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I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francis

I feel like everyone is doing social media marketing - or something equally useless while the world around us is breaking down. In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college.

HillaryBriss 8y ago
In the old days, there weren't enough people who knew how to do social media marketing. But somehow a bunch more people learned. I don't know. One might argue that the licensing requirement for escalator mechanics is causing the shortage. Or maybe impediments related to unionized work minimums are causing a bottleneck in the flow of people who are allowed to hold these escalator mechanic jobs.
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logicx24 8y ago
If the world really needs more escalator mechanics, then salaries for them will rise commensurate to demand and people will train to become escalator mechanics. Until then, they'll continue with other pursuits that are more profitable to them. This is how things have always been, unless you want to reinstitute medieval guilds, and I don't see a problem with it. Generally, campaigning to make people to do something out of a sense of moral propriety is the wrong approach to creating change.
- nostrebored 8y ago
  That assumes perfect knowledge. How many of you have ever stopped to check what an escalator mechanic makes?
  - dbcurtis 8y ago
    I know several elevator mechanics. It pays well, very well. Also is a very dangerous job. Its a special kind of personality. You need to be mechanically handy, and have some electronics and software sense as well. I suspect if more people were aware of what it paid, they would go for it, if they were willing to put up with hazards.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Cacti 8y ago
      So what does it pay then?
    - syedkarim 8y ago
      How much dues it pay?
      - nostrademons 8y ago
        BLS says $80K/year. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/mobile/elevator-installers-and-repairers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/mobile/e... Not bad for a high-school education only, but when other people are millionaires because they happened to get into Bitcoin in 2011 or because they picked the right tech startup, I see why folks would rather put their efforts into getting lucky.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    You don’t need to assume perfect knowledge. There’s a reason the rich areas in town are all filled with doctors/lawyers/financiers/tech workers/engineers. They’re healthier, have better work hours, have more time and opportunity to move up the system. Anyone can see this, they would be stupid not to wish the same for their children. And to to put one’s body in the way of significant harm, and work late night hours and give up your social life, anyone who has the option of doing something else is going to want quite a bit of premium. Not just $80k/year. Same goes for needing someone in rural areas.
- BucketSort 8y ago
  You are assuming that the world is well ordered and that all things will balance like that, but it isn't. People don't see those jobs as options, they aren't even aware of the opportunities, and there is social stigma against being in the trades. Even if you make a nice living in the trades, you will take a hit to your social identity, making you less attractive to others. That's how toxic our culture is right now. People don't value good work anymore, they value branding and image. And we are going to collapse because of it.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    > And we are going to collapse because of it. It's not that bad.
    - BucketSort 8y ago
      When we are electing the president by the same principle, I assure you that it is even worse than you can imagine. Societal collapse is imminent. Those who are comforted by their station in life always think they are living in a utopia. You are surrounded by fake smiles adorning people forced into subservience. At one time the myth that hard work and dedication would pay off in the end kept people in line, the "american dream" they called it. Now that myth has been tempered by reality, watching the last generation work all their lives with many having little to their names and no security is what looms over the current generation. We know it's a lie. That lie was keeping things together. We are heading into an age of great civil brawling fueled by immense economic pressure caused by corruption on all fronts.
      - eanzenberg 8y ago
        well that escalated quickly
      - unimpressive 8y ago
        Your narrative is not actually evidence (even if I suspect you may in fact be right).
- Mizza 8y ago
  This is such a shockingly naive worldview, but I see it almost every day. Solving needs and reaping rewards have become disconnected - this is the exact problem we're discussing here. In fact, solutions and rewards have become opposites in some cases, so it is more profitable to create problems than to solve them. This has become a significant portion of the economy across many sectors, but especially in advertising.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  What a beautiful, efficient world. Sadly, what one can do instead is not budget enough for escalator mechanics, complain that the escalator mechanic union is unreasonable or that there is a skills shortage, then let the escalators break down.
- ehnto 8y ago
  It's about more than profit. People have been encouraged to seek fullfilment in their work and so chase their dreams through university and plonk out the end with a piece of paper that doesn't make them money. It wouldn't occur to many people to do work outside of their degree because otherwise what was the point of the degree? If it were about profit everyone would work in remote mines or offshore drilling platforms from 18 until they couldn't anymore.
twblalock 8y ago
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college. This is a common line of argument, but you will find that many tradesmen hope their children will go to college and get office jobs. The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be career-ending for people in the trades. There aren't a lot of jobs for people in middle age who can't physically work a trade anymore due to age or illness or injury -- it's about as bad as being a laid-off factory worker. The trades also get hit very hard in recessions as people build fewer things, infrastructure spending gets cut or postponed, etc. That, combined with the serious impact of medical problems and injuries I just mentioned, can make the trades more financially precarious than they seem to be. I'm not opposed to people going into the trades, but some of the pro-trade-education arguments need a reality check. People need to know about the downsides.
- roenxi 8y ago
  I don't disagree, so this is my opinion on how that reality reconciles against how the world needs to work for us to enjoy comfort and prosperity. Rule of thumb for depreciation is about 2-5% of an asset decays each year and if it isn't maintained the whole thing will need to be replaced every 20-50 years. Some things defy that rule, but most things need repairs. If we live in a world where going into the trades that build and maintain everything is not considered a first-class job that allows a worker to make a first-class contribution then that is a problem. Rather than spending money on funneling students away from the trades, money should be spent improving the OH&S outcomes of tradespeople and improving their access to tools. If someone is umming and aahing about doing a trade or becoming a social media expert, they should be able to rationally see trades as the more worthwhile job for themselves and others (obviously unless they have a real flair for social media).
  - busterarm 8y ago
    That's a great goal, but I'm not sure how we get there. Trade unions have a delicate balance between safety/compensation and cheaper labor alternatives. Developers want to maximize the efficiency of their capital and in construction, human resources are fungible. Europe does a much better job of OH&S for tradespeople but if you look around there isn't nearly as much being built. America is the economic powerhouse it is in part because of the typically-low cost of human labor and other economies are going through the same thing now.
baroffoos 8y ago
Pay me enough and I will learn how to replace an escalator.
- dbcurtis 8y ago
  Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Four year apprenticeship first, though. There is a general shortage of elevator mechanics, so go for it.
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    And how many hours of the day can I actually do that. $125/hour sounds real nice until you factor in the fact that most of these jobs have very inconsistent workloads so you could spend 5 hours working one day and then have no work next week or have to spend a day fixing a mistake for free.
    - dbcurtis 8y ago
      Currently in Northern California there is more overtime available for elevator mechanics than people available to work that many hours legally.
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    > Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Billed $125/hr while actively working on a particular job, or a sure $125/hr for 2000 hours a year? The amount you bill pays for your downtime, too.
    - dbcurtis 8y ago
      So $125/hr is what the tech takes home from the elevator service company. The company is paying for insurance and general overhead, and billing the tech out at around $500/hour. The real money is in starting an independent elevator service company after getting some experience with somebody like KONE or Otis or Schindler.
edflsafoiewq 8y ago
Maybe treating them as a dumping ground for people who aren't "cut out for college" is part of the problem.
RegicidalManiac 8y ago
Only if allow colleges to give "degrees" in Escalation Technology. The problem these days is that students want "cool" titles and do not wish to do the hard work. Who will work in hot sun fixing escalators when one could get a fancy degree in "gender studies" and argue on which bathroom should be used by transgender male who feels like women on even days ?
Delfino 8y ago
I agree with some of what you said but as an educator, the statement "Not everyone is cut out for college." doesn't sit well with me. Outside of some severe disabilities, I don't think there's anything inherent about who can and can't eventually succeed in college. Some people aren't adequately prepared for college by the time they turn 18 and that's a societal failure. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to and succeed in college but I agree that that shouldn't be the path everyone chooses. But proper incentives must be in place for that to be the case. As it stands, would you (rhetorical "you" I don't know if you personally have kids or how you would answer this questions) push your own children toward trades over university currently? Why or why not?
- x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
  Some people just don't give a shit about education and go to college because of a piece of paper they are promised will get them a cushy job. College _is not_ for everyone, and the bar for success in college is constantly being lowered because of it.
- badpun 8y ago
  Jordan Peterson pointed out that the army has a cutoff of IQ 85 (IIRC) for their recruits. In the army’s estimation, they can’t find ANY job in the military that such people would be adequate for - and they might very well be right (it’s against their interest to reject prospective recruits). So, if such people of low intelligence (tens of millions of them in the US) are not good enough for grunt jobs, how well will they do in college? For the silent downvoter: do you believe that anyone can do anything? I for one, have relatively high intelligence and I also get sick (cold etc.) easily. The colds rule out any kind of physical job, as much as I would like to be a jet engine mechanic for example, and I’m pretty much stuck with desk jobs. Do you believe that, in spite of my immune system being in the wrong part of the bell curve, I would do fine working outdoors?
  - astura 8y ago
    Well, there's no set cutoff, and it's done by percentiles on the Armed Forces Aptitude Test, not raw score. The US military tries to reject the bottom third of candidates, however, the standards are always changing depending on need and the number of people who are interested in joining. It's true that the higher scorers preform better than the lower scorers. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/01/why-dumb-recruits-cost-the-army-big-time.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/01/why-dumb-recruit...
asaph 8y ago
Why are 100% of the BART escalators in such dire need of repair or replacement? Are they poor products? Are they very old? Are they poorly maintained?
- diogenescynic 8y ago
  They apparently bought indoor models like 30 years ago and the person responsible for that then went and worked for the escalator company. Instead of suing for fraud, we’ve been assininely repairing them instead of biting the bullet and replacing them. San Francisco Bay Area is absurdly poorly run.
- masonic 8y ago
  Most BART escalator breakdowns are caused not by "natural causes" / wear and tear but by debris (often, human waste).
- wastedhours 8y ago
  Like all the lightbulbs blowing in your house at the same time, they have a lifecycle and since a decent number of them were installed in the same timeframe, they're probably coming due a replacement at the same time ("same time" being the split across the 7 years referenced). Since you're planning on having a multi-year infra project on the go and getting the expertise rolling, it's probably worth extending it across the network (even the newer ones), as I'd assume there's some economies of scale involved in parts and labour. Judging by other comments in the thread, they're reaching their natural life.
pessimizer 8y ago
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. Or maybe not create this arbitrary distinction, and let people who are going to school with the intention of ultimately becoming a welder or a mechanic be able to take an English or a history class. For some reason, people who go to college for basketball get to take art history, but not people learning to be machinists. Maybe it's the mentality that you go to university to earn the honor of not having to work with your hands that's the problem; I also think that it's why the sciences and medicine often seem awkward there. I'm not exactly sure what the difference between a computer programmer and an elevator repairman is supposed to be, exactly.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  Welders and Mechanics in training are allowed to take English or History classes, they just have to go to a different school for that because trades are not integrated into most traditional colleges.
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Teknoman117 8y ago
Funny thing is in California, trade schools are shutting down left and right.
grassclone 8y ago
I wish more people knew about how amazing jobs in the trades can be. I've lived in the bay for most of my 20s now and have seen quite a few blue collar folk do extremely well. Right now in the bay we have IBEW journeyman electricians making around 200k a year. Shoot. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, they all do well.
- internet_user 8y ago
  How many years of back breaking labour to reach those levels of compensation?
  - grassclone 8y ago
    It's hard work but 'back breaking' would be a misconception. These guys are encouraged to work safely and smart and as a result often have careers that span 20 to 30 years.
  - rabidrat 8y ago
    My back is not feeling so great after 20 years of full-time sitting at a keyboard, I have to say.
mlazos 8y ago
There could also be other reasons for this, like rent being so high that trades people can't afford to live in the area. One of the other comments even points out that trade schools are closing in CA left and right.
m0zg 8y ago
>> we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work I call BS. An "escalator mechanic" sounds like a profession that could be trained in a year, or far less if the person is some other kind of mechanic. The reason why this training doesn't happen is likely there's not much money to be gained, if anything at all. Or maybe there's a union constraining supply of mechanics, or both. I agree that there needs to be more vocational education, and less stigma against it. But the claim that the problem above could not be solved with liberal application of cash is dubious at best.
megaframe 8y ago
Certified Repair/Mechanic/HVAC isn't what it used to be. After my landlord paid $3500 to replace an in wall heater, a 20min operation I easily knew how to do, I honestly considered switching jobs. Do something with my hands be outside, not stuck in an office... Then I looked it up. The test is intense failing on your first try is pretty common. You have to do 4 years full time of apprenticeship under a licensed contractor who unless they are family (nepotism) will pay you the minimum they can get away with. (This is why you tend to see the kids take over the parents Pumbling/HVAC/Electricians businesses) Only after all that can you finally go on your own. From then on you owe $3k/yr to the state for insurance in case you screw up and kill someone and the state fund has to pay out. You have to pay this every year along with a $350/yr license renewal and show you are active in the trade, otherwise you can have your license revoked. Take at least 8 credits of continuing education each year as it relates to your license, which you must pass for credit (to keep up with a changing field). Take out your own insurance in case you screw up kill or injure someone and they sue you. Your tax rate is significantly higher as a contractor as will be your health insurance because you no longer have a large collective bargaining power. Doing the math I'm surprised new people join in the bay area. The only way it makes sense is if you were already here with family or have rent control. Or you do your apprenticeship somewhere cheap like Bakersfield then move to the Bay assuming you can afford rent till you build a solid list of clients.
tfehring 8y ago
On a local enough scale, it’s always about the money. If SF offered $1 million a year plus a $1 million relocation bonus to escalator mechanics, they’d fill those jobs by next week. You may say, rightly, that it’s ridiculous to pay that much - but at that point we’ve stopped talking about availability and started talking about price. So start from there and move the price as appropriate. Now, if every municipality in the US tried to do this, there would be a legitimate shortage. The highest bidders would get their mechanics. The rest would have to wait, possibly hiring from the inevitable influx of new escalator mechanics a few years later.
bsder 8y ago
> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. Money IS the problem. And the root is an inability to have continuous political will. The issue is that San Francisco never voted to schedule replacement of 10% of escalators every year. So, San Francisco voted to go from almost zero spending on escalator maintenance to a large single burst outlay which will go back to zero after the aforementioned 7 years. What do the escalator mechanics do when the spending goes back to zero?
tzs 8y ago
> In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. There are 35000 escalators in the US. If a typical escalator needs to be replaced every 35 years, that works out to about 1000 escalator replacements a year. I can't find offhand any data on this, but I'd expect that most escalator installations are only a few escalators, and so that the demand for about 1000 replacements per year is pretty steady. Thus, I'd expect that there would be about enough mechanics to handle 1000 per year, without much excess capacity. BART has 175 escalators. That job is big enough that to do it in one year would take over 17% of the nation's escalator installation capacity. That seems like a job sufficiently out of the ordinary that it is not surprising that it has to be spread over a few years. I used 35 years lifetime, which I got from the escalators in a manufacturer's brochure I found--it had one that was rated 30 years and one 35-40, so I took 35. But these were heavy duty escalators. Other sources suggested 25 years, or 15-20 years. If you use a lower average life, you get more mechanics needed per year. Regardless of the lifetime used, I expect that the year to year demand will be pretty steady, and BART's 175 will still represent a very big spike.
- dgzl 8y ago
  If trade school were truly competitive with college and University in terms of offerings, I don't imagine the Escalator Mechanic program would require more time or work than our lower and middle-class could afford.
  - ryanmarsh 8y ago
    This would need everyone to make logical choices based upon the same info. We’re the only family I know that don’t mind if our children go into a trade. Our friends are horrified by the idea of their children not going to a university. My daughter is going to school to be an esthetician (skin care, beauty trade). In our market the ladies that do this make their own hours and make more than their husbands. There’s plenty of money in all manner of trades. Many older folks just haven’t caught up with how much the ROI has changed since they went to school. The other thing to consider, the more manual and dangerous trades are done mostly by men. Female labor participation rates are about to eclipse that of men. If you want more trades the smart thing to do would be to start trying to get more women into them. From a feminist perspective not having a degree is treated as a death sentence of dependence on a man. A lot of young gals think their only option is a university degree and we’re all familiar with how few women are getting STEM degrees.
taftster 8y ago
> Not everyone is cut out for college. Actually I quite think it's the opposite. We should be saying, "Not everyone is cut out for escalator mechanic." Those who aren't cut out for "real" work and traditional vocational education end up going to college to get useless marketing or business degrees. Plumbers, electricians, heavy machinery operators, drafters, are all making really good money historically due to the demands you're describing. The "easy" path these days is to go to college.
arvinsim 8y ago
> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college. I think the root problem is the negative perception of not going to college.
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zeristor 8y ago
This sounds like a job for Bicycle RepairMan! I think Monty Python was aware of this 40 odd years ago, although it’s one of the few clips not on YouTube.
nikofeyn 8y ago
> Not everyone is cut out for college. same goes for teachers. many universities aren’t about education anymore. they are what everything else has become: fundraisers. it’s sad given the education that i have had that i can count the good professors on one hand.
lagadu 8y ago
> Money isn't the problem. Yes it is. Throw enough money at it and you'll have contractors from all around the world flying in to do the work. It's like how tech companies complain that they can't find candidates to fill their positions: yes you can, just pay >50% more than FAANG does, offer them good employment conditions and you'll have the people. You just can't find the people at the cost that you want to find them for.
wazoox 8y ago
I talked to the mason that refitted my house in 2016. He wanted to be a mason like his father, who insisted on him getting a higher education. So he complied and became a bachelor in law, then went on being what he wanted to be, a mason :)
cameldrv 8y ago
7 years and 2.5 million per escalator. I really don't think it's an escalator mechanic shortage. For that price you can fly in mechanics and have them stay in nice hotels and have it done in a month. The problem is that the procurement process is totally dysfunctional.
adrianratnapala 8y ago
> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. So is the problem that there aren't enough mechanics, or not enough licenses?

HillaryBriss 8y ago

In the old days, there weren't enough people who knew how to do social media marketing. But somehow a bunch more people learned. I don't know. One might argue that the licensing requirement for escalator mechanics is causing the shortage. Or maybe impediments related to unionized work minimums are causing a bottleneck in the flow of people who are allowed to hold these escalator mechanic jobs.

deleted 8y ago

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logicx24 8y ago

If the world really needs more escalator mechanics, then salaries for them will rise commensurate to demand and people will train to become escalator mechanics. Until then, they'll continue with other pursuits that are more profitable to them. This is how things have always been, unless you want to reinstitute medieval guilds, and I don't see a problem with it. Generally, campaigning to make people to do something out of a sense of moral propriety is the wrong approach to creating change.

nostrebored 8y ago
That assumes perfect knowledge. How many of you have ever stopped to check what an escalator mechanic makes?
- dbcurtis 8y ago
  I know several elevator mechanics. It pays well, very well. Also is a very dangerous job. Its a special kind of personality. You need to be mechanically handy, and have some electronics and software sense as well. I suspect if more people were aware of what it paid, they would go for it, if they were willing to put up with hazards.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Cacti 8y ago
    So what does it pay then?
  - syedkarim 8y ago
    How much dues it pay?
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      BLS says $80K/year. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/mobile/elevator-installers-and-repairers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/mobile/e... Not bad for a high-school education only, but when other people are millionaires because they happened to get into Bitcoin in 2011 or because they picked the right tech startup, I see why folks would rather put their efforts into getting lucky.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  You don’t need to assume perfect knowledge. There’s a reason the rich areas in town are all filled with doctors/lawyers/financiers/tech workers/engineers. They’re healthier, have better work hours, have more time and opportunity to move up the system. Anyone can see this, they would be stupid not to wish the same for their children. And to to put one’s body in the way of significant harm, and work late night hours and give up your social life, anyone who has the option of doing something else is going to want quite a bit of premium. Not just $80k/year. Same goes for needing someone in rural areas.
BucketSort 8y ago
You are assuming that the world is well ordered and that all things will balance like that, but it isn't. People don't see those jobs as options, they aren't even aware of the opportunities, and there is social stigma against being in the trades. Even if you make a nice living in the trades, you will take a hit to your social identity, making you less attractive to others. That's how toxic our culture is right now. People don't value good work anymore, they value branding and image. And we are going to collapse because of it.
- twblalock 8y ago
  > And we are going to collapse because of it. It's not that bad.
  - BucketSort 8y ago
    When we are electing the president by the same principle, I assure you that it is even worse than you can imagine. Societal collapse is imminent. Those who are comforted by their station in life always think they are living in a utopia. You are surrounded by fake smiles adorning people forced into subservience. At one time the myth that hard work and dedication would pay off in the end kept people in line, the "american dream" they called it. Now that myth has been tempered by reality, watching the last generation work all their lives with many having little to their names and no security is what looms over the current generation. We know it's a lie. That lie was keeping things together. We are heading into an age of great civil brawling fueled by immense economic pressure caused by corruption on all fronts.
    - eanzenberg 8y ago
      well that escalated quickly
    - unimpressive 8y ago
      Your narrative is not actually evidence (even if I suspect you may in fact be right).
Mizza 8y ago
This is such a shockingly naive worldview, but I see it almost every day. Solving needs and reaping rewards have become disconnected - this is the exact problem we're discussing here. In fact, solutions and rewards have become opposites in some cases, so it is more profitable to create problems than to solve them. This has become a significant portion of the economy across many sectors, but especially in advertising.
pessimizer 8y ago
What a beautiful, efficient world. Sadly, what one can do instead is not budget enough for escalator mechanics, complain that the escalator mechanic union is unreasonable or that there is a skills shortage, then let the escalators break down.
ehnto 8y ago
It's about more than profit. People have been encouraged to seek fullfilment in their work and so chase their dreams through university and plonk out the end with a piece of paper that doesn't make them money. It wouldn't occur to many people to do work outside of their degree because otherwise what was the point of the degree? If it were about profit everyone would work in remote mines or offshore drilling platforms from 18 until they couldn't anymore.

twblalock 8y ago

> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. We desperately need better infrastructure, more housing, tangible things. Not everyone is cut out for college. This is a common line of argument, but you will find that many tradesmen hope their children will go to college and get office jobs. The trades are hard on the body. Some trades are hazardous. An injury or medical problem that would be a hassle for someone with an office job can be career-ending for people in the trades. There aren't a lot of jobs for people in middle age who can't physically work a trade anymore due to age or illness or injury -- it's about as bad as being a laid-off factory worker. The trades also get hit very hard in recessions as people build fewer things, infrastructure spending gets cut or postponed, etc. That, combined with the serious impact of medical problems and injuries I just mentioned, can make the trades more financially precarious than they seem to be. I'm not opposed to people going into the trades, but some of the pro-trade-education arguments need a reality check. People need to know about the downsides.

roenxi 8y ago
I don't disagree, so this is my opinion on how that reality reconciles against how the world needs to work for us to enjoy comfort and prosperity. Rule of thumb for depreciation is about 2-5% of an asset decays each year and if it isn't maintained the whole thing will need to be replaced every 20-50 years. Some things defy that rule, but most things need repairs. If we live in a world where going into the trades that build and maintain everything is not considered a first-class job that allows a worker to make a first-class contribution then that is a problem. Rather than spending money on funneling students away from the trades, money should be spent improving the OH&S outcomes of tradespeople and improving their access to tools. If someone is umming and aahing about doing a trade or becoming a social media expert, they should be able to rationally see trades as the more worthwhile job for themselves and others (obviously unless they have a real flair for social media).
- busterarm 8y ago
  That's a great goal, but I'm not sure how we get there. Trade unions have a delicate balance between safety/compensation and cheaper labor alternatives. Developers want to maximize the efficiency of their capital and in construction, human resources are fungible. Europe does a much better job of OH&S for tradespeople but if you look around there isn't nearly as much being built. America is the economic powerhouse it is in part because of the typically-low cost of human labor and other economies are going through the same thing now.

baroffoos 8y ago

Pay me enough and I will learn how to replace an escalator.

dbcurtis 8y ago
Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Four year apprenticeship first, though. There is a general shortage of elevator mechanics, so go for it.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  And how many hours of the day can I actually do that. $125/hour sounds real nice until you factor in the fact that most of these jobs have very inconsistent workloads so you could spend 5 hours working one day and then have no work next week or have to spend a day fixing a mistake for free.
  - dbcurtis 8y ago
    Currently in Northern California there is more overtime available for elevator mechanics than people available to work that many hours legally.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > Once you get a license, it will pay about $125/hour. Billed $125/hr while actively working on a particular job, or a sure $125/hr for 2000 hours a year? The amount you bill pays for your downtime, too.
  - dbcurtis 8y ago
    So $125/hr is what the tech takes home from the elevator service company. The company is paying for insurance and general overhead, and billing the tech out at around $500/hour. The real money is in starting an independent elevator service company after getting some experience with somebody like KONE or Otis or Schindler.

edflsafoiewq 8y ago

Maybe treating them as a dumping ground for people who aren't "cut out for college" is part of the problem.

RegicidalManiac 8y ago

Only if allow colleges to give "degrees" in Escalation Technology. The problem these days is that students want "cool" titles and do not wish to do the hard work. Who will work in hot sun fixing escalators when one could get a fancy degree in "gender studies" and argue on which bathroom should be used by transgender male who feels like women on even days ?

Delfino 8y ago

I agree with some of what you said but as an educator, the statement "Not everyone is cut out for college." doesn't sit well with me. Outside of some severe disabilities, I don't think there's anything inherent about who can and can't eventually succeed in college. Some people aren't adequately prepared for college by the time they turn 18 and that's a societal failure. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to and succeed in college but I agree that that shouldn't be the path everyone chooses. But proper incentives must be in place for that to be the case. As it stands, would you (rhetorical "you" I don't know if you personally have kids or how you would answer this questions) push your own children toward trades over university currently? Why or why not?

x3n0ph3n3 8y ago
Some people just don't give a shit about education and go to college because of a piece of paper they are promised will get them a cushy job. College _is not_ for everyone, and the bar for success in college is constantly being lowered because of it.
badpun 8y ago
Jordan Peterson pointed out that the army has a cutoff of IQ 85 (IIRC) for their recruits. In the army’s estimation, they can’t find ANY job in the military that such people would be adequate for - and they might very well be right (it’s against their interest to reject prospective recruits). So, if such people of low intelligence (tens of millions of them in the US) are not good enough for grunt jobs, how well will they do in college? For the silent downvoter: do you believe that anyone can do anything? I for one, have relatively high intelligence and I also get sick (cold etc.) easily. The colds rule out any kind of physical job, as much as I would like to be a jet engine mechanic for example, and I’m pretty much stuck with desk jobs. Do you believe that, in spite of my immune system being in the wrong part of the bell curve, I would do fine working outdoors?
- astura 8y ago
  Well, there's no set cutoff, and it's done by percentiles on the Armed Forces Aptitude Test, not raw score. The US military tries to reject the bottom third of candidates, however, the standards are always changing depending on need and the number of people who are interested in joining. It's true that the higher scorers preform better than the lower scorers. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/01/why-dumb-recruits-cost-the-army-big-time.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/01/why-dumb-recruit...

asaph 8y ago

Why are 100% of the BART escalators in such dire need of repair or replacement? Are they poor products? Are they very old? Are they poorly maintained?

diogenescynic 8y ago
They apparently bought indoor models like 30 years ago and the person responsible for that then went and worked for the escalator company. Instead of suing for fraud, we’ve been assininely repairing them instead of biting the bullet and replacing them. San Francisco Bay Area is absurdly poorly run.
masonic 8y ago
Most BART escalator breakdowns are caused not by "natural causes" / wear and tear but by debris (often, human waste).
wastedhours 8y ago
Like all the lightbulbs blowing in your house at the same time, they have a lifecycle and since a decent number of them were installed in the same timeframe, they're probably coming due a replacement at the same time ("same time" being the split across the 7 years referenced). Since you're planning on having a multi-year infra project on the go and getting the expertise rolling, it's probably worth extending it across the network (even the newer ones), as I'd assume there's some economies of scale involved in parts and labour. Judging by other comments in the thread, they're reaching their natural life.

pessimizer 8y ago

> Maybe more people should go into the trades - and not be funneled into higher education. Or maybe not create this arbitrary distinction, and let people who are going to school with the intention of ultimately becoming a welder or a mechanic be able to take an English or a history class. For some reason, people who go to college for basketball get to take art history, but not people learning to be machinists. Maybe it's the mentality that you go to university to earn the honor of not having to work with your hands that's the problem; I also think that it's why the sciences and medicine often seem awkward there. I'm not exactly sure what the difference between a computer programmer and an elevator repairman is supposed to be, exactly.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
Welders and Mechanics in training are allowed to take English or History classes, they just have to go to a different school for that because trades are not integrated into most traditional colleges.

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Teknoman117 8y ago

Funny thing is in California, trade schools are shutting down left and right.

grassclone 8y ago

I wish more people knew about how amazing jobs in the trades can be. I've lived in the bay for most of my 20s now and have seen quite a few blue collar folk do extremely well. Right now in the bay we have IBEW journeyman electricians making around 200k a year. Shoot. Pipefitters, Ironworkers, they all do well.

internet_user 8y ago
How many years of back breaking labour to reach those levels of compensation?
- grassclone 8y ago
  It's hard work but 'back breaking' would be a misconception. These guys are encouraged to work safely and smart and as a result often have careers that span 20 to 30 years.
- rabidrat 8y ago
  My back is not feeling so great after 20 years of full-time sitting at a keyboard, I have to say.

mlazos 8y ago

There could also be other reasons for this, like rent being so high that trades people can't afford to live in the area. One of the other comments even points out that trade schools are closing in CA left and right.

m0zg 8y ago

>> we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work I call BS. An "escalator mechanic" sounds like a profession that could be trained in a year, or far less if the person is some other kind of mechanic. The reason why this training doesn't happen is likely there's not much money to be gained, if anything at all. Or maybe there's a union constraining supply of mechanics, or both. I agree that there needs to be more vocational education, and less stigma against it. But the claim that the problem above could not be solved with liberal application of cash is dubious at best.

megaframe 8y ago

Certified Repair/Mechanic/HVAC isn't what it used to be. After my landlord paid $3500 to replace an in wall heater, a 20min operation I easily knew how to do, I honestly considered switching jobs. Do something with my hands be outside, not stuck in an office... Then I looked it up. The test is intense failing on your first try is pretty common. You have to do 4 years full time of apprenticeship under a licensed contractor who unless they are family (nepotism) will pay you the minimum they can get away with. (This is why you tend to see the kids take over the parents Pumbling/HVAC/Electricians businesses) Only after all that can you finally go on your own. From then on you owe $3k/yr to the state for insurance in case you screw up and kill someone and the state fund has to pay out. You have to pay this every year along with a $350/yr license renewal and show you are active in the trade, otherwise you can have your license revoked. Take at least 8 credits of continuing education each year as it relates to your license, which you must pass for credit (to keep up with a changing field). Take out your own insurance in case you screw up kill or injure someone and they sue you. Your tax rate is significantly higher as a contractor as will be your health insurance because you no longer have a large collective bargaining power. Doing the math I'm surprised new people join in the bay area. The only way it makes sense is if you were already here with family or have rent control. Or you do your apprenticeship somewhere cheap like Bakersfield then move to the Bay assuming you can afford rent till you build a solid list of clients.

tfehring 8y ago

On a local enough scale, it’s always about the money. If SF offered $1 million a year plus a $1 million relocation bonus to escalator mechanics, they’d fill those jobs by next week. You may say, rightly, that it’s ridiculous to pay that much - but at that point we’ve stopped talking about availability and started talking about price. So start from there and move the price as appropriate. Now, if every municipality in the US tried to do this, there would be a legitimate shortage. The highest bidders would get their mechanics. The rest would have to wait, possibly hiring from the inevitable influx of new escalator mechanics a few years later.

bsder 8y ago

> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. Money IS the problem. And the root is an inability to have continuous political will. The issue is that San Francisco never voted to schedule replacement of 10% of escalators every year. So, San Francisco voted to go from almost zero spending on escalator maintenance to a large single burst outlay which will go back to zero after the aforementioned 7 years. What do the escalator mechanics do when the spending goes back to zero?

tzs 8y ago

> In the Bay Area, in San Francisco specifically, voters allocated funds to fix or replace every single Bart escalator. The best hope we have for completing this job is 7 years. Yes you read this correctly 7 years. The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. There are 35000 escalators in the US. If a typical escalator needs to be replaced every 35 years, that works out to about 1000 escalator replacements a year. I can't find offhand any data on this, but I'd expect that most escalator installations are only a few escalators, and so that the demand for about 1000 replacements per year is pretty steady. Thus, I'd expect that there would be about enough mechanics to handle 1000 per year, without much excess capacity. BART has 175 escalators. That job is big enough that to do it in one year would take over 17% of the nation's escalator installation capacity. That seems like a job sufficiently out of the ordinary that it is not surprising that it has to be spread over a few years. I used 35 years lifetime, which I got from the escalators in a manufacturer's brochure I found--it had one that was rated 30 years and one 35-40, so I took 35. But these were heavy duty escalators. Other sources suggested 25 years, or 15-20 years. If you use a lower average life, you get more mechanics needed per year. Regardless of the lifetime used, I expect that the year to year demand will be pretty steady, and BART's 175 will still represent a very big spike.

dgzl 8y ago
If trade school were truly competitive with college and University in terms of offerings, I don't imagine the Escalator Mechanic program would require more time or work than our lower and middle-class could afford.
- ryanmarsh 8y ago
  This would need everyone to make logical choices based upon the same info. We’re the only family I know that don’t mind if our children go into a trade. Our friends are horrified by the idea of their children not going to a university. My daughter is going to school to be an esthetician (skin care, beauty trade). In our market the ladies that do this make their own hours and make more than their husbands. There’s plenty of money in all manner of trades. Many older folks just haven’t caught up with how much the ROI has changed since they went to school. The other thing to consider, the more manual and dangerous trades are done mostly by men. Female labor participation rates are about to eclipse that of men. If you want more trades the smart thing to do would be to start trying to get more women into them. From a feminist perspective not having a degree is treated as a death sentence of dependence on a man. A lot of young gals think their only option is a university degree and we’re all familiar with how few women are getting STEM degrees.

taftster 8y ago

> Not everyone is cut out for college. Actually I quite think it's the opposite. We should be saying, "Not everyone is cut out for escalator mechanic." Those who aren't cut out for "real" work and traditional vocational education end up going to college to get useless marketing or business degrees. Plumbers, electricians, heavy machinery operators, drafters, are all making really good money historically due to the demands you're describing. The "easy" path these days is to go to college.

arvinsim 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

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zeristor 8y ago

This sounds like a job for Bicycle RepairMan! I think Monty Python was aware of this 40 odd years ago, although it’s one of the few clips not on YouTube.

nikofeyn 8y ago

> Not everyone is cut out for college. same goes for teachers. many universities aren’t about education anymore. they are what everything else has become: fundraisers. it’s sad given the education that i have had that i can count the good professors on one hand.

lagadu 8y ago

> Money isn't the problem. Yes it is. Throw enough money at it and you'll have contractors from all around the world flying in to do the work. It's like how tech companies complain that they can't find candidates to fill their positions: yes you can, just pay >50% more than FAANG does, offer them good employment conditions and you'll have the people. You just can't find the people at the cost that you want to find them for.

wazoox 8y ago

I talked to the mason that refitted my house in 2016. He wanted to be a mason like his father, who insisted on him getting a higher education. So he complied and became a bachelor in law, then went on being what he wanted to be, a mason :)

cameldrv 8y ago

7 years and 2.5 million per escalator. I really don't think it's an escalator mechanic shortage. For that price you can fly in mechanics and have them stay in nice hotels and have it done in a month. The problem is that the procurement process is totally dysfunctional.

adrianratnapala 8y ago

> The problem is we do not have enough licensed escalator mechanics to do the work. Money isn't the problem. So is the problem that there aren't enough mechanics, or not enough licenses?