[vilts]

My route has been opposite, from white to blue collar. I was software developer and sysadmin for 16 years, straight out of school. For past 3 years I've been full time hand engraver and CNC machinist at my own company. I get to do very cool actual physical objects, starting from design with customer all the way to the finished product. Not a single regret so far, even though the office job was cozy and paid very well.

[helij]

You are not a blue collar worker. You are a business owner. Being a business owner sometimes entails working blue collar like work but it doesn't mean you are a blue collar worker.

[opportune]

This is something I see a lot. When people say "my plumber makes $200k/year" what they mean is the guy who owns a plumbing business they use makes that much money. Very few blue collar workers that aren't also small business owners make over $100k/year and it can be pretty hard to get the gigs that do (usually require having many years of experience and being in the union in a particular area like NYC, or having a very rare specialty). The only "easy" way to break $100k/year as a blue collar worker is to work lots of overtime, which isn't exactly an apples-to-apples comparison with white collar jobs

[imtringued]

No wonder all the blue collar work is boring. You're automatically excluding everything that is interesting...