this actually brings to mind something else:
I think the idea of a career is dead for a lot of the 40 and under set. The idea that you'll have the same job for decades is just nonsense so any job that feels too specific also feels like a it'll bite you in the ass in 5 years.
I'm more talking about situations where it's not mostly for the money but rather continuing the things people have enjoyed doing professionally without doing it full-time and without most of the downsides.
We're probably just nit-picking over definitions but a career, in my opinion, is not "having the same job for decades." A career is a decision to specialize in a particular craft, trade or profession. The opposite of a career is someone who takes odd jobs. Hospitality one day, transportation the next, might dabble in manufacturing. These jobs pay the bills, and there's nothing wrong with "just" doing that, but they are disconnected jobs; not a career.
I consider myself to have a career in software engineering but I have had multiple "jobs" over the decades that have contributed to that career. The career is the knowledge, the experience, the speciality, the reputation, the time spent focusing... all accumulated over my time developing that career. A career could be made by having a single job lasting from graduation until retirement, or it could be a handful of jobs that put to practice and develop the same skillset and knowledge.
No, that's fair. Like "carpenter" and "programmer" are both very broad professions of course. I think there's something about the way various industries get hit by down turns more or less visibly (like when construction goes down it feels like it's everybody, and so every framer, every concrete layer) that creates an (often false to be sure) sense of narrowness.
But also Plumber, Electrician, Carpenter, etc. are very broad trades and even though articles get written using those words because everyone knows what they do, the articles are often really talking about the lack of elevator technicians, crane operators, industrial HVAC, PLC programmers, train conductors, air traffic controllers those more niche trades. A lot of machine operators end up so niche that their current company is the only one in a state that could employ them. My sister makes M&Ms, other than company policies about like sanitation she'd be no better than a new hire on the Twix line.
Blame Reagan. Seriously. I am not joking. Blame Reagan. These need to be union jobs. These used to be union jobs.
For a more nuanced history read https://wwnorton.com/books/Invisible-Hands/
^ That was how I was imagining it. Am I wrong in thinking this way? Or is the argument that the urge to specialize is independent of wage?
Let's look at ATC as an example:
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/a...
> Their work can be stressful because maximum concentration is required at all times. Night, weekend, and rotating shifts are common.
Well, maybe there could be better agreements than rotating shifts on a very stressful job, don't you think so?
Generally, the more specialized labor is, the higher wage and benefits they can demand in a capitalist labor market. Supply and demand. For less skilled labor like general electricians I can understand the role of the union in negotiating for wages, benefits, and safety standards. For highly skilled labor like an HVAC tech, I don't see it.
Back in the day you could live a comfortable life off of your 40-odd year job, nowadays the advice given is to change jobs every few years because the increase in wage will outweigh any raises at your current job. Cost of living is going up faster than annual wage increases. Minimum wage in the US hasn't been updated since the 2000's, and if you do get paid minimum wage, it's your employer saying "I'd pay you less if I was allowed to". But a lot of wages will be based on minimum wage, so if that stagnates, so will other wages.
ON THEIR BREAKS.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/False-E...
Those meat slicers give me the heebie jeebies.
Sorry about your thumb.
Still better than my grandfather who lost all the fingers on one hand to a hay bale elevator chain. It was after dark so while his wife drove him to the hospital the kids had to go look for them.
And then NPR writes insipid think pieces wondering why nobody wants to work in the trades anymore. If only we could put a finger on it…
(Edited for spelling)
I think it's different for "unskilled" labor, such as working in a warehouse, but it's not like being a plumber or an electrician is that hard on your body.
I mean part of that can be blamed on themselves - a lot of people seem to pressure themselves to stay busy, to work 14 hour days, to do all the things, keep up with all the things, have a day job and a side gig and passive income and contribute to open source while reading X books per week and doing meditation to try and compensate for not taking downtime.
But others can be blamed on the industry / environment; think excessive meetings so that the non-developers feel useful, forced social events, or piling on more and more responsibilities onto people (just think of how many languages, environments, frameworks, applications, etc you're expected to know at your current day job.). Under the cool names of "full-stack developer" or "DevSecOps teams".
Football players ruin their bodies through accumulated injuries, not wearing their bodies out.
Do athletes wear their bodies out? I've never heard of that. How does doing plumbing/electricioning wear your body out?
Edit: Downvote me all you like. I've done yoga, I've done plumbing, I've done electrical. Yoga takes the cake by a mile for most painful contorting.
And yet I know an 86 yo woman who has been doing yoga 3 time a week forever and is fit and sharp.
When you're doing an electrical job, you might have to put your body in strange contortions that don't follow any harm reducing "correct" forms.
There's your speculation and incredulity, and then there's all the people I've talked to who do it. They disagree with you.
I found out when waterskiing that you don't get strong waterskiing, you get injured. You have to spend a lot of time in the gym so you don't get injured waterskiing.
Back when I was younger in Seattle, lumberjacking was still a thing. They told me that the limiting thing was injury. They'd work into their sixties. There aren't many jobs harder than lumberjacking. I wouldn't mess with any of them, either, they are freakin' strong and I'm sure they could cleave me from head to toe with a casual swing of the axe.
I'm not in the least surprised that people working in trades mess up their backs, nor do I doubt that they do. But injuring one's back is not the same as wearing it out.
>Do athletes wear their bodies out? I've never heard of that.
Isn't "[ruining] their bodies through accumulated injuries" the same thing as wearing their body out?
Not taking precautions, for instance, when driving over potholes can wear certain facets of the car down without doing significant immediate damage, the same way that taking certain falls or hits can wear a body down. You don't need a crash.
Edit:typo
Via cumulative tissue, bone, and sensory damage. Also known as workin' hard.
On the car side, every time you bend a piece of metal it gets weaker. It cannot repair itself. It cannot get stronger from use.
No, I'm not lifting 400 lbs. Weightlifters lift insane weights, does that compares to what physical laborers lift?
I'm a cyclist and a lot of other cyclists are ex-runners whose joints are shot from running. They prefer to cycle because it's easier on the joints but it offers the same headspace as a long run. I also do some climbing and frequently hurt my joints (shoulder and elbow are frequent ones, wrist from time-to-time.) I have lots of friends who also climb who have had to take short or even long breaks from climbing due to the effects on their joints. Lifting on a jobsite is more dynamic than weightlifting and closer to climbing.
It's not about actually wearing out your joints (which can probably take crazy amounts of load and stress over years if you use correct form and rest appropriately), it's more accumulated injury from incentives to use bad form.
I've been running for 40 years. I suffered from knee and hip pain from it, until I read about the biomechanics of running. I ran doing the "heel strike", where the heel hits first. I could feel the shock in my knee and my hip with every stride.
I decided to switch to "ball strike" where I landed ball of the foot first and then rolled onto the foot. I did not feel the shock in my knee or hip after that. A couple weeks later, the joint pain began to subside, and for the last decade has not bothered me.
It takes a while to switch to ball strike, now it feels perfectly natural. Try this experiment. Run with your shoes on, and note your heel strike. Take your shoes off and run again - you'll run on the balls of your feet. This was the epiphany for me.
Running also builds up your heart, lungs and muscles quickly, but the tendons and joints and bones need years to adapt. A lot of people get into trouble by feeling strong and overdoing it. Ya gotta hold back and give it years.
I agree that if you're still having trouble with running, biking is a great alternative.
With your back, take the time to do proper back strengthening exercises. They greatly helped reduce the rate and severity of my repeated back injuries. I strongly recommend talking to a doctor to get a regimen of these exercises. They paid off for me big time. More that once I thought oh crap, I hurt my back again. But nope! Woo-hoo!
I'm not at all suggesting that tradesmen don't get injured on the job and the accumulation of such can be crippling.
Any good resources on this? Getting into running in my early 30s. Already switched to zero-drop, I think I'm ball-striking.
But most of us are way less than that, more like 10 hours a week. And if you are careful your body rebuilds stronger each time.
My knees are not shot from running. In fact I’d wager they are in better health than a desk potatoe that never exercises.
Irrespective of job or sports people can randomly develop degenerative diseases as they age that can be exacerbated by work.
Compare to someone that lifts for 1 hour 3x a week. He will have stronger bones and joints than either a desk potatoe (no stress = no buildup) or the tradesmen (too much stress without rest = failure)
Respectfully, pedantically limiting the phrase "wearing out" to some subset of conditions that conveniently excludes accumulated injuries, the deterioration of cartilage, and other load/repetition-induced joint debilitation adds nothing to this conversation.
Climbing ladders. The knees go.
Electrictions can work over their head with screw drivers for weeks at an end. There are plenty of bad working positions for their body.
But I did figure the electricians knew what they were doing, so I watched them. I bought the same tools they used, and went to work.
Not to mention major injuries are still a big risk factor. Broken fingers, destroyed shoulder joints, missing fingernails, deep burns, scarred cuts, etc. Often never seen by a doc too and never healing properly.
massibe ignorance of basics of life, and anything outside their bible
An intelligent man lacking empathy and the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes.
And like lots of people have damaged their knees running. It isn't obscure.
Joe Thomas, one of the greatest left tackles of all time, retired because he was going to need a new knee. His back also had a lot of issues. Losing a bunch of weight has allowed him to put off some of the surgeries, but he said his knee was bone on bone by the end.
Get a hobby that isn’t focused on making money. HN isn’t the real world.
But there is a finite end to the career - when your body gives out.
That's the biggest problem with the trades, you're selling your health and body. And eventually the body parts will wear out, on a schedule decided as much by genetics as how you live.