was 65 (the SS retirement age). The safety nets in place are optimized for people who work office jobs, not manual jobs.
      - cryptarch 9y ago
        Is that where insurance and/or trade cooperatives come in?
  - posguy 9y ago
    I've definitely seen people work to retirement or occasionally injury in both industries, in the latter case long term disability picks up the tab using money paid in during the first 30 or 40 years of working.
- throwanem 9y ago
  Not highly regarded by some in the US.
  - posguy 9y ago
    True true, and we should ignore the worthless opinion of those stuck up people. Who can't value a day of labor?
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." - John W. Gardner
- stvswn 9y ago
  The skilled trades are very highly regarded among many, many people -- just not the same people who go to four year research universities. I was an officer and platoon leader in the Army, the endgame for a lot of my soldiers was to use their GI Bill benefits to get to trade school and then become an apprentice in a union. They considered making it in one of the sought-after trades really "making it." If you've ever hired an electrician in the Bay Area, btw -- let me tell you, these guys are doing pretty well for themselves.
  - posguy 9y ago
    The skilled trades are shrinking though in major urban centers, and your average plumber or electrician isn't unionized. That being said, restricted supply is good for those who are skilled today as they will earn more!
  - stinkytaco 9y ago
    I'm actually reminded of this quote from Will Durant about Aristotle's attitude towards manual labor, which I've always found amusing so I might as well share it here: "Such work in Athens had not become so complicated as it is today, when the intelligence demanded in many manual trades is at times much greater than that required for the operations of the lower middle class, and even a college professor may look upon an automobile mechanic (in certain exigencies) as a very god"
- hsitz 9y ago
  On a related note, here's a blog post with suggestions of jobs a person can do without a degree: Part I, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-1/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000... and part II, which includes some more "manual labor" type jobs: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-2/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000... Many require some sort of apprenticeship. The post is on the Mr. Money Mustache website, which is site dedicated to helping people lead happier lives that are less dependent on having lots of money and lots of "things". This idea runs pretty much against everything in a capitalist society, where consumption is encouraged and status is largely based on how much money you have. But you can live a good life with much less if you work to rid yourself of some of the harmful ideas that become ingrained in us as we grow up and live in this sort of society.
  - irrational 9y ago
    Thanks for the links!
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  So is it just the stigma that prevents people from getting 100K a year? I mean if it's as easy as it sounds in your comment, there should be loads of people signing up. And I'm guessing you don't end up with 80K+ in student loans?
  - wcummings 9y ago
    No one said it was easy. All the trades mentioned are hard work.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Easy as in there's probably a lot of people that can handle it, if they decide to stick with it. Whereas becoming, say, an elite spy or soldier has harder requirements that most people won't meet. Or do a lot of people wash out of the trades?
  - dorgo 9y ago
    As a programmer in Germany I don't even get half of that. Where can I sign?
    - sgift 9y ago
      Depending on the region and your experience you may consider asking for a raise or changing your job. You are probably (seriously) underpaid.
      - posguy 9y ago
        Pay in Germany is generally low. Where someone in Seattle would earn $120k to $140k easily, the same person in Germany may net only $40k to $50k. Housing and especially food & drink are much cheaper than the US though, $12 beers aren't anywhere near as common.
        sgift 9y ago
        I'm from Germany, so yeah, you are right, but if he makes less than half of the numbers above (80k-100k) he is still underpaid.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Union electricians are not looked down upon. Local 6 Electricians in San Francisco makes more the the average Programmer. They are making over $100/hr. as I write this. They will be working when the boom busts too. At least, book 1 electricians. That said, it's not easy to get into. The well paying unions are all hard to get into. It's not the test, it's getting all the answers right, and then an oral accounts for 1/2 of the acceptance procedure. To the original poster. Don't give up on you son. I had a terrible time learning, but it cleared up. It cleared up for myself in grade school. I had some kind of learning disability, but the experts didn't have a clue. I was painful shy, and honestly just wanted to be outside. I also studdered terribly. Anyways it all just cleared up. I got cocky in eight grade because getting A's, and B's became easy. I hated high school, but loved college. It was my last year of high school that I realized I was a Very visual learner. Your son might be too? I remember having a terrible time remembering the multiplication table, and honestly think it's a waste of time. In my last year of high school, I changed up the way I took notes in class. I would take one set of neat notes. I couldn't get every syllable the instructor spewed out, but I got enough. I would take all my notes on plain paper--no lines. Every page of notes had a picture/doodle incorporated into my notes. I would never recopy. I would go home and look at those notes before bed. I would touch up my doodles in my notes. At test time, I could visualize many of those pages. (And no--I do not have a idetic memory.) I did had to repeat math courses at a community college. I needed to take basic math. Within a year, I finished Trig with an easy A. I finished a four year college, and did pretty well. I spent a year in graduate school, and did well too. I was about to go to med school, but had a terrible nervous breakdown. Now that affected by life to this day. Looking back, I don't know what caused the breakdown, other than trying to be perfect, and being in my twenties. My point is run the visual learning techniques by your son. I think someone must have written a book on what worked for myself?
- scarface74 9y ago
  Im from the outside looking in, but I never understood why a lot of parents with kids with only average or below average academic skills don't think of encouraging their kids into getting a trade like plumbing, electrician, car repair etc. they don't "waste" time learning subjects that they see as irrelevant and everything they learn is directly related to their future career. I don't see a time where there isn't a need for those trades. The reason I say I'm on the outside looking in is because doing any job that requires the ability to use both hands was never an option for me.
  - temp-dude-87844 9y ago
    Some do, particularly when a parent is already in that trade, the child is on good terms with the parent, and the child shows some promise. These family businesses tend to work out well if the business is already successful. But when the business isn't successful, the resentment builds on both sides. Blue-collar trades are not considered societally desirable and working in the parents' business or career some interpret as a lack of ambition. These factors combine with geography to greatly affect the dating pool for such people, further restricting an avenue of social mobility whose availability was more widespread historically.
- rz2k 9y ago
  For a parent who believes college is not an option for his son, a skilled trade could be a pretty awesome job. What contexts are we talking about for the regard afforded different occupations? Other parents at a school, former classmates at a reunion, talking to a stranger at a bar? what kind of bar? Making money, and being handy and able to work with your hands impresses people. Imagine telling someone in a bar that you are a contractor, plumber, fisherman, fireman, or lumberjack or telling someone that you do tech support at a call center. Different people are simply going to think one job is cooler than the other, so his son should just choose the occupation that gives him the best life and ignore those who don't regard it highly.
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  > Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs. I have no idea how we got to this point. It's even more absurd because you call these people because you didn't know how, didn't want to learn, or didn't want to do a job _yourself_. It's absurd; I honestly feel guilty about being a software engineer with a cushy job making high-end of average for the area when I feel like I do nothing at all. I type some stuff, other people are happy, I get money. I get it, it took a lot of time to figure out what to type in the best way, but it took the electrician I hired to rewire my house a while to learn the regs and best practices, and after spending 5 minutes in my attic in the summer did not envy his job of running cable up to it and then out to all the rooms upstairs, whereas I just sit on a porch swing or at my desk or on my couch while I work.

Maybe learning a craft could work for him? Woodworking, metalworking, glass-blowing, programming? An apprenticeship might just be right up his alley, but I'm not sure how available that is in the US.

vkou 9y ago

Programming is extremely memory intensive.

kevindqc 9y ago
and the order of things is pretty important

Jtsummers 9y ago

Apprenticeships happen a fair amount with electricians and plumbers here still. And that's work that can't be readily outsourced (though it can be undercut with cheaper labor). The need to have work up to code ("need", some people don't care) does keep the rates higher than, say, carpentry work.

posguy 9y ago

For plumbers, electricians and a few other trades you can become a journeyman apprentice in the US, and after a few years you can earn high 5 digits to low 6 digits with healthcare usually. That being said, its a mature industry and not highly regarded in the US as it is a "blue collar" job. Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs.

stinkytaco 9y ago
You also likely can't work into your 60s doing work like this. Some people move into management, assessment, inspection, etc, but not everyone can do that. There's more going on here than stigmatization (which I rarely see in real life), these jobs have a different set of concerns that we aren't good at dealing with socially.
- pc86 9y ago
  Barring accidents, injury, or bad luck (e.g. a car crash or something), you can absolutely save enough to retire as a plumber before your body starts to break down. Especially if you assume SS will still be around for a new plumber's retirement, which may or may not be the case. Even without, it's doable. I know two plumbers socially and both are in their late 40's. One owns a plumbing business so mainly does office/marketing tasks but one is just a standard plumber and does plenty well for himself and his family.
  - posguy 9y ago
    This ^^, you can do well as a plumber and retire after 2 or 3 decades of working if you play your cards right, leaving you with a fairly functional body and freedom from working 1 to 2 decades ahead of most people in the US.
  - stinkytaco 9y ago
    Which brings up another issue: manual jobs involve non-trivial amounts of physical risk. Not only does getting injured negativly affect your life you will always do better working than on disability. And I agree that it's possible for some people to own a business or or do office work, but not everyone who is a plumber today will be able to do that. There are fewer owners than workers. I don't think we should discourage trades, but we can't sugar coat them either. I used to work as a mechanic and never met one that was 65 (the SS retirement age). The safety nets in place are optimized for people who work office jobs, not manual jobs.
    - cryptarch 9y ago
      Is that where insurance and/or trade cooperatives come in?
- posguy 9y ago
  I've definitely seen people work to retirement or occasionally injury in both industries, in the latter case long term disability picks up the tab using money paid in during the first 30 or 40 years of working.
throwanem 9y ago
Not highly regarded by some in the US.
- posguy 9y ago
  True true, and we should ignore the worthless opinion of those stuck up people. Who can't value a day of labor?
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." - John W. Gardner
stvswn 9y ago
The skilled trades are very highly regarded among many, many people -- just not the same people who go to four year research universities. I was an officer and platoon leader in the Army, the endgame for a lot of my soldiers was to use their GI Bill benefits to get to trade school and then become an apprentice in a union. They considered making it in one of the sought-after trades really "making it." If you've ever hired an electrician in the Bay Area, btw -- let me tell you, these guys are doing pretty well for themselves.
- posguy 9y ago
  The skilled trades are shrinking though in major urban centers, and your average plumber or electrician isn't unionized. That being said, restricted supply is good for those who are skilled today as they will earn more!
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  I'm actually reminded of this quote from Will Durant about Aristotle's attitude towards manual labor, which I've always found amusing so I might as well share it here: "Such work in Athens had not become so complicated as it is today, when the intelligence demanded in many manual trades is at times much greater than that required for the operations of the lower middle class, and even a college professor may look upon an automobile mechanic (in certain exigencies) as a very god"
hsitz 9y ago
On a related note, here's a blog post with suggestions of jobs a person can do without a degree: Part I, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-1/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/25/50-jobs-over-50000... and part II, which includes some more "manual labor" type jobs: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000-without-a-degree-part-2/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/08/05/50-jobs-over-50000... Many require some sort of apprenticeship. The post is on the Mr. Money Mustache website, which is site dedicated to helping people lead happier lives that are less dependent on having lots of money and lots of "things". This idea runs pretty much against everything in a capitalist society, where consumption is encouraged and status is largely based on how much money you have. But you can live a good life with much less if you work to rid yourself of some of the harmful ideas that become ingrained in us as we grow up and live in this sort of society.
- irrational 9y ago
  Thanks for the links!
MichaelGG 9y ago
So is it just the stigma that prevents people from getting 100K a year? I mean if it's as easy as it sounds in your comment, there should be loads of people signing up. And I'm guessing you don't end up with 80K+ in student loans?
- wcummings 9y ago
  No one said it was easy. All the trades mentioned are hard work.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Easy as in there's probably a lot of people that can handle it, if they decide to stick with it. Whereas becoming, say, an elite spy or soldier has harder requirements that most people won't meet. Or do a lot of people wash out of the trades?
- dorgo 9y ago
  As a programmer in Germany I don't even get half of that. Where can I sign?
  - sgift 9y ago
    Depending on the region and your experience you may consider asking for a raise or changing your job. You are probably (seriously) underpaid.
    - posguy 9y ago
      Pay in Germany is generally low. Where someone in Seattle would earn $120k to $140k easily, the same person in Germany may net only $40k to $50k. Housing and especially food & drink are much cheaper than the US though, $12 beers aren't anywhere near as common.
      - sgift 9y ago
        I'm from Germany, so yeah, you are right, but if he makes less than half of the numbers above (80k-100k) he is still underpaid.
icantdrive55 9y ago
Union electricians are not looked down upon. Local 6 Electricians in San Francisco makes more the the average Programmer. They are making over $100/hr. as I write this. They will be working when the boom busts too. At least, book 1 electricians. That said, it's not easy to get into. The well paying unions are all hard to get into. It's not the test, it's getting all the answers right, and then an oral accounts for 1/2 of the acceptance procedure. To the original poster. Don't give up on you son. I had a terrible time learning, but it cleared up. It cleared up for myself in grade school. I had some kind of learning disability, but the experts didn't have a clue. I was painful shy, and honestly just wanted to be outside. I also studdered terribly. Anyways it all just cleared up. I got cocky in eight grade because getting A's, and B's became easy. I hated high school, but loved college. It was my last year of high school that I realized I was a Very visual learner. Your son might be too? I remember having a terrible time remembering the multiplication table, and honestly think it's a waste of time. In my last year of high school, I changed up the way I took notes in class. I would take one set of neat notes. I couldn't get every syllable the instructor spewed out, but I got enough. I would take all my notes on plain paper--no lines. Every page of notes had a picture/doodle incorporated into my notes. I would never recopy. I would go home and look at those notes before bed. I would touch up my doodles in my notes. At test time, I could visualize many of those pages. (And no--I do not have a idetic memory.) I did had to repeat math courses at a community college. I needed to take basic math. Within a year, I finished Trig with an easy A. I finished a four year college, and did pretty well. I spent a year in graduate school, and did well too. I was about to go to med school, but had a terrible nervous breakdown. Now that affected by life to this day. Looking back, I don't know what caused the breakdown, other than trying to be perfect, and being in my twenties. My point is run the visual learning techniques by your son. I think someone must have written a book on what worked for myself?
scarface74 9y ago
Im from the outside looking in, but I never understood why a lot of parents with kids with only average or below average academic skills don't think of encouraging their kids into getting a trade like plumbing, electrician, car repair etc. they don't "waste" time learning subjects that they see as irrelevant and everything they learn is directly related to their future career. I don't see a time where there isn't a need for those trades. The reason I say I'm on the outside looking in is because doing any job that requires the ability to use both hands was never an option for me.
- temp-dude-87844 9y ago
  Some do, particularly when a parent is already in that trade, the child is on good terms with the parent, and the child shows some promise. These family businesses tend to work out well if the business is already successful. But when the business isn't successful, the resentment builds on both sides. Blue-collar trades are not considered societally desirable and working in the parents' business or career some interpret as a lack of ambition. These factors combine with geography to greatly affect the dating pool for such people, further restricting an avenue of social mobility whose availability was more widespread historically.
rz2k 9y ago
For a parent who believes college is not an option for his son, a skilled trade could be a pretty awesome job. What contexts are we talking about for the regard afforded different occupations? Other parents at a school, former classmates at a reunion, talking to a stranger at a bar? what kind of bar? Making money, and being handy and able to work with your hands impresses people. Imagine telling someone in a bar that you are a contractor, plumber, fisherman, fireman, or lumberjack or telling someone that you do tech support at a call center. Different people are simply going to think one job is cooler than the other, so his son should just choose the occupation that gives him the best life and ignore those who don't regard it highly.
jimktrains2 9y ago
> Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs. I have no idea how we got to this point. It's even more absurd because you call these people because you didn't know how, didn't want to learn, or didn't want to do a job _yourself_. It's absurd; I honestly feel guilty about being a software engineer with a cushy job making high-end of average for the area when I feel like I do nothing at all. I type some stuff, other people are happy, I get money. I get it, it took a lot of time to figure out what to type in the best way, but it took the electrician I hired to rewire my house a while to learn the regs and best practices, and after spending 5 minutes in my attic in the summer did not envy his job of running cable up to it and then out to all the rooms upstairs, whereas I just sit on a porch swing or at my desk or on my couch while I work.