4 ms·

There's not much I dislike more than well off white collar workers telling kids to skip school and go into the trades. Don't buy it. If at all possible get a de

by kcb 1y ago

There's not much I dislike more than well off white collar workers telling kids to skip school and go into the trades. Don't buy it. If at all possible get a degree, sit at a desk, and earn a living wage. This is your first priority.

booleandilemma 1y ago
Yep. My boss bitches about her work all the time. What does she complain about specifically? Having to respond to people on slack. Office workers don't know how easy they have it.
- hamandcheese 1y ago
  Having done both. Sometimes physical work is easier. Sometimes.
crystal_revenge 1y ago
Seriously. Choosing the skilled trade path makes a lot of sense right now if the default option for you is unskilled work, but the job market isn't so tough that one should abandon the option to get paid much more in a much more comfortable field of work. Related is a certain actor, clearly following his passions, preaching the same nonsense: "give up on your dreams! go into skilled trade and wreck your body for okay pay!" Part of the "follow your dreams" advice that a lot of people seemed to miss is that "following your dreams" doesn't mean "major in that subject and try to not get Cs", it means obsess over that thing and work so hard at it you're always in the top 1% or higher for that craft. The reason you should chase your dreams is they're the only thing you can reasonably hope to obsess over enough for long enough to have a competitive advantage. While not all of them are "rich", everyone I know who sincerely followed their passion to the point that other people thought they were a bit crazy are all able to survive, often pretty well, doing something they love.
colechristensen 1y ago
I have also known young people working in the trades who were all about encouraging others to go into the trades and how much better it was. They all did objectively well for themselves. It is a different life choice that suits people differently. Neither path is necessarily the correct one for everybody, but the proportion of people going for degrees instead of other paths is too high.
megamix 1y ago
You assume desk jobs still exist in 10 years?
- guappa 1y ago
  They will. The AI fad however…
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    Come on, anyone with half a brain cell can see that AI isn't going anywhere. Sure the excitement might die down but we're not going back to pre-AI. This is like those people that thought smartphones were a fad.
    - guappa 1y ago
      Anyone with ⅑ of a brain has already realised AI isn't going to replace anyone other than people who have the word "AI" under their name on linkedin or ycombinator.
      - IshKebab 1y ago
        AI has already replaced people. Just not very many... yet. I found this in a few seconds of searching: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-replacing-artists-heres-proof-103728053.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-replacing-artists-heres-p... Anyway that's off topic. It doesn't need to completely replace people to not be a fad.
        guappa 1y ago
        And yet it's immediately evident to anyone when a website is using AI "art" and it looks completely pointless.
        IshKebab 1y ago
        That's a little like how people still don't like CGI in films though...
gadders 1y ago
I'd be interested to see what they are telling their own children.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  I'm telling mine: 1) try to get a college degree regardless of whether you use it or not (I'm paying for it, BTW) but 2) don't become a programmer like I did though unless you really, really enjoy it. They (three daughters) have no problem with 2), some struggle though even with 1). My secretary, single mom pushed my sister to go to college so we would be happier than she was raising two kids and working at more or less minimum wage. (It turned out my degree, Education, didn't figure into my ultimate career as a programmer at Apple but it did allow me to buy a Mac Plus while in college with a student loan and at half the non-educational price — so I tought myself to program, wrote some games. It also introduced me to peers that were unhappy with the otherwise-prospect of playing D&D and working at Walmart for their foreseeable future.) I guess my point is that when "messaging" our kids, we are reacting of course to what we disliked about the path we took as well as what we liked. They'll do what they want, live their own lives ... regardless of what I tell them though. I accepted that a long time ago.
  - gadders 1y ago
    I don't mind too much what people tell their children - what concerns me is when people tell their own children one thing but give different generalised advice.
- xrhobo 1y ago
  Ideally, if I had a high school age kid right now I would want them to get a 4 year degree but leave college with zero debt and then also learn to be an electrician. For some, college is an obvious choice. For some, a trade is an obvious choice. For some in the middle, hedging both is probably the best choice.
  - gadders 1y ago
    We have a relatively new option in the UK which are "Degree Apprenticeships" [1] "A degree apprenticeship enables you to gain a full undergraduate or master’s degree while you work. Degree apprenticeships take three to six years to complete, depending on the course level. You’ll spend most of your time working and you’ll also study part-time at university. For example, you might go to university one or two days per week, or in short blocks, such as a week at a time. Overall, you spend about 20% of your time studying vs. 80% of your time working." [1] https://www.ucas.com/apprenticeships/degree-apprenticeships https://www.ucas.com/apprenticeships/degree-apprenticeships
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Telling everyone to "just learn to code" is worse I think. Especially since I'm not reading about well off white collar workers telling kids to skip school and go into the trades. (Except maybe on HN?) I realized a long time ago that there are a lot of people that absolutely will not function if they cannot do a job with their hands where they can feel like they did something at the end of each day. (In fact I might almost be one of those people.) Keeping some manufacturing as well as good (union?) trade jobs is a smart move for a country/society.
- bell-cot 1y ago
  > is worse I think. Yep. And on top of the "will not function if they cannot do a job with their hands" issue, the great majority of people are really not potential good coders. Plus, at any scale, an "everyone codes" society very obviously fails the "where does their food come from ?" test.
lan321 1y ago
Grass is always greener and all that, but at least in high tax Europe and in poorer countries trades can be very well paid. A whole lot of money can be earned under the table and it lets you work everywhere and under diverse conditions. Lots of people do short term work for a couple months, than vacation at home for a couple months, etc.. This is much more difficult to do in IT. On my last flight back home I was talking to a guy doing roofing for some data centers in the Netherlands working for some dude from Sri Lanka. We calculated his theoretical salary and he could be making 80k+ euros cash a year assuming he worked normal yearly hours. He was working for a month or two, then chilling for 2-3 months, rinse and repeat. Sure, he's breaking his body, sure his retirement will be nonexistent since he's not paying taxes but he's literally on vacation more than half of the time and has been earning money since he became an adult without the broke student step. I also have very close relatives with construction businesses and they're dying for skilled workers. It's very well paid if "you're not in construction because you can't do anything else" and they'd hire you for any period of time. Once approved you essentially call your boss the day before you want to work and he tells you where to go and what to do. You can work 7 days a week, you can work every second Saturday to get some movement in...
HEmanZ 1y ago
Like all advice, it only applies to some people. Working as a front line trades-person is rough, but becoming a journeyman or master as one step towards a profession (“I’m an hvac technician” vs “I’m in the hvac business”) seems to be a very good career path based on my social circle’s experience. Another thing I’ve seen in my circle: if you’re going to go to a bottom 25th percentile college, flunk every class for your first two years and be miserable, then you’re much better off not going to college and pursuing a different path, like trades or military. For these people, “go into the trades” is really good advice. If you’re going to a top university, love classes, and will graduate in the top of your class with a marketable degree and college experience, then you should go to college because you’re much more likely to live a comfortable life than the trades. I had a lot of friends from high school who would have been so much better off if they had went into the trades straight after high school instead of trying and failing for years in college, only to get a 1.8 gpa in Communications or Psychology that is totally worthless. People need to know other crafts are a viable and dignified option, and a much better option than failing out of no name university.

by kcb 1y ago

booleandilemma 1y ago

Yep. My boss bitches about her work all the time. What does she complain about specifically? Having to respond to people on slack. Office workers don't know how easy they have it.

hamandcheese 1y ago
Having done both. Sometimes physical work is easier. Sometimes.

crystal_revenge 1y ago

Seriously. Choosing the skilled trade path makes a lot of sense right now if the default option for you is unskilled work, but the job market isn't so tough that one should abandon the option to get paid much more in a much more comfortable field of work. Related is a certain actor, clearly following his passions, preaching the same nonsense: "give up on your dreams! go into skilled trade and wreck your body for okay pay!" Part of the "follow your dreams" advice that a lot of people seemed to miss is that "following your dreams" doesn't mean "major in that subject and try to not get Cs", it means obsess over that thing and work so hard at it you're always in the top 1% or higher for that craft. The reason you should chase your dreams is they're the only thing you can reasonably hope to obsess over enough for long enough to have a competitive advantage. While not all of them are "rich", everyone I know who sincerely followed their passion to the point that other people thought they were a bit crazy are all able to survive, often pretty well, doing something they love.

colechristensen 1y ago

I have also known young people working in the trades who were all about encouraging others to go into the trades and how much better it was. They all did objectively well for themselves. It is a different life choice that suits people differently. Neither path is necessarily the correct one for everybody, but the proportion of people going for degrees instead of other paths is too high.

megamix 1y ago

You assume desk jobs still exist in 10 years?

guappa 1y ago
They will. The AI fad however…
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Come on, anyone with half a brain cell can see that AI isn't going anywhere. Sure the excitement might die down but we're not going back to pre-AI. This is like those people that thought smartphones were a fad.
  - guappa 1y ago
    Anyone with ⅑ of a brain has already realised AI isn't going to replace anyone other than people who have the word "AI" under their name on linkedin or ycombinator.
    - IshKebab 1y ago
      AI has already replaced people. Just not very many... yet. I found this in a few seconds of searching: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-replacing-artists-heres-proof-103728053.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-replacing-artists-heres-p... Anyway that's off topic. It doesn't need to completely replace people to not be a fad.
      - guappa 1y ago
        And yet it's immediately evident to anyone when a website is using AI "art" and it looks completely pointless.
        IshKebab 1y ago
        That's a little like how people still don't like CGI in films though...

gadders 1y ago

I'd be interested to see what they are telling their own children.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
I'm telling mine: 1) try to get a college degree regardless of whether you use it or not (I'm paying for it, BTW) but 2) don't become a programmer like I did though unless you really, really enjoy it. They (three daughters) have no problem with 2), some struggle though even with 1). My secretary, single mom pushed my sister to go to college so we would be happier than she was raising two kids and working at more or less minimum wage. (It turned out my degree, Education, didn't figure into my ultimate career as a programmer at Apple but it did allow me to buy a Mac Plus while in college with a student loan and at half the non-educational price — so I tought myself to program, wrote some games. It also introduced me to peers that were unhappy with the otherwise-prospect of playing D&D and working at Walmart for their foreseeable future.) I guess my point is that when "messaging" our kids, we are reacting of course to what we disliked about the path we took as well as what we liked. They'll do what they want, live their own lives ... regardless of what I tell them though. I accepted that a long time ago.
- gadders 1y ago
  I don't mind too much what people tell their children - what concerns me is when people tell their own children one thing but give different generalised advice.
xrhobo 1y ago
Ideally, if I had a high school age kid right now I would want them to get a 4 year degree but leave college with zero debt and then also learn to be an electrician. For some, college is an obvious choice. For some, a trade is an obvious choice. For some in the middle, hedging both is probably the best choice.
- gadders 1y ago
  We have a relatively new option in the UK which are "Degree Apprenticeships" [1] "A degree apprenticeship enables you to gain a full undergraduate or master’s degree while you work. Degree apprenticeships take three to six years to complete, depending on the course level. You’ll spend most of your time working and you’ll also study part-time at university. For example, you might go to university one or two days per week, or in short blocks, such as a week at a time. Overall, you spend about 20% of your time studying vs. 80% of your time working." [1] https://www.ucas.com/apprenticeships/degree-apprenticeships https://www.ucas.com/apprenticeships/degree-apprenticeships

JKCalhoun 1y ago

Telling everyone to "just learn to code" is worse I think. Especially since I'm not reading about well off white collar workers telling kids to skip school and go into the trades. (Except maybe on HN?) I realized a long time ago that there are a lot of people that absolutely will not function if they cannot do a job with their hands where they can feel like they did something at the end of each day. (In fact I might almost be one of those people.) Keeping some manufacturing as well as good (union?) trade jobs is a smart move for a country/society.

bell-cot 1y ago
> is worse I think. Yep. And on top of the "will not function if they cannot do a job with their hands" issue, the great majority of people are really not potential good coders. Plus, at any scale, an "everyone codes" society very obviously fails the "where does their food come from ?" test.

lan321 1y ago

Grass is always greener and all that, but at least in high tax Europe and in poorer countries trades can be very well paid. A whole lot of money can be earned under the table and it lets you work everywhere and under diverse conditions. Lots of people do short term work for a couple months, than vacation at home for a couple months, etc.. This is much more difficult to do in IT. On my last flight back home I was talking to a guy doing roofing for some data centers in the Netherlands working for some dude from Sri Lanka. We calculated his theoretical salary and he could be making 80k+ euros cash a year assuming he worked normal yearly hours. He was working for a month or two, then chilling for 2-3 months, rinse and repeat. Sure, he's breaking his body, sure his retirement will be nonexistent since he's not paying taxes but he's literally on vacation more than half of the time and has been earning money since he became an adult without the broke student step. I also have very close relatives with construction businesses and they're dying for skilled workers. It's very well paid if "you're not in construction because you can't do anything else" and they'd hire you for any period of time. Once approved you essentially call your boss the day before you want to work and he tells you where to go and what to do. You can work 7 days a week, you can work every second Saturday to get some movement in...

HEmanZ 1y ago

Like all advice, it only applies to some people. Working as a front line trades-person is rough, but becoming a journeyman or master as one step towards a profession (“I’m an hvac technician” vs “I’m in the hvac business”) seems to be a very good career path based on my social circle’s experience. Another thing I’ve seen in my circle: if you’re going to go to a bottom 25th percentile college, flunk every class for your first two years and be miserable, then you’re much better off not going to college and pursuing a different path, like trades or military. For these people, “go into the trades” is really good advice. If you’re going to a top university, love classes, and will graduate in the top of your class with a marketable degree and college experience, then you should go to college because you’re much more likely to live a comfortable life than the trades. I had a lot of friends from high school who would have been so much better off if they had went into the trades straight after high school instead of trying and failing for years in college, only to get a 1.8 gpa in Communications or Psychology that is totally worthless. People need to know other crafts are a viable and dignified option, and a much better option than failing out of no name university.