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A friend is dropping out of IT to pursue welding - but knows the money just isn’t there. She’s starting a 5:30am 10 hour shift at a manufacturer to be able to m

A friend is dropping out of IT to pursue welding - but knows the money just isn’t there. She’s starting a 5:30am 10 hour shift at a manufacturer to be able to move onto welding and CNC. She’s autistic so can struggle sometimes but is also one of the smartest people I know and does physics puzzles for fun and builds shit all the time. Skilled trade jobs value paying your dues. Its more about that than aptitude it seems to me. Sorry high schoolers, $70k a year is not happening - this kid is privileged as fuck.

dmckeon 1y ago
> paying your dues. Its more about that than aptitude it seems to me. Yes, paying dues, both in the sense of putting in the time to learn the trade well, and very likely for a good paying career in the trade, paying union dues. People have been doing this since the rise of professional guilds in the middle ages. Today's kids can show aptitude, capability, and interest by doing well in shop class. An employer can take that interested teen or tween on at an entry level, add to their skill level, and make a profit on their labor. The worker can protect their labor value through a union, and probably should if only for the side benefits apart from negotiating contract labor rates. Should they just go to college instead? Sure, if they have that interest, and can get out without a student loan debt bigger than some mortgages.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Unions are not magic. I have a friend who did belong to the local sheetmetal workers union and she was... not positive. Moved into a non-union shop and was a lot happier.
  - Aurornis 1y ago
    Similar experience here. Family member went into a union job and discovered that it was great for the old guys at the top who had been there for 3 decades, but it was rather repressive for the new people starting at the bottom. Much easier to pivot into a different job where union seniority wasn’t the defining factor of your entire career.
  - easterncalculus 1y ago
    Sure, but a union is supposed to work better, so if it isn't, by definition it's to some degree corrupted. So it's important to remember that the union itself isn't a bad thing. A union is supposed to provide for workers in the same way that a software company makes software. If either of them don't, there's something fundamentally corrupt about each org, not with the concept.
    - theamk 1y ago
      But people don't interact with concepts, they interact with individual unions.
  - squigz 1y ago
    In what way was she unhappy?
- ambicapter 1y ago
  Also, seniority, which you seem to skip over.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
yieldcrv 1y ago
“Paying dues” is a waste of everyone’s time and the productivity of the market. It means one node of the market was underutilized, purely for ego. One thing I like about being closer to market oriented trades (or directly trading) is that your compensating is immediately based in the utility you provide. Like in financial services if you provide a service is based on the volume and your toll on that volume. But yes if you dint have opportunities, like the knowledge, capital and flexibility to leverage it, then there’s entry level grunt work remaining.
- esseph 1y ago
  It takes time and experience to learn a skill, call it whatever the hell you want.
  - kevinventullo 1y ago
    “Paying one’s dues” has a very different connotation to me than “Learning a skill.” The former suggests a tenure-based system of seniority and pay scales, rather than a meritocratic system based on skill level and actual output.
    - ghaff 1y ago
      To me it just says you'll make less for a period while learning the ropes. I suppose there are situations where you need to be spending the time to empty the trashcans but I don't take it that way.
    - esseph 1y ago
      Skilled trades are physical, not software. They're not simulations. Iterations and experience require actual time. Call it whatever you will, but you're only getting the experience by spending a large amount of time and cycles. Signed, son of a carpenter than did 30+ years and then taught it to underprivileged youth.
- yupitsme123 1y ago
  Even in the industries you're talking about you still have to pay your dues by building a client book, learning the industry, etc. It becomes wasteful when advancement depends less on experience or intelligence and more on seniority or politics.
rsync 1y ago
"Sorry high schoolers, $70k a year is not happening - this kid is privileged as fuck." My oldest son is 17 years old and graduated one semester early from high school. He now works full-time as a welder and heavy equipment mechanic with a base rate of $25/hour and will get many, many hours of overtime this summer. He will easily gross > 70k this year. Granted, this is in the Bay Area (so add some inflation there) and he has certain physical and interpersonal attributes[1] that make him special ... but this is, indeed, happening and my impression is that it would be repeatable for others like him. FWIW, he's very proud of himself and we're very proud of him but ... we're also trying to impress upon him that wages - however high - are not a path to wealth and security. Owning things is[2]. [1] He's a big strong guy, projects as aged 20+ and is very outgoing and charismatic. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- thejazzman 1y ago
  I mean no disrespect but I'm pretty sure when someone throws out a salary figure they are assuming 40 hours per week You're describing someone hustling very hard. Which is great. But a little different?
  - itronitron 1y ago
    True, but let's consider the next age group up from 17, ... graduate students earn less than that, don't get paid overtime, and will have to search for a new job in a few years.
    - mmcwilliams 1y ago
      That may be true but we're talking about an anecdote. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks that people with a high school education, on average, earn about half of what people with masters degrees earn [0]. It's easy to lose the big picture when focusing on an outlier. [0] https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-education.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-educatio...
cycomanic 1y ago
The difference between compensation in different countries is fascinating. In OZ/NZ tradespeople are the highest earners. For Australia I suspect this is explained at least partially by mining (I know people who earned $600+ per hour 10-15 years ago, and that included free flights in and out, free accommodation etc), and NZ needed to follow because of the ease of moving to Oz. Mining doesn't really explain why plumbers and carpenters earn like crazy as well though. The quality of work though is extremely poor if I compare what one would expect in e.g. Germany. I guess that's the advantage of the German apprenticeship system where tradespeople get proper training and not take a couple month course at a tafe and then start their own business.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > (I know people who earned $600+ per hour 10-15 years ago, and that included free flights in and out, free accommodation etc) I remember countless stories like this circulating when I was in high school. Someone who wasn’t going to college was instead going off to do some obscure thing like work on oil rigs or do welding in hazardous locations. The hook was always that they heard a friend of a friend brag about some extreme hourly rate they made one time a few years ago and assumed that’s just what the job always paid. Then they went out and did it, learned that the job was terrible, and discovered that the average pay was a lot less than the all-time highest number that people would quote.
  - victorbjorklund 1y ago
    To be fair that bait and switch happens in software too. Not all devs make 500 000 usd.
- bigfatkitten 1y ago
  > I guess that's the advantage of the German apprenticeship system where tradespeople get proper training and not take a couple month course at a tafe and then start their own business. Plumbers and electricians in Australia both do four year apprenticeships, with some time at TAFE and the rest training on the job. The quality problems you see are generally less about training, and more the result of financially-motivated corner cutting.
heraldgeezer 1y ago
>A friend is dropping out of IT to pursue welding Why? Sounds like IT is a better fit for her?
- gonzo 1y ago
  Do you weld? Good welding requires intense focus/nondistractions, which some people on the spectrum really enjoy.
gonzo 1y ago
I own Netgate (hat tip to the haters who will comment), the company that does pfsense and tsnr. I also own Bump It Offroad in Windsor, CO. We do some CNC (plasma table) as well. I pay welders about $70k/year plus benefits, to start. They’re both college drop-outs, but smart and willing to learn. Though I grew up in the trades, it’s not about “dues” for me, but more work ethic and willingness to learn.
- linsomniac 1y ago
  Very cool. I'm down the road in FtC, and I TRIED to get my daughter to take the Front Range machining program when she was in HS, but it required going an hour away to one of the Denver campuses every day because they didn't have it here. I thought it would be good for her to have as a fallback, and I'd have gotten her a CNC router to learn on. She also really didn't express any interest, if they had a local program I probably could have convinced her to go. It seems like around here it's definitely some interest in some of those skills. I gather the Bugatti guy has some need of them. edit: (I've got a 100 series, so I'll keep an eye on BIO)
  - gonzo 1y ago
    I have a number of concerns with CSU Ft. Collins. I know people who transferred to Billings because FtC was losing accreditation in some majors. (This was years ago.) FRCC only offers machining in Boulder Co. Welding (only mentioned because that’s what this tread is about) is offered in Larimer though. I know of several job opportunities today in the northern part of the Front Range that need toolpath programming. The kid built a CNC router for his HS FRC/FTC club as an Eagle Scout project, then ended up at Mines. p.s. We have 100 series product now.
sivm 1y ago
70k? A more realistic pay is double that if you live anywhere other than the middle of nowhere for electricians, steamfitters, etc.
breadwinner 1y ago
Plumbers make $70k to $200K. https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/as-tech-jobs-melt-the-trades-beckon-this-tacoma-plumber-makes-140k/ https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/as-tech-job...
9cb14c1ec0 1y ago
On the contrary, I know many tradespeople who are making $70k +.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
You don’t even need to be in the trades to make $70k/year. That’s just about $33/hour, you can make that in a fast food restaurant or grocery store these days on the low rung of management or even just a senior IC in services where I live.
tagami 1y ago
You still need welders to build starships... https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?search=weld https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?search=weld
doubleg72 1y ago
I was into machining right out of high school. After layoffs and plant closings I got into IT, now networking. I’d never make the kind of money I do now if I hadn’t of made that career change! I love my job too.
timewizard 1y ago
Our high school did something I'll never forget. They offered trade based two hour "block courses" through the school district. We had Electronics and Circuit Design, IT, Auto Shop and Repair, Welding, Aerospace Engineering, and a whole bunch more that I was never interested in and so don't remember. It was a great program. It was offered in connection with local state and community colleges. You could get credit for some of your high school work if you continued on in the field. The local employers knew about it so they would stop by often to see what students were learning and to suggest new directions for the entire class. Never seen anything like it before or since which was the 1990s. It was a way to start paying your dues before you even left high school. You wouldn't command an awesome salary right out of school but you could easily insert yourself into the trades with almost no down time.
- yardie 1y ago
  My high school had something similar. Also in the 90s. The trade program was eventually disbanded. And the shop classes were converted to computer labs. In a similar vein, the nursing program is still going and very popular. You graduate with a CNA, 6 months to LPN, enough credits to get an AS.N in 1 year. A lot of my friends bought their first home before 25.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
emsign 1y ago
You have to take into account, that you start to earn money from a very young age. And you don't start your career with huge student debt. Skilled workers have a huge head start and it's easy to find need jobs because of the demand. If you're smart and good at your job, you can create a decent life for yourself with skilled labor. Especially because all the smart kids seem to do the "smart" thing and go to college, leaving more demand for good laborers in the skilled labor market.
baron816 1y ago
If WSJ publishes an article about your job offer, don’t believe it’s a common occurrence.

dmckeon 1y ago

> paying your dues. Its more about that than aptitude it seems to me. Yes, paying dues, both in the sense of putting in the time to learn the trade well, and very likely for a good paying career in the trade, paying union dues. People have been doing this since the rise of professional guilds in the middle ages. Today's kids can show aptitude, capability, and interest by doing well in shop class. An employer can take that interested teen or tween on at an entry level, add to their skill level, and make a profit on their labor. The worker can protect their labor value through a union, and probably should if only for the side benefits apart from negotiating contract labor rates. Should they just go to college instead? Sure, if they have that interest, and can get out without a student loan debt bigger than some mortgages.

ghaff 1y ago
Unions are not magic. I have a friend who did belong to the local sheetmetal workers union and she was... not positive. Moved into a non-union shop and was a lot happier.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Similar experience here. Family member went into a union job and discovered that it was great for the old guys at the top who had been there for 3 decades, but it was rather repressive for the new people starting at the bottom. Much easier to pivot into a different job where union seniority wasn’t the defining factor of your entire career.
- easterncalculus 1y ago
  Sure, but a union is supposed to work better, so if it isn't, by definition it's to some degree corrupted. So it's important to remember that the union itself isn't a bad thing. A union is supposed to provide for workers in the same way that a software company makes software. If either of them don't, there's something fundamentally corrupt about each org, not with the concept.
  - theamk 1y ago
    But people don't interact with concepts, they interact with individual unions.
- squigz 1y ago
  In what way was she unhappy?
ambicapter 1y ago
Also, seniority, which you seem to skip over.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

yieldcrv 1y ago

“Paying dues” is a waste of everyone’s time and the productivity of the market. It means one node of the market was underutilized, purely for ego. One thing I like about being closer to market oriented trades (or directly trading) is that your compensating is immediately based in the utility you provide. Like in financial services if you provide a service is based on the volume and your toll on that volume. But yes if you dint have opportunities, like the knowledge, capital and flexibility to leverage it, then there’s entry level grunt work remaining.

esseph 1y ago
It takes time and experience to learn a skill, call it whatever the hell you want.
- kevinventullo 1y ago
  “Paying one’s dues” has a very different connotation to me than “Learning a skill.” The former suggests a tenure-based system of seniority and pay scales, rather than a meritocratic system based on skill level and actual output.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    To me it just says you'll make less for a period while learning the ropes. I suppose there are situations where you need to be spending the time to empty the trashcans but I don't take it that way.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Skilled trades are physical, not software. They're not simulations. Iterations and experience require actual time. Call it whatever you will, but you're only getting the experience by spending a large amount of time and cycles. Signed, son of a carpenter than did 30+ years and then taught it to underprivileged youth.
yupitsme123 1y ago
Even in the industries you're talking about you still have to pay your dues by building a client book, learning the industry, etc. It becomes wasteful when advancement depends less on experience or intelligence and more on seniority or politics.

rsync 1y ago

"Sorry high schoolers, $70k a year is not happening - this kid is privileged as fuck." My oldest son is 17 years old and graduated one semester early from high school. He now works full-time as a welder and heavy equipment mechanic with a base rate of $25/hour and will get many, many hours of overtime this summer. He will easily gross > 70k this year. Granted, this is in the Bay Area (so add some inflation there) and he has certain physical and interpersonal attributes[1] that make him special ... but this is, indeed, happening and my impression is that it would be repeatable for others like him. FWIW, he's very proud of himself and we're very proud of him but ... we're also trying to impress upon him that wages - however high - are not a path to wealth and security. Owning things is[2]. [1] He's a big strong guy, projects as aged 20+ and is very outgoing and charismatic. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
thejazzman 1y ago
I mean no disrespect but I'm pretty sure when someone throws out a salary figure they are assuming 40 hours per week You're describing someone hustling very hard. Which is great. But a little different?
- itronitron 1y ago
  True, but let's consider the next age group up from 17, ... graduate students earn less than that, don't get paid overtime, and will have to search for a new job in a few years.
  - mmcwilliams 1y ago
    That may be true but we're talking about an anecdote. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks that people with a high school education, on average, earn about half of what people with masters degrees earn [0]. It's easy to lose the big picture when focusing on an outlier. [0] https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-education.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-educatio...

cycomanic 1y ago

The difference between compensation in different countries is fascinating. In OZ/NZ tradespeople are the highest earners. For Australia I suspect this is explained at least partially by mining (I know people who earned $600+ per hour 10-15 years ago, and that included free flights in and out, free accommodation etc), and NZ needed to follow because of the ease of moving to Oz. Mining doesn't really explain why plumbers and carpenters earn like crazy as well though. The quality of work though is extremely poor if I compare what one would expect in e.g. Germany. I guess that's the advantage of the German apprenticeship system where tradespeople get proper training and not take a couple month course at a tafe and then start their own business.

Aurornis 1y ago
> (I know people who earned $600+ per hour 10-15 years ago, and that included free flights in and out, free accommodation etc) I remember countless stories like this circulating when I was in high school. Someone who wasn’t going to college was instead going off to do some obscure thing like work on oil rigs or do welding in hazardous locations. The hook was always that they heard a friend of a friend brag about some extreme hourly rate they made one time a few years ago and assumed that’s just what the job always paid. Then they went out and did it, learned that the job was terrible, and discovered that the average pay was a lot less than the all-time highest number that people would quote.
- victorbjorklund 1y ago
  To be fair that bait and switch happens in software too. Not all devs make 500 000 usd.
bigfatkitten 1y ago
> I guess that's the advantage of the German apprenticeship system where tradespeople get proper training and not take a couple month course at a tafe and then start their own business. Plumbers and electricians in Australia both do four year apprenticeships, with some time at TAFE and the rest training on the job. The quality problems you see are generally less about training, and more the result of financially-motivated corner cutting.

heraldgeezer 1y ago

>A friend is dropping out of IT to pursue welding Why? Sounds like IT is a better fit for her?

gonzo 1y ago
Do you weld? Good welding requires intense focus/nondistractions, which some people on the spectrum really enjoy.

gonzo 1y ago

I own Netgate (hat tip to the haters who will comment), the company that does pfsense and tsnr. I also own Bump It Offroad in Windsor, CO. We do some CNC (plasma table) as well. I pay welders about $70k/year plus benefits, to start. They’re both college drop-outs, but smart and willing to learn. Though I grew up in the trades, it’s not about “dues” for me, but more work ethic and willingness to learn.

linsomniac 1y ago
Very cool. I'm down the road in FtC, and I TRIED to get my daughter to take the Front Range machining program when she was in HS, but it required going an hour away to one of the Denver campuses every day because they didn't have it here. I thought it would be good for her to have as a fallback, and I'd have gotten her a CNC router to learn on. She also really didn't express any interest, if they had a local program I probably could have convinced her to go. It seems like around here it's definitely some interest in some of those skills. I gather the Bugatti guy has some need of them. edit: (I've got a 100 series, so I'll keep an eye on BIO)
- gonzo 1y ago
  I have a number of concerns with CSU Ft. Collins. I know people who transferred to Billings because FtC was losing accreditation in some majors. (This was years ago.) FRCC only offers machining in Boulder Co. Welding (only mentioned because that’s what this tread is about) is offered in Larimer though. I know of several job opportunities today in the northern part of the Front Range that need toolpath programming. The kid built a CNC router for his HS FRC/FTC club as an Eagle Scout project, then ended up at Mines. p.s. We have 100 series product now.

sivm 1y ago

70k? A more realistic pay is double that if you live anywhere other than the middle of nowhere for electricians, steamfitters, etc.

breadwinner 1y ago

Plumbers make $70k to $200K. https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/as-tech-jobs-melt-the-trades-beckon-this-tacoma-plumber-makes-140k/ https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/as-tech-job...

9cb14c1ec0 1y ago

On the contrary, I know many tradespeople who are making $70k +.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

You don’t even need to be in the trades to make $70k/year. That’s just about $33/hour, you can make that in a fast food restaurant or grocery store these days on the low rung of management or even just a senior IC in services where I live.

tagami 1y ago

You still need welders to build starships... https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?search=weld https://www.spacex.com/careers/jobs?search=weld

doubleg72 1y ago

I was into machining right out of high school. After layoffs and plant closings I got into IT, now networking. I’d never make the kind of money I do now if I hadn’t of made that career change! I love my job too.

timewizard 1y ago

Our high school did something I'll never forget. They offered trade based two hour "block courses" through the school district. We had Electronics and Circuit Design, IT, Auto Shop and Repair, Welding, Aerospace Engineering, and a whole bunch more that I was never interested in and so don't remember. It was a great program. It was offered in connection with local state and community colleges. You could get credit for some of your high school work if you continued on in the field. The local employers knew about it so they would stop by often to see what students were learning and to suggest new directions for the entire class. Never seen anything like it before or since which was the 1990s. It was a way to start paying your dues before you even left high school. You wouldn't command an awesome salary right out of school but you could easily insert yourself into the trades with almost no down time.

yardie 1y ago
My high school had something similar. Also in the 90s. The trade program was eventually disbanded. And the shop classes were converted to computer labs. In a similar vein, the nursing program is still going and very popular. You graduate with a CNA, 6 months to LPN, enough credits to get an AS.N in 1 year. A lot of my friends bought their first home before 25.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

emsign 1y ago

You have to take into account, that you start to earn money from a very young age. And you don't start your career with huge student debt. Skilled workers have a huge head start and it's easy to find need jobs because of the demand. If you're smart and good at your job, you can create a decent life for yourself with skilled labor. Especially because all the smart kids seem to do the "smart" thing and go to college, leaving more demand for good laborers in the skilled labor market.

baron816 1y ago

If WSJ publishes an article about your job offer, don’t believe it’s a common occurrence.