I'm not disagreeing with Mike Rowe there in the least. His point is very well taken, and people without a yen for the academe or the STEM world should very carefully consider a tradesperson's life. But, it's a far cry from the hard work in college compared to the hard work on a construction site. Construction work is, in a very primal way, harder work[1].

I do not see any rational reason not to engage in skilled tradeswork if one has the desire to. It's not my path, but I respect it.

[1] I am so not getting into an debate over this, having done both.

Wasn't my post, but I believe the point is that the vast majority of people can't physically do some of these jobs.

This is an interesting parallel to the fallacy that many fall into in trying to get really good at sports so that they have a straight path to a lucrative career. Simply put, statistically you are not likely to be able to cut it in that industry.

When you say 'some of these jobs', are you talking about, say, manual labour at oil wells? I have a hard time thinking of any trade that an average person would struggle to thrive in if they were willing to do the work. A few exist, but to use them as a reason to avoid trade work is disingenuous.

In fact, even working as a labourer at an oil well is easy enough that one of my friends who normally works as a graphic designer did it for a few months while traveling in Canada. The hardest part of his experience was that he didn't see his girlfriend very much.

I spent the first 23 years of my life as a weak, desk-dwelling geek. I never thought I could work a trade. I never even thought a trade was worthwhile work. Now I'm an industrial electrician with a great job and a fulfilling life. The work is 'hard', sure. There's a lot of manual labour and the sites we work at (abattoirs, waste water treatment plants, chemical mixing plants etc) are all unpleasant for one reason or another, but the day you get over yourself and get properly stuck into the job you realise that it's actually worthwhile work and it isn't even very hard. Even for somebody who spent the majority of their life training to work at a desk.

Comparing trade work to being an elite athlete is absurd, too. Statistically speaking, there's no reason what so ever that would prevent you from doing well in a trade. Quite the opposite. Most trades just require somebody willing to do the work. They don't require unusually high IQ (although high creativity can be great for problem solving), they don't require unusually high fitness, they just require somebody to do the work. If you want to do well, do lots of work.

It's pretty simple. Most people just aren't willing to do it because they don't think trade work is respectable. Oh, and it's 'hard'.

Just going from the examples given. Welding or any construction in typical Louisiana weather.

And, I am far from against trade work. If anything, I wish I had been more considering of them when I was younger.

Regarding my comparison. I meant simply that it was similar. Most "trade" jobs are things that you can make decent money on, certainly. Interestingly enough, so are most "sport" related jobs. You may not be the star athlete, but a lot of "mediocre" sport jobs pay quite decently. Especially if you are able to fully devote yourself to it. To think just getting your foot in the door is a sure path to that "straight line to a 6 figure salary" is absurd.

Some people feel physical work is easier. Some people feel cognitive work is easier. Strangely enough, the subjective ease of the work has little to do with your actual relative ability at it: I've had really stressful or depressing times working in a programming job or a grad-school environment, but I would certainly say my brain is my strong-suit rather than my muscles. In contrast, if I have physical work to do and can let my mind wander a bit more, I find it very easy, if somewhat boring.

I don't think inability to perform these jobs is the limiting factor. In the past, larger percentages of the population have had hard labor jobs.

Maybe we're all fatter, but if we are talking about 18 year olds getting into a physically demanding job, that should be far less of an issue (less of an issue as it would be for, say, a 35 year old, who has had 17 more years of their body decaying and 17 more years of eating too much).

My guess is that the ages of the people involved in many of these situations is a touch higher than 18. Also, beware considerations of the past. In the past, larger percentages of the population died before hitting 15 years of age.

Yes, most unemployed people are probably much older than 18. However most people making the decision to go to college, or go into various trades, are 18 or younger. That seems to be the age bracket Mike Rowe is primarily talking about.

The specific example was about a large influx of trainees into post Katrina Louisiana. That is the scenario I was mainly talking about.

The general point about kids not necessarily needing to go to college, I 100% agree with. Though, all of the numbers I've ever been shown do paint a picture that statistically you are better off doing so than not.

Wall street jobs are super stressful. Stressful enough that people not properly suited for it might kill themselves.

Programming jobs are mentally taxing. Mentally taxing enough that people not properly suited for it might become depressed, decide that they're a failure, and/or have a very hard time.

Jobs in science require math skills that are hard / expensive to acquire, which one might never master or become good at.

Jobs in law require very expensive educations, passing an extremely hard bar exam, years of work for low pay and long hours, for a job that only might prove to be good paying after the fact.

Becoming a doctor requires expensive education; Surgery require that plus steady hands. Etc., etc.

Jobs and trades have different pros and cons. I agree that yes, trade skills are physically demanding, but having done them before, they aren't that physically demanding. It isn't the same as being on a prison chain gang, and an average work day is less intensive than a couple of hard hours at a gym.

Obviously, this varies from trade to trade, but the I agree with you that the idea that trade skills should not be considerable because they require physical effort is fairly silly, unless the suggestion is that we should all eschew all forms of work, because every job has some sort of down side.

I don't know of any high pay, low skill, low stress, cushy jobs in the world. If someone knows of one that doesn't have some other downside I haven't listed, feel free to let me know. Email address is in my profile.

Actually when you measure stress it turns out that high-flying jobs are not that stressful. It's having no control over your life that causes stress, and being an underpaid peon is the most stressful situation to be in.

Many high-flying jobs are stressful because they're insecure. Think of an untenured professor or a junior associate at a law firm: up or out, and it's a zero-sum competition! Yes, that's very stressful, even if worrying about your job every few months is less stressful than worrying about making rent every month.

That's an interesting stance. I admit that I was speaking generally, but I've had a high-stress job, and left it, because it was insanely stressful. It was exceedingly high paid, and leaving it was indeed a difficult decision, but I definitely felt the stress.

Conversely, I've had a trade skill position, and considered it neither high-stress nor low paid. There are obviously higher paid positions out there, but there are also a bevy of far lower paid positions out there.

I'm curious as to how you discount the stress of high stress positions though. Not necessarily doubting it, but my personal anecdata contradicts it.

I've worked in high paying "high stress" jobs (indeed, my current job probably qualifies). The stress of not knowing whether you're going to be promoted or fired is certainly horrible, but you still get to eat good food and sleep in a nice bed.

I can't find the studies right now, but I was simply quoting results from research from memory. Frankly, I call BS on the typical idea that higher paid jobs are more stressful in general. Sure, you can find examples to suit an argument, and I'm sure many of us have had a high paid job that is stressful, but we've also probably had a high paid job that isn't stressful, or isn't stressful most of the time. Being poor and having no control over your day is far worse, and I say this as someone who has only had brief bouts of financial stress.

Oh, agreed. I'm not trying to imply that all high-paying jobs are stressful... not at all.

I'm just saying that there are indeed jobs that are high-stress, and that typically, the trade-off for that stress is in higher pay. There are certainly high paying jobs that aren't inherently stressful, and I'd wager that most of us, as programmers, enjoy them quite a lot. There are also certainly low paying jobs that are extremely stressful -- state level politics, social workers, etc., are likely to fall within those demographics.

Just as certainly though, there do exist high-stress jobs that also are high pay, and that said high stress is a check mark in the con column against it, just as 'physical labor is hard' is a valid check mark in the con column against trade labor.