3 ms·

Originally, I never intended to go to college after high school. I got my GED, and went from working part time at a furniture shop to full time. We made classic

Originally, I never intended to go to college after high school. I got my GED, and went from working part time at a furniture shop to full time. We made classic inspired case pieces, tables, chairs etc. We used machines but all finished surfaces were hand detailed using a hand plane, chisel, rasp or scraper. I have never enjoyed a job more. Even after entering the tech field, I have held part time jobs (not sure if they qualify as blue collar but certainly not office jobs). One as a barista and one as a personal trainer. Again, I have enjoyed those jobs more than anything else I have done. Feedback is immediate: a smile on someone's face, a beautiful curve in a hand carved detail, high-fives after group fitness class. Or, negatively: "this tastes weird/I didn't order this", a chip or crack or blemish in the finish, grimacing in pain. Most of what I do, no one ever appreciates or even looks at. It will never be seen, even my superiors only care about the end result. I could write it in brainfuck and PHP4 and they would never even know. If the kitchen is dirty, it's noticeable to everyone. If the project is dirty, from technical debt, only I see that. If I say "We need a new espresso machine because this one is broken and that's the second time this month" Everyone understands and if I say that I actually fixed it myself to get it to limp along for another month then that's going above and beyond. If I say "We need a new backend because ours was written by someone who hasn't worked here in 5 years and it takes us 4 hours to deploy" then everyone wonders what's wrong with me and why can't I just make it work. And If I say I added some shims and interfaces to allow us to gradually change it instead of replacing it wholesale, that's wasting time.

ryanmercer 7y ago
I really, really, really wish I'd got a degree in my late teens/early 20's. I unloaded 100 bitcoin for some WoW gold one time but if I had a time machine for one use I'd go back and tell me at 18 to get a degree and not even mention the crypto, I'd have had a better life. Highschool -> GED > switched from part time to full time retail [1] -> grave digger/grounds keeper [2] -> full time retail [3] -> contractor for CBP [4] -> current job [5]. [1] Best Buy was ok. We were the product processing team so we had to throw the trucks, stock everything, reset the planograms, load heavy stuff, get stuff down stored up top etc. There were 4 of us, there were supposed to be 9 of us so we had to bust ass and it got pretty tiring. [2] Minimum wage was 6$ and change, I was making 10! Outside 50-60 hours a day with no shade, got sun poisoning, had to bury a high school kid, had to bury an infant, would regularly sit in freshly dug graves just to cool down and get out of the sun for a few minutes and climb out before my boss would notice, if I had a fresh grave I'd usually eat my lunch in it too for the same reasons. Showed up at work one day working my way towards sun poisoning again and parked my truck. Sat there for a minute, put it in reverse and left and called the office guy and said sorry man I'm not coming back. [3] I honestly loved everything at Lowes but the pay and the random hours. There was a guy that had a full time job, he only wanted to close. I didn't mind opening and would have been fine with opening and throwing the truck for the departments (hardware, always had to help tools because old guys). So what did they do? "Hey Larry we need you to open, Ryan you're closing"... blinks [4] Got paid a fraction of what the federal employees did, took over the desk of a woman who had retired and apparently had stopped doing anything more than a year before and left a mess, was given zero training on SAP or what I was supposed to be doing and was given a single sheet of paper with some photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy of some screenshots showing me vaguely what to do, the CPA was never in the office if it was nice out as he'd clock in and go play golf, the manager would come in and turn her light on, close the blinds on her window and either leave or just not answer her phone/door, guy across from my cubicle would come over to talk and sit in my extra chair and fall asleep every single day but he did manage to help me sorta figure out what I was supposed to be doing, DHS and other federal and state agencies were in the news for mismanaging funds and doing stuff like buying 2k$ bullet proof vests for dogs in Podunk, Middleamerica population 19 so put in a 30 day notice figuring I'd find a job quick. [5] 13 weeks after my last week at CBP got hired by FTN, been here for 13 3/4 years. Same position I hired in to, although now on my 3rd job title as they change it every few years company-wide. Don't have a degree, only a GED, FedEx wants 4-year degrees minimum for everything. Been here twice as long as all 3 of my team leads, yes I have three team leads. The 3 people on my team immediately higher than me have been here 1/5-1/3 as long as me. 3rd shift makes 15% more than us so new hires start almost at what I make. If you want to move up you need a degree and if you want to be a manager (4 steps above me) you have to be willing to move to another state for (likely) years like my current manager (my 4th manager to date) had to. We share desks with another shift, I had one former desk mate management had to throw the entire contents of their drawer away and some of my stuff because they wore the same shirt every single day at work and kept it in their drawer between shifts, for years, and it smelled horrible because they'd go out and walk in the heat and humidity on their lunch and sweat it up. I had another desk mate that would pick and stick boogers on the monitor frame, the tower, underneath the desk, the stapler (we also have the walls covered by the urinals, and in the stalls, in both men's bathrooms from pick and stickers). Every year at best I can manage about 3% merit increase, I don't think I've ever actually got 3%. They just nuked our pensions to up 401k match, I already can't afford to contribute enough to get the match they had before let alone the new match. Insurance usually goes up more than my merit increase, 2019 I made 2k$ and change less than 2018 thanks to zero over time available. They said they were going to bring a bunch more jobs here so more room for advancement, instead they opened 2 satellite offices in other states. There are now people in those office that have been here 6-12 months that are now higher than me because they had to quick promote them. Realistically I will have to work here until I die as this job doesn't translate to anything else and I'm about to turn 35 without a degree. If I tried to get a degree I'd be 42ish probably and probably fail a few classes before I got used to school after being absent from it for half of my life. I'd then be 42ish going for entry level work with 40-60k$ in debt. I'd probably pay it off by 55ish, meaning I'd have 5-15 years to try and make up on 30-40 years of missed retirement contributions. If I don't die before then, cancer killed my father in his 40's and his mother in her 50's, my mother had cancer in her late 50's. Hate my job, completely dead end yet know I'm stuck here dealing with more and more absurdity until I die. Fun times.
- circlefavshape 7y ago
  FWIW I've worked with quite a few software developers who have no degree. All of them have good jobs, some very good You are not trapped, you're in a rut. I'm 48, and 35 seems young enough to do pretty much anything
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    I'm not a software developer and I haven't touched code, aside from pasting some ad script into my website, since trying to copy paste sections of C++ on MUDs in the 1990's. That's not entirely true, I have been trying to learn Atari BASIC (vintage computer fan, 8-bit Ataris are my interest) but it's slow going. It's more like feeling stupid and growling at my PVM. I do not think like a machine. I'd have better luck writing a sonnet from a can of alphabet spaghetti than I would writing a meaningful bit of code. People tend to forget HN is more than programmers.
    - gtaylor 7y ago
      For what it's worth, I'm over ten years into a career in software and have never stopped feeling stupid.
- iamthepieman 7y ago
  Thanks For sharing Ryan. There's a reason I did eventually go to college, get the degree and enter tech. Doesn't change the fact that I've never loved any job, company or role as much as I loved making furniture and helping people get fit. Sounds like I'm just a bit older than you. minimum wage was 5.25 when I first started part time at the furniture shop. I was making $12 an hour by the time I quit (this was 18 years ago). I do know blue collared workers who are quite happy and make decent money. My brother I mentioned in another comment being one of them, another brother who drives for Sysco is unioned and has a good career path (admittedly based on seniority) and makes good money. Edit: I actually DON'T have a degree. I went to college, got a lot of credits but missed a requirement in a non-degree related class (I forget but it was something like not taking enough history or something). I already had a job offer lined up so it didn't matter and after that first job, no one has ever cared.

ryanmercer 7y ago

I really, really, really wish I'd got a degree in my late teens/early 20's. I unloaded 100 bitcoin for some WoW gold one time but if I had a time machine for one use I'd go back and tell me at 18 to get a degree and not even mention the crypto, I'd have had a better life. Highschool -> GED > switched from part time to full time retail [1] -> grave digger/grounds keeper [2] -> full time retail [3] -> contractor for CBP [4] -> current job [5]. [1] Best Buy was ok. We were the product processing team so we had to throw the trucks, stock everything, reset the planograms, load heavy stuff, get stuff down stored up top etc. There were 4 of us, there were supposed to be 9 of us so we had to bust ass and it got pretty tiring. [2] Minimum wage was 6$ and change, I was making 10! Outside 50-60 hours a day with no shade, got sun poisoning, had to bury a high school kid, had to bury an infant, would regularly sit in freshly dug graves just to cool down and get out of the sun for a few minutes and climb out before my boss would notice, if I had a fresh grave I'd usually eat my lunch in it too for the same reasons. Showed up at work one day working my way towards sun poisoning again and parked my truck. Sat there for a minute, put it in reverse and left and called the office guy and said sorry man I'm not coming back. [3] I honestly loved everything at Lowes but the pay and the random hours. There was a guy that had a full time job, he only wanted to close. I didn't mind opening and would have been fine with opening and throwing the truck for the departments (hardware, always had to help tools because old guys). So what did they do? "Hey Larry we need you to open, Ryan you're closing"... blinks [4] Got paid a fraction of what the federal employees did, took over the desk of a woman who had retired and apparently had stopped doing anything more than a year before and left a mess, was given zero training on SAP or what I was supposed to be doing and was given a single sheet of paper with some photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy of a photo copy of some screenshots showing me vaguely what to do, the CPA was never in the office if it was nice out as he'd clock in and go play golf, the manager would come in and turn her light on, close the blinds on her window and either leave or just not answer her phone/door, guy across from my cubicle would come over to talk and sit in my extra chair and fall asleep every single day but he did manage to help me sorta figure out what I was supposed to be doing, DHS and other federal and state agencies were in the news for mismanaging funds and doing stuff like buying 2k$ bullet proof vests for dogs in Podunk, Middleamerica population 19 so put in a 30 day notice figuring I'd find a job quick. [5] 13 weeks after my last week at CBP got hired by FTN, been here for 13 3/4 years. Same position I hired in to, although now on my 3rd job title as they change it every few years company-wide. Don't have a degree, only a GED, FedEx wants 4-year degrees minimum for everything. Been here twice as long as all 3 of my team leads, yes I have three team leads. The 3 people on my team immediately higher than me have been here 1/5-1/3 as long as me. 3rd shift makes 15% more than us so new hires start almost at what I make. If you want to move up you need a degree and if you want to be a manager (4 steps above me) you have to be willing to move to another state for (likely) years like my current manager (my 4th manager to date) had to. We share desks with another shift, I had one former desk mate management had to throw the entire contents of their drawer away and some of my stuff because they wore the same shirt every single day at work and kept it in their drawer between shifts, for years, and it smelled horrible because they'd go out and walk in the heat and humidity on their lunch and sweat it up. I had another desk mate that would pick and stick boogers on the monitor frame, the tower, underneath the desk, the stapler (we also have the walls covered by the urinals, and in the stalls, in both men's bathrooms from pick and stickers). Every year at best I can manage about 3% merit increase, I don't think I've ever actually got 3%. They just nuked our pensions to up 401k match, I already can't afford to contribute enough to get the match they had before let alone the new match. Insurance usually goes up more than my merit increase, 2019 I made 2k$ and change less than 2018 thanks to zero over time available. They said they were going to bring a bunch more jobs here so more room for advancement, instead they opened 2 satellite offices in other states. There are now people in those office that have been here 6-12 months that are now higher than me because they had to quick promote them. Realistically I will have to work here until I die as this job doesn't translate to anything else and I'm about to turn 35 without a degree. If I tried to get a degree I'd be 42ish probably and probably fail a few classes before I got used to school after being absent from it for half of my life. I'd then be 42ish going for entry level work with 40-60k$ in debt. I'd probably pay it off by 55ish, meaning I'd have 5-15 years to try and make up on 30-40 years of missed retirement contributions. If I don't die before then, cancer killed my father in his 40's and his mother in her 50's, my mother had cancer in her late 50's. Hate my job, completely dead end yet know I'm stuck here dealing with more and more absurdity until I die. Fun times.

circlefavshape 7y ago
FWIW I've worked with quite a few software developers who have no degree. All of them have good jobs, some very good You are not trapped, you're in a rut. I'm 48, and 35 seems young enough to do pretty much anything
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  I'm not a software developer and I haven't touched code, aside from pasting some ad script into my website, since trying to copy paste sections of C++ on MUDs in the 1990's. That's not entirely true, I have been trying to learn Atari BASIC (vintage computer fan, 8-bit Ataris are my interest) but it's slow going. It's more like feeling stupid and growling at my PVM. I do not think like a machine. I'd have better luck writing a sonnet from a can of alphabet spaghetti than I would writing a meaningful bit of code. People tend to forget HN is more than programmers.
  - gtaylor 7y ago
    For what it's worth, I'm over ten years into a career in software and have never stopped feeling stupid.
iamthepieman 7y ago
Thanks For sharing Ryan. There's a reason I did eventually go to college, get the degree and enter tech. Doesn't change the fact that I've never loved any job, company or role as much as I loved making furniture and helping people get fit. Sounds like I'm just a bit older than you. minimum wage was 5.25 when I first started part time at the furniture shop. I was making $12 an hour by the time I quit (this was 18 years ago). I do know blue collared workers who are quite happy and make decent money. My brother I mentioned in another comment being one of them, another brother who drives for Sysco is unioned and has a good career path (admittedly based on seniority) and makes good money. Edit: I actually DON'T have a degree. I went to college, got a lot of credits but missed a requirement in a non-degree related class (I forget but it was something like not taking enough history or something). I already had a job offer lined up so it didn't matter and after that first job, no one has ever cared.