[toomanybeersies]

They are more likely to spend 6 months shovelling coal into a fire and sweeping the floor at a blacksmiths.

Blacksmiths don't make horseshoes either, that's a farrier's job (who still buy them off the shelf and finish them by hand). Being a farrier is also not an easy job, take a 3 or 4 apprenticeship to become one. There seems to be this viewpoint I see a lot on Hacker News that blue collar jobs are unskilled jobs. Most skilled trades require a 3 or 4 year apprenticeship, you can't just learn how to be a fitter and turner, or a carpenter, or a blacksmith/farrier in a couple of weekends. It's this kind of arrogant attitude that causes the tradies to have no respect for the book-learned engineers straight out of university that think because they have a degree they know how to build a road.